Delhi doctors remove 1.16-kg hairball '20-yr-old ate hair'

Eleven years of swallowing her own hair left a 20-year-old woman with a massive 1.16-kg hairball filling her stomach, which doctors at a private hospital here removed after she developed severe abdominal pain and repeated vomiting.

The woman, a student, had been consuming strands of her own hair since she was around nine years old, a behaviour medically known as trichophagia, doctors said.

She was brought to



Manipal Hospital, Dwarka, after suffering severe abdominal pain, nausea and repeated vomiting for three days. She also had a longer history of poor appetite, weight loss and fatigue.

On examination, doctors found a hard lump in her upper abdomen, prompting further investigations. An upper gastrointestinal endoscopy confirmed a large trichobezoar, a compact mass formed from swallowed hair, occupying a substantial portion of the stomach.