Girl, 9, with Hair-Chewing Habit Undergoes Surgery for Massive Hairball in Stomach

A U.K. mom is speaking out about her daughter's hair-eating disorder, known as Rapunzel Syndrome, after struggling to find help — before it was nearly too late

A young girl had to undergo a nearly five-hour surgery to remove a hairball from her stomach, a symptom of the rare, often misunderstood “Rapunzel syndrome.”

Sophia Goss began pulling her hair out when she was 18 months old, because it was “soothing,” her mother, Megan Sayce, told South West News Service, via the Daily Mail.

“She would do it as she was falling asleep,” said Sayce, who's from the U.K. village of Lenwade, in Norfolk, adding that Sophia would “pull tufts out all the time.”

Sayce sought help, but said her daughter’s doctors didn’t have any advice on how to stop the habit, known as trichotillomania.

As the Mayo Clinic explains, trichotillomania is a “mental health condition. It involves frequent, repeated and irresistible urges to pull out hair from your scalp, eyebrows or other areas of your body. You may try to resist the urges, but you can't stop.”

Sayce turned to Google, and said she “managed to get her to stop in eight weeks. I put olive oil in her hair and got her some gloves for when she slept so she couldn't pull it.”

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Or so she thought. Until Sophia started eating her hair again, and when she was four, threw up a trichobezoar — the medical term for a hairball.

It’s a symptom of Rapunzel syndrome, which the National Library of Medicine explains is “found in patients with a history of psychiatric disorders, trichotillomania (habit of hair pulling) and trichophagia (morbid habit of chewing the hair), consequently developing gastric bezoars.”

But as Sayce told the outlet, “[Sophia] eventually got better and seemed to grow out of chewing her hair, so we didn't think much of it.”

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However, five years later, Sayce says Sophia started having some stomach discomfort — which her doctors dismissed as “her diet.”

Six weeks later, Sophia woke up screaming in pain, saying she felt like she was “going to die.”

Thinking it was appendicitis, Sayce says they rushed her to the hospital, where doctors discovered a mass of hair in Sophia’s stomach. “The hairball filled her whole stomach and had worn away the lining which meant her stomach contents were leaking into her body,” Sayce told the outlet.

Sophia underwent a four-and-a-half hour surgery to remove the mass, and spent ten days in the hospital recovering.

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Sayce says she’s sharing Sophia’s story to help raise awareness about Rapunzel syndrome, telling SWNS, “There isn't much help or knowledge because the act of chewing hair seems quite harmless.”

But, she says, “Just chewing or sucking on the hair can cause the problems. Parents should keep an eye on your children, go to the doctors and push them for answers.”

“If they've got belly ache and they're bloated,” Sayce advises, “Get answers and help break the habit.”

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

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