Doctors in India have removed a huge hairball from the stomach of a five-year-old girl with a rare condition that sees her eat bundles of hair

The five-year-old developed an extremely rare condition called Rapunzel Syndrome which left her unable to stop eating hair.

She was initially taken to hospital after complaining of pain and swelling in her stomach, as well as loss of appetite.
Doctors who identified that the source of the pain was a giant hairball stuck in her stomach were stunned to remove a hairball – also called a trichobezoar – that weighed 1.5kg or just over 3.3lbs.

Their efforts didn’t work and she started eating other people’s hair instead.

Dr Vivek Bhadoo led a team of five doctors in the operation to remove the huge bezoar at a civil hospital in Chandigarh, India.

Photographs show a giant lump of matted black hair being pulled out of the girl’s stomach.

The hairball is curved and dense with smaller greenish yellow lumps attached to it.

The girl’s parents admitted that she has been eating hair for the last two and a half years.

They reportedly tried to stop her and even resorted to cutting her hair but to no avail.

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