A UK woman who suffered unexplained abdominal pain for months is feeling better after a 14-pound hairball was removed from her stomach.
That’ll do it.
Sophie Cox, 23, said that the giant ball of hair removed from her body had built up over seven years of compulsively eating her tresses.
Seriously.
Six years ago, Cox was first diagnosed with trichotillomania, a condition where sufferers endure a compulsive urge to pull out their hair.
Moreover, she has trichophagia, in which a person feels an urge to eat their own hair. All of a sudden, your health issues aren’t so bad.
Cox said when she was stressed out she found comfort from plucking strands of hair and eating them during the day, according to reports.
She thought it was harmless … until it wasn’t.
When she got pregnant in 2014, Cox suffered serious stomach pains and kept losing weight at a time when she should be gaining it.
That was the first warning sight. Then two months after her daughter was born, the pain was so excruciating, it left her doubled in agony.
“By October 2015, I couldn’t eat without vomiting and my stomach would swell up,” she said. “I’d lost [84 pounds] in two years.”
“I dropped six dress sizes, taking me to a size 12.”
Doctors had no clue what was wrong with her, but tested Cox for gallstones and stomach cancer. She, fortunately, had neither.
Finally, when Cox underwent an endoscopy last November, medical professionals figured out what was cause her discomfort.
This insanely giant hairball:
“When they showed me the scan I was speechless. It looked like something from a horror film,” she said, reflecting on her ordeal.
“The specialist hadn’t seen anything like it in 30 years. It was too big to break down in my stomach, leaving me malnourished and dehydrated.”
Even worse?
Having to wait five months to have it removed, due to various favors, including the scheduling of an elaborate, six-hour operation.
The hairball, or “trichobezoar,” was eventually taken out, and “I felt instantly better when I woke up, even though I was sore and groggy.”
“It was disgusting.”
Yes. Indeed it was.
“I cried with relief that it was gone,” Cox says, admitting that she has a problem and is being monitored to ensure no new hairballs develop.
She is on a list to receive treatment to help determine the underlying causes of the conditions that resulted in this experience.
“I’m just so thankful the hairball was found before it was too late,” she said, and a good thing too, for her sake and her child’s.
“Now I can get on with being a hands-on mum.”
