A young woman who had a tummy ache for two years had a hairball the size of a bag of sugar in her stomach.
The 24-year-old also kept being sick from 2022.
She also struggled to eat and drink.
This resulted in a dramatic weight loss.
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She went to the hospital where doctors found the mass of hair.
It measured at least 16 inches (40 cm) across and weighed 2 lb (1 kg).
That is the same weight as a standard pack of sugar.
It was diagnosed as a bezoar – the medical term for a mass – following a video endoscopy and was so large it reached as far as her small intestine.
General surgeon Pedro Lovato led the six-person team that performed the procedure to remove it.
He said: “It was a mass that filled the entire gastric cavity and could even be felt from the outside.”
The successful operation was carried out at the Verdi Cevallos General Hospital in Portoviejo, south of Quito, Ecuador on Tuesday (16 Jul).
It lasted 45 minutes and saved the woman’s life, as reported on NeedToKnow.
The bezoar was made up of the patient’s own hair.
Dr Lovato added: “She is a patient with a psycho-emotional disorder that caused her to ingest her own hair.”
