A pint of hair. This is what surgeons at a Czech hospital removed from the stomach of a little girl suffering from an extremely rare psychological illness. Doctors extracted a ball of hair the size of a pint glass from his body. The 11-year-old suffers from Rapunzel Syndrome, first reported in 1968, with only a few dozen documented cases worldwide to date. It is named after a girl with very long hair from a tale by the Brothers Grimm, which inspired the 2010 Disney cartoon titled Rapunzel.
“The disease is related to what is called trichotillomania and trichophagia, which involves pulling out and swallowing one’s hair,” said Matus Peteja, chief surgeon at Opava hospital in eastern Turkey. Czech Republic. He said that this syndrome mainly affects little girls and women under the age of 20.
Risk of weight loss
The thick cylinder-shaped tuft which was 20 centimeters long and 8 centimeters in diameter was too large to be removed by mouth and doctors had to remove it via laparoscopy.
“If we hadn’t removed it, the girl would have been in pain and would have gradually lost weight. In the extreme case, the stomach wall could have been damaged or even perforated,” Matus Peteja told AFP. He added that the young girl, who is now doing well, would now undergo psychiatric and psychological treatment.