WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES. A huge lump was found inside the stomach of the four-year-old girl, who had been experiencing severe stomach pains and was seen eating her own hair
Doctors have been left stunned after they found a giant ball of hair lodged in the stomach of a four-year-old girl.
The child, who has not been named, was taken to hospital after suffering severe stomach pains for a week. As well as having a growing lump, she had also been vomiting, feeling full up after eating small amounts of food, and had a history of eating her own hair.
The girl was later found to suffer from a condition called Rapunzel syndrome, which occurs when someone develops a habit for eating hair, causing a mass in the stomach. Medics found a 4x4cm (1.57in) firm lump, suggesting the presence of bezoars, masses of undigested material that can become stuck in the stomach.
Her parents had reported she was ingesting hair for a period of two weeks before being taken to hospital, and the hair on her head was considerably thinner. But they said they have no family history of eating disorders, and the eating habits of the mother during pregnancy were “normal”.
The little girl underwent a gastronomy to cut into the stomach, revealing the huge hair ball, which was shared in a recently published medical journal. Doctors at the Institute of Medicine at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal described it as a “stomach-shaped mass” with a “tail”, which was safely removed from her stomach. The child was evaluated for hair-related mental disorders Trichotillomania and Trichophagia, but doctors report she was not brought back for regular psychiatry follow-up appointments.
Meanwhile in the UK, a young girl with Rapunzel Syndrome had to undergo a four-hour operation last year to remove a huge hairball “eating through her stomach”. Sophia Goss began pulling out her hair and chewing on it when she was 18 months old as a “soothing” technique to help her sleep. Mum Megan Sayce, 32, believed she had put a stop to it by massaging olive oil into the youngster’s hair.
But, Sophia, nine, was rushed to hospital by Megan and dad Lewis Goss from Lenwade, Norfolk, after passing out from the pain in her stomach. She spent four hours in surgery and a further 10 days in hospital after surgeons removed a hairball ‘the size of her belly’ that had created a hole in her stomach.
Mum Megan said: “It was scary. The hairball filled her whole stomach and had worn away the lining which meant her stomach contents were leaking into her body. She wasn’t allowed to eat or drink for seven days and was in the high dependency unit for seven of the 10 days she was in hospital. Six weeks before she had the operation, we had taken her to the doctors with stomach pain and they said it was her diet without examining her too much. They didn’t seem to have much awareness of what it could have been.”
