Wonder how many people have heard of Rapunzel's syndrome ? People would have heard of the fairy tale of Rapunzel who had very long hair and it was with the help of this hair that her price managed to rescue her from her prison on the top of a tall tower. However, in medicine there is an ailment called Rapunzel Syndrome where girls under the age of 15 are known to swallow hair. This is a condition that requires psychiatric treatment since in many cases, the girls deny that they eat hair. In a case in India, the doctors admitted a girl who had trouble eating, who used to vomit; they found a lump in her cancer that turned out to be a lump made up of 1 Kg of hair (link to article):
VADODARA: 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.
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.
A strange ailment, but it is good that the doctors were able to remove the hair, it will be even better if they are able to prevent the girl from swallowing more hair.
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