Doctors remove FIVE FOOT hairball from Indian teenager's stomach

Surgeons in India have removed a five-foot long hairball from the stomach of a teenager who was so ill she could barely swallow water.  

Kavita Kumari, 15, had been swallowing hair for the past year. 

Her addiction was so severe that she would not just eat her own hair, but strands she found lying around.

She would even pluck the hair of her classmates at school and eat it, it is claimed. 

The addiction also meant she had lost interest in eating food and would vomit each time she was force-fed, while complaining of severe abdominal pain and weakness.

Worried and mystified when their daughter's stomach began protruding, Kavita's parents took her to several doctors.

Each time, she was sent away with medicines to help the pain and swelling. 

But when her condition deteriorated, her father Bechan Ram, 34, a farmer, brought took her to hospital.

After examining her, doctors at the Siddharth Multi Speciality Hospital and Research Centre in Uttar Pradesh, found a large, firm mass in her abdomen. 

A CT scan further revealed Kavita had five-feet long hairball in her stomach. It also showed a large lesion in her stomach and small bowel.

Doctors discovered she had Rapunzel Syndrome, a rare condition in which a hairball is found in the stomach and mostly affects young women.

Dr Lal Bahadur Sidharth, a gastro and laproscopic surgeon at the hospital, said: 'Kavita had come to us with complaints of extreme pain in the stomach. 

'She was in a very serious condition, malnourished and very weak. She was barely able to stand on her own.'

He added: 'We performed an endoscopy on her which revealed she had hairball inside her stomach.'

The team went on to diagnose Kavita with trichotillomania - the psychological condition in which a person has an urge to pull hair - and warned her parents her condition was so bad she might not survive surgery.

Despite knowing the hairball was there, doctors were astonished to discover during the two hour operation that it was more than five feet long.

'I didn’t expect the hairball to be this big,' said Dr Bahadur Sidharth. 'I had never seen such a case before.'

Kavita is now recovering at the hospital and should soon be able to eat again.

However since Rapunzel Syndrome is a psychological disorder, she will also receive counselling. Dr Lal Bahadur Sidharth, a gastro and laproscopic surgeon

Despite this, the teenager’s mother Phool Devi, 32, is still unable to accept her daughter has the psychological disorder.

She said: 'She was so weak that we had assumed she would not survive another day. 

'We did not know she was in the habit of eating hair. Though I noticed many times that she plucked couple of strands from my hair and even her classmates told me she did the same with them. 

'But I never took it seriously as I thought she was plucking their hair to tease them. I had no idea she was apparently eating hair.'

She added that she had become concerned at her daughter's lack of appetite.

'We noticed she had not been eating properly - and whatever she ate, she would just throw it up. 

'She would also complain of severe abdominal pain and was even unable to digest water. 

'She was getting weaker with each passing day. We had taken her to several local doctors but none could find out the real problem. 

'I am so thankful to the doctors for saving her life.'

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