10-pound hairball in woman's stomach

CHICAGO, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Doctors at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago said they have removed a 10-pound hairball from an 18-year-old woman's stomach.

The doctors said Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine that the previously healthy woman had told a team of gastrointestinal specialists that she had been experiencing pain, abdominal swelling, vomiting after eating and weight loss of 40 pounds over the course of five months, CNN reported Thursday.

Drs. Ronald Levy and Srinadh Komanduri said a scope lowered through the woman's esophagus revealed "a large bezoar (hairball) occluding nearly the entire stomach."

"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years -- a condition called trichophagia," the doctors wrote.

"It seemed like she'd been doing this for several years," Levy said in an interview with CNN.

The doctors said the 10-pound hairball measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches when it was removed.

The patient reported one year after the treatment that the pain and vomiting had subsided and she had regained 20 pounds. The doctors wrote the patient also "reports that she has stopped eating her hair."