SAVE MY GIRL OF COURAGE

LIKE little girls across Scotland, she hopes Santa will bring her a Bratz doll for Christmas.

But most of all, Adana Forsyth and her family are praying for a miracle breakthrough into a rare condition which causes her skin to peel off.

Six-year-old Adana suffers from the agonising "Butterfly Skin" condition and spends all day swathed in bandages which protect her from infection and blistering.

She was born without skin on her hands, feet, knees, elbows and bottom and the fragile coverings which grow soon flake off.

There is no known cure for EB - epidermolysis bullosa - but Adana, from Montrose, Angus, refuses to be beaten by the condition.

And now the courageous schoolgirl has become the face of a new national Christmas TV campaign to raise awareness and research funds. Her agony is laid bare in the 90-second harrowing advert, by skin charity DebRA, which highlights the daily struggle she faces.

It shows Adana screaming and in tears as her mother Dianne, 33, changes the special bandages which cocoon her little body.

The painful process takes up to three hours a day and she takes a cocktail of more than 20 medicines.

Mrs Forsyth said she was close to tears when she first watched the ad, which will be broadcast across Scotland. But she said her daughter was the best person to highlight the plight of "butterfly children" and boost the charity's resources.

She said: "It gives a glimpse of what goes on, but doesn't give you the full horror of what Adana has to live with. I don't think anything could. It is awful that she has to suffer like this every day, but she refuses to feel sorry for herself."

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