20-year-old with Rapunzel Syndrome gets 750 gram hairball removed from stomach – Symptoms, treatment

New Delhi: People eat all sorts of things – this 20-year-old ate her own hair.

It's true! Doctors in Mumbai removed 750 grams of hair from a woman's stomach. As per reports, she was suffering from a rare condition known as the Rapunzel Syndrome, which has only ever been documented 88 times in medical literature the world over, as of October 2016.

The condition causes the person to pull out their own hair and consume it.

The woman was brought to Rajawadi hospital in Mumbai's Ghatkopar after she complained of nausea and an extremely swollen abdomen, even though she had gone through drastic weight loss in the last few months.

At the time of hospitalisation, she weighed a mere 30 kilos, was pale and had lost all appetite. She was also throwing up whatever she consumed.

According to a report in the Mid Day, The doctors ordered a CT scan and spotted a huge mass entangled in the stomach. Dr Bharat Kamath, assistant professor in the department of surgery at Rajawadi Hospital, who led the surgical team, said, "It had filled her stomach, due to which the patient was unable to eat. Moreover, a tail of hair trailed into her intestine, which is typical in a case of Rapunzel Syndrome," said Dr Bharat.

This "tail" alone was 103 cm long, extending well into the small intestines. The hairball itself was 25 cm long and about 10-12 cm across. This led the doctors to believe that Archana had been eating her hair for years. This compulsive eating of hair is called Trichophagia, which is associated with trichotillomania (hair pulling). Hair protein does not get digested, nor can the body pass it in stool.

What is Rapunzel Syndrome?

It is an extremely rare condition wherein those suffering from it get addicted to ingesting hair, which causes the formation of a bezoar in the stomach. It is named after the long-haired princess from the fairy tale.

It's symptoms include:

• The body of a trichobezoar (hairball) located in the stomach, and its tail (hence the reference to Rapunzel in the syndrome's name) in the small bowel and/or in the right colon
• Small or large bowel obstruction
• Occurring in psychiatric patients
• Trichotillomania

Treatment:

The trichobezoar may have to be surgically removed, since the human gastrointestinal tract is unable to digest human hair.

Patients usually also require psychiatric evaluation and treatment due to the association with impulse control disorders, especially trichotillomania.