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A girl got hit in the head and then the doctors discovered the next thing
A 17-year-old girl arrived at the hospital after fainting and suffered a blow to the head.
After doctors examined her they found a rare finding in her abdomen that required prompt surgery
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Thursday, February 18, 2021, 09:50
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What can eating hair do for you?
Woman's head (Photo: ShutterStock)
There are quite a few girls and boys who tend to eat or suck the ends of their hair, but in the next case it is a much rarer and more dangerous phenomenon.
A UK girl who compulsively ate her hair developed a massive hairball in her abdomen that tore a hole through her abdominal wall, according to a report published in early February in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
The oval-shaped hairball was 48 inches long and completely filled her abdomen, but surprisingly this was not the primary reason that brought her to the hospital, and the 17-year-old went to the emergency room after fainting twice and getting hit in the face and head.
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To the full article
Doctors wanted to rule out a head injury, but during an examination they also noticed a mass in the girl's upper abdomen.
She told the shocked doctors that she had been experiencing intermittent abdominal pain for the past five months, which had worsened during the two weeks prior to her visit to the hospital, the report said.
She also had a history of two mental disorders.
The first, trichotillomania, hair pulling and the second, trichophagia, called "Rapunzel Syndrome" and is characterized by compulsive eating of hair.
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These two syndromes are often related.
People with tachyarrhythmia are at increased risk of developing trichophagia.
According to studies, between 20 and 25 percent of people with trichotlomania also have a tendency to swallow hair.
Most cases were described among young people, children and people in their 20s, of whom 70 percent were women.
However, there are also reports of one toddler and a patient being diagnosed at age 55.
"Like a cast on the whole stomach."
The lump of hair removed from the girl's abdomen (Photo: Official Website, BMJ Case Reports 2021)
In the case of the girl a CT scan revealed a "very enlarged abdomen" with a large mass of hair inside, and a rupture in the stomach wall.
According to the authors of the study, from the Queens Medical Center in Nottingham, England, the hair cluster accumulates and eventually causes a blockage of the gastrointestinal tract, as a result of a hairball known as Trichobazoar.
The girl underwent surgery, and doctors removed the hairball that was so large it was like "gypsum of the whole stomach," the writers said.
Eating hair can cause serious complications, including intestinal obstruction and even death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In 2017, a 16-year-old girl in the UK died of Rapunzel Syndrome after a bullet in the abdomen caused a fatal infection.
The girl was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after her surgery, and she received food through a feeding tube that was inserted into the small intestine while her stomach was healed.
After being evaluated by psychiatrists at a hospital, she was released from the hospital seven days after her surgery, the authors wrote.
A month later she had no signs of complications, "made good progress in nutritional counseling" and consulted a psychologist, they said.
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