The work of a surgeon is often full of stories bordering on reality.
One of these happened to surgeons Ronald M. Levy and Srinadh Komanduri of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The two doctors found themselves having to operate on an 18-year-old girl who had been experiencing severe abdominal pain and vomiting after eating, resulting in weight loss.
The reason? Well, the girl’s intestine was obstructed by a mass of almost 5kg of hair (photo).
The girl in fact had the habit of eating her own hair, a medical condition known as trichophagia. Our digestive system, however, is not able to chemically break down hair fibers, which therefore in the long term accumulate in the intestine, obstructing it.
After the operation, the girl stopped feeling pain and started gaining weight again.
