An 11-year-old girl was rushed to hospital after she had an agonising tummy ache and couldn’t eat or even drink a glass of water any more.
Doctors decided to carry out immediate surgery but they couldn’t believe what they pulled out.
Inside the girl’s body was a humungous hairball which weighed more than a kilo – the same weight as a whole pineapple or a melon.
The black cluster filled up 17cm of the youngster’s stomach and it continued to stretch 25cm into her bowel.
The shocking ”discovery” was made in the city of Taraz in southern Kazakhstan's Jambyl Region.
It wasn’t long before the girl’s parents got to the bottom of how the huge amount of hair mysteriously appeared in her gut.
They said that she’d often been spotted gnawing on her long dark locks but they didn’t realise that it was bad for her – or that she was swallowing the hair she chewed off.
After the hairball, which scientists call a "trichobezoar", was removed the medics said that the girl would be able to eat and drink again.
The extremely rare condition that the girl was suffering from is known as Rapunzel syndrome which causes severe stomach problems and an be fatal if it’s not caught in time.
The syndrome, in which a hairball is found in the stomach with its tail in the colon, mostly affects young women but there have been less than 120 cases of it reported in medical history.
It’s caused by trichophagia which is when a person is addicted to eating their own hair.
The human body can’t flush hair out of the digestive system so it gets stuck and matted into a big ball.
In less serious cases than this one, sufferers can be given medication to make them vomit.
Source: Daily star
Source: Daily star
I haven't seen any case in my practise as a doctor, but I have seen cases of objects like tooth brush and coins that were swallowed accidentally.
We just have to keep an eye on our children and stop any bad habit they tend to always do and also take them to a doctor for evaluation because trichobezoars could be associated with psychiatric disorders.
Thanks for visiting and please visit again.
We just have to keep an eye on our children and stop any bad habit they tend to always do and also take them to a doctor for evaluation because trichobezoars could be associated with psychiatric disorders.
Thanks for visiting and please visit again.
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