A teenager who ate her own hair was hospitalized after a 19-inch hairball tore through her stomach, causing her to faint

• The UK teen was taken to the hospital after fainting due to intense abdominal pain.
• When she arrived, doctors discovered a 19-inch hairball stretching from the girl's stomach to her colon.
• Doctors say the girl suffered from a condition that caused her to pull out her hair and ingest it.

A 17-year-old girl had to undergo surgery after a hairball tore through her stomach.

According to a case study published in BMJ Case Reports, the girl who remained unnamed in the study had ingested her own hair due to a mental health condition and caused what doctors call "Rapunzel syndrome," when a hairball (or, a "trichobezoar") formed in the stomach extends into the small intestine.

Some trichobezoars can extend as far as the colon, snaking through the entire small intestine.

When the teen arrived at the hospital in an undisclosed part of the UK, she told doctors she had been suffering from on and off abdominal pain for five months, which had intensified in the two weeks leading up to her collapsing and fainting.

Scans revealed a 19-inch trichobezoar that had burst through the walls of her stomach.

She told doctors she also had a three-year history of two mental health conditions that likely caused the trichobezoar: trichotillomania and trichophagia.

Trichotillomania can cause people with the disorder to pull out their own hair. Trichophagia causes them to ingest it.

According to the Mayo Clinic, trichotillomania is a disorder in which a person pulls out their own hair.

People with the disorder often have patchy bald spots on their scalp as a result of the constant plucking. While some people live with the condition and manage it, others face a compulsive urge to pluck that may be difficult to control.

Usually, the condition can intensify when people go through periods of stress or anxiety, leading to more plucking.

People with the disorder may also struggle with eating their own hair, a condition called trichophagia. While bezoars are rare in humans, the combination of the two disorders left untreated can result in similar hairballs.

A small study published in 2008 on the conditions found 25% of cases resulted in Rapunzel syndrome, or hairballs. Most who suffer from trichotillomania are young women.

According to the report, doctors extracted the hairball with little trouble, and the patient was able to make a full recovery.