Ball of Hair Removed From Ahmedabad Girl’s Stomach; All About Rapunzel Syndrome or Trichophagia – The Hair-Eating Disease
The mental health condition, Trichotillomania is a chronic disease of impulse control where patients repetitively indulge in compulsive, and self-induced hair pulling.
In a rare piece of news that comes from Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, doctors successfully managed to remove about 250 grams of hair from an 11-year old girl's stomach. This rare medical case of hair accumulating inside the stomach due to the uncontrollable urge of eating your own hair had a devastating effect on the child. Known as Trichobezoars, the ball of hair forms inside the stomach due to trichotillomania, chronic hair eating disorder. Eleven-year-old Laxmi Vishnu Thakor is a resident of Sabarmati suffered from severe vomiting and constipation and because of that she was initially receiving treatment from Sabarmati Municipal Hospital and then a private hospital, reported DNA. Her symptoms were not relieved even after having medications for almost ten days when she was taken up for emergency surgery. The medics suspected obstruction in her intestines and finally on 3 June 2019 Dr Rakesh S Joshi, Professor and head of Pediatric Surgery and Dr Jaishri Ramji, Associate professor and Dr Seema Gandhi (Anesthetist) and his team carried out a successful surgery on the child. 770gm Lump of Hair Removed From the Stomach of Mumbai Woman.
What is Rapunzel Syndrome, Trichotillomania and Trichophagia?
Rapunzel syndrome is a medical condition that may have severe consequences when a mass of undigestable fibres or hair in some cases accumulate in the stomach. It doesn't necessarily have to be undigested vegetable fibres etc. sometimes when Rapunzel Syndrome is combined with another psychological condition called trichophagia, wherein the patients ingest their hair compulsively patients have an accumulated ball of hair called a bezoar formed in their stomach. When a bezoar made out of hair it is called trichobezoar. In a review paper called Rapunzel Syndrome: A Comprehensive Review of an Unusual Case of Trichobezoar, they describe Rapunzel Syndrome as an unusual formation of bezoar extending from the stomach to the small intestine or beyond. It is named Rapunzel Syndrome because the ball of hair accumulating in the stomach that continues till the intestine similar to Rapunzel's hair flowing from the balcony. They define Bezoars as "concretions in the gastrointestinal tract that increase in size by continuous accumulation of non-absorbable food or fibres."
What is Rapunzel Syndrome (Watch video):
The mental health condition, Trichotillomania is a chronic disease of impulse control where patients repetitively indulge in compulsive, and self-induced hair pulling. The disorder can occur at any age however it is observed more frequently in adolescents, with a strong predominance in females. Trichotillomania is also often connected with trichophagia which is the is the compulsive eating of hair.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 12, 2019 11:05 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).