Vadodara, June 12: When this 13-year-old patient walked in the hospital complaining of abdominal pain and vomiting, doctors thought that she was suffering from some routine stomach disorder. Post-diagnosis, the rare ailment left the doctors stumped. Her reports revealed that the patient had a big lump of hair in her stomach measuring 50 cm.
What left the doctors surprised was that it was an extremely rare condition where the patient with Rapunzel Syndrome’, a disorder where patient gets into the habit of consuming hair. This syndrome is usually observed in girls below 15 years and in such cases the patient has to be operated upon to remove the lump from the stomach. “The patient came to us with pain in upper abdomen, vomiting and was unable to eat anything. We investigated her, got a CT scan and endoscopy done. The diagnosis revealed that the patient had a big ball of hair in the stomach, giving impression of hard lump,” said a paediatrician Samir Brahmbhatt.
Patient Chandan Baria from Limkheda had come to the hospital on Monday and was operated on Thursday morning. “She had to be operated as she had not eaten anything due to the lump and had turned anaemic. She was administered two units of blood and later we removed a lump of hair weighing one kg from her stomach,” Dr I V Shah, who operated upon her, said.
Doctors believe that Baria is suffering from psychiatric problem, wherein she habitually consumed hair. “When we asked her she declined, but such a condition arises when a person is eating hair over a prolonged period of time. She is under strict observation in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and will be hospitalised for a week,” Patel added.
“We will be giving some psychiatric treatment to her in order to ensure that she does not start consuming hair again,” said Brahmbhatt. The doctors said that they would be publishing a paper on the case in medical journals.
—Agencies–