A mum was heartbroken when her "perfect" tot was diagnosed with childhood Alzheimer's - after she spotted an identical looking girl on TikTok.
Morgan Rachal, 29, and her husband Kirk, 34, welcomed their second daughter Lydia in October 2022. The parents - who also have Heidi, five, together - were over the moon and initially had no worries about Lydia's health.
Despite frequent ear infections, bouts of constipation and difficulty sleeping, Morgan "was never worried about anything" and thought it was "all common things that babies have". But when her mum, Cindy Weaver, 55, was scrolling through TikTok she spotted a little girl who had looked identical to Lydia, had the same symptoms and had a rare disorder called Sanfilippo.
Children with Sanfilippo syndrome typically have full lips and heavy eyebrows that meet above the nose, or hirsutism, which is excess hair growth. Morgan showed the video to her doctor and following tests Lydia was diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome B.
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The disorder is a rare genetic metabolism disorder known as childhood Alzheimer's as it causes children to lose all the skills they have gained. Lydia, who is currently 20-months-old, isn't showing any signs of cognitive decline but if she doesn't receive treatment that will change.
Morgan, a nurse, from Natchitoches, Louisiana, US hopes to get her on a trial as Sanfilippo currently has no cure. She said: "The doctor said the words 'she's perfect' when she was born. She was hitting all her milestones."
After her mum discovered the TikTok account called the saving Liv Morgan started looking more into the syndrome.
Morgan showed her paediatrician the video and he agreed they did look alike and referred Lydia for tests. Lydia was sent for blood tests and urine tests and a week later they came back positive.
Morgan said: "When I found out I was in a really dark place."
They were then able to determine it was type B - caused by a defect in the NAGLU gene. Morgan is desperate to get Lydia onto a clinical trial as soon as she can in the hopes they can find a treatment.
She said: "They call it childhood dementia. She won't be able to walk, or talk. She won't make it through the third decade of life.
"Her joy right now will be taken away if she doesn't get into treatment."
Morgan is grateful her mum spotted the TikTok - without it they may not have got a diagnosis until much later on when Lydia had already started to regress. She said: "I'm grateful we were able to get the diagnosis early. I wouldn't have known until the brain damage started happening."
Morgan hopes to raise awareness of the symptoms so other children can be diagnosed early and to help research and trials into a cure. She said: "She is a little ray of sunshine. She blows kisses. She is a little bundle of joy. She's a normal baby."
Donate to help Morgan raise money to help fund a clinical trial here.