Surgeons at a hospital in Delhi performed a successful operation on a 20-year-old woman, removing a massive hairball weighing 1.16 kg from her stomach. The patient had been suffering from persistent abdominal complications, prompting medical intervention that led to the unusual discovery.
11 Years of Hair Consumption
The young woman had been compulsively ingesting her own hair for 11 years. Because human hair is non-biodegradable and cannot be digested by the human stomach, it accumulated over more than a decade. The continuous accumulation eventually formed a dense 1.16 kg mass inside her digestive tract, causing severe abdominal distress and requiring surgical extraction.
Understanding Trichophagia
In medical terminology, the condition of compulsively eating hair is known as Trichophagia. Healthcare experts describe it as a psychological disorder often associated with obsessive behaviors or emotional stress, where an individual repeatedly pulls out and swallows hair. If left untreated, the condition can lead to gastrointestinal blockages and severe medical complications.
