A Texas boy was diagnosed at just six months old with such severe eczema that his skin would flake off at even the softest touch – but his mother claims that expensive French spring water cured him.
Aidan Moffett, now 14, also suffers from a wide variety of food allergies, his mother told Metro.
For much of his life, Aidan’s body was too fragile for him to leave home, and when he did, the boy was often deeply upset and troubled by the stares and taunts he got from strangers and classmates.
Eczema’s exact cause still eludes doctors, but the skin condition is most common in babies and young children, and may ‘flare up’ in response to triggers like stress.
It is typically treated with topical creams or, in severe cases like Aidan’s, immunosuppressants.
There is no conclusive evidence that thermal spring water treats eczema, and most research on the topic is funded by spring water companies themselves.
But his mother, April, is convinced that her son didn’t grow out of eczema; he bathed out of it, in $20 thermal spring water.
From the time he was six months old, Aidan Moffett has suffered severe eczema. Despite lacking scientific evidence, his mother, April, claims an expensive spring water cured him
When Aidan was diagnosed with severe eczema at just six months old, a dermatologist prescribed topical creams to the young boy.
Corticosteroid creams can provide quick, calming relief to the itching, stinging and stretching that comes with eczema-sufferers’ dry, delicate skin.
Steroids are prescribed to reduce inflammation. As best we can tell, eczema is probably at least a partially autoimmune issue, so using these hormones to reign in the immune response is a first line treatment for the condition.
That immediate relief was imperative to Aidan, a little boy whose entire face was often brilliant red, scabbing, flaking, weeping or even tearing.
But April was worried that once her son started using the medications – especially at such a young age – he’d never be able to stop.
So she held off on using them while her infant son grew into a toddler, until she could stand the agony of watching his face blotch up, flake away and scab over.
She started applying the creams – ever so gently – but as Aidan grew, his condition only seemed to get worse.
After her initial hesitance, April did try steroid creams to treat Aidan’s eczema (left), still it would come back and turn his entire face red and raw (right)
Bath time was one ‘hell’, April says, but at home, she now splashes out on expensive Avene thermal spring water for her son’s baths, and she believes it keeps him healthy
For years, between Aidan’s tissue-like, raw skin and his multiplying food allergies, he could hardly leave bed and his parents could seldom leave home.
‘He was pretty much bedridden for years. His skin got so bad that he sometimes couldn’t walk and would have a hard time moving any part of his body,’ April told Metro.
‘When he was little my husband and I would have to carefully scoop him up from the couch to take him to another part of the house.
‘If we tried to lift him up like you would any other child, his skin would tear on his torso and he would scream in agony.
The open, moist tissue exposed when the eczema took the topmost layers of Aidan’s skin were vulnerable to infection.
April told Metro his skin often ‘smelled of bacteria,’ making bath time both absolutely crucial and ‘absolute hell.’
At one point, Aidan’s skin got so bad that he had to start taking stronger immunsuppressant drugs, and his mother pulled him out of second grade. It wasn’t until three years later that he could return to school full-time.
At various points, April says he got antibiotic-resistant MRSA, super staph and a super fungal infection.
Then, April claims that Avene Hydrotherapy Center in France ‘invited’ Aidan to its facility.
Aidan still has to take careful care of his skin, which gets less severe flare-ups of eczema now
The center is the property of the skin care company, which touts its ‘thermal spring water’ as having curative properties that go back ‘hundreds’ of years.
Avene’s website does not provide pricing for the ‘clinical’ treatments like Aidan’s mother says he received, but it does say that all treatments at the facility use the company’s thermal spring water products – which start at $30.
French spring water has become a trendy ‘dermatological’ solution in the last several years, winning over customers with a mythos about historical use and the unique curative properties that can only come from between the most special French rocks.
It is true that good hydration and moisturizing are key to eczema relief. It’s also true that chemicals used to treat water like the Moffett family might get from the faucets of their home in McKinney, Texas, could irritate sensitive skin.
But the evidence of the benefits of spring water – from France or any where else – is thin, and research on the subject is mostly funded by spring water skin care companies, like Avene.
Still, his mother claims that since Aidan’s fateful trip to the small French village where he was treated with daily baths and a three-work spring water regimen, he’s a changed boy.
And now, even at home in McKinney, Aidan only bathes in Avene, sticks to the skin ritual he learned at the Hydrotherapy Center.
‘He is actually growing and the food that he is eating is actually nourishing his body. For the first time in his life he was able to participate in sports with his schoolmates,’ and his skin is by and large clear and healthy, April says.
‘We as a family can finally plan vacations without having Aidan’s condition be the first thing that we worry about. He can play outside with his friends whereas before his friends would invite him to go places and he couldn’t go.’