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A teenage girl from the UK who compulsively ate her own hair eventually developed a huge hairball in her stomach that tore a hole in the wall of her stomach, according to a new report.
The oval-shaped hairball was 48 centimeters long and completely filled her stomach, according to the report published in the newspaper Feb. 9. BMJ Case Reports.
The 17-year-old first went to the hospital after she passed out twice, injuring her face and scalp during the falls.
Doctors wanted to rule out a head injury, but during an examination they also noticed a lump in the girl’s upper abdomen. The teenager said she had experienced intermittent abdominal pain over the past five months, which had worsened in the two weeks leading up to her hospital visit, according to the report.
She also had a history of two mental health conditions: trichotillomania or a strong urge to pull her hair out; and associated trichophagia, or compulsive consumption of hair.
A computed tomography (CT) scan revealed a “grossly distended stomach” with a large mass inside, and a tear in the stomach wall, according to the study’s authors, from Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham, England.
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The teenager was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome, in which a hairball in the stomach – known medically as a trichobezoar – spreads into the intestine, Previously reported Live Science.
She underwent surgery and doctors removed the hairball, which was so large it “formed a cast of the whole stomach,” the authors said.
Between 0.5% and 3% of people will experience trichotillomania at some point in their lives, according to the National Organization for Rare Diseases. Only about 10% to 30% of people with trichotillomania also have trichophagia, Previously reported Live Science. And among people with both conditions, only about 1% develop masses of hair in their gastrointestinal tract, according to a 2019 study published in the journal. Pancreas.
Eating hair can lead to serious complications, including obstruction of the intestines and even death, according to the Mayo Clinic. In 2017, a 16-year-old girl in England died of Rapunzel syndrome after a hairball in her stomach caused a fatal infection.
In this case, the teenager was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after her surgery and was given food through a feeding tube inserted into her small intestine while her stomach healed.
After evaluation by hospital psychiatrists, she had “an uneventful postoperative course” and was released from the hospital seven days after her operation, the authors wrote. A month later, she was showing no signs of complications, “was making good progress with diet counseling” and was seeing a psychologist, they said.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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