A five-year old girl from Australia is facing a bizarre medical condition, under which she is menstruating at an age of four. She is suffering from Addison’s disease and will soon experience menopause, going by her condition. The girl named Emily Dover was born as normal as a child can be. She was happy and chirpy just like other baby girls. However, she started growing at an abnormal rate. She was the size of a one-year-old when she was just 4-months-old. At the age of 2, she developed breast buds, body odour and a rash on her skin, which was cystic acne.
What is Addison’s disease?
Addison’s disease is also known as primary adrenal insufficiency and hypocortisolism. It is a long-term endocrine disorder in which the adrenal glands are incapable of producing enough steroid hormones. This disease affects about 0.9 to 1.4 per 10,000 people in the world. It usually occurs in middle-aged women.
Apart from Addison’s disease, Emily was also diagnosed with congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Central Precocious Puberty, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sensory Processing disorder and Anxiety Disorder. To sum up, the 5-year-old’s adrenal glands don’t produce enough steroid hormones to function properly.
Emily’s mother Tam Dover said her baby knows that she knows that she looks different from other children of her age. She told Mirror Online that sadly, the girl doesn’t understand what she is going through.
Emily suffers from constant pain and reduced mobility, which requires her to undergo weekly physiotherapy sessions. At present, she is 5 years old and she has already started menstruating. After beginning with hormone replacement therapy, she will suffer menopause. Unfortunately, the baby girl will face all the side effects that a woman undergoing menopause has to face.
“She hasn’t even had a chance to be a little girl. She’s having to learn how to put panty liners on for menstruating,” Tam tells Mirror Online.
“Each time her growth was measured it was always way above the 99th percentile, and often 99th percentile for a couple of years above her age,” Tam wrote on the GoFundMe page.
