Posted on 11/22/2007 4:18:09 PM PST by a real Sheila
It may not be the most appetizing reading before a hearty holiday meal, but the New England Journal of Medicine is devoting part of its Thanksgiving issue to a giant hairball -- and not the feline kind.
The prestigious journal details the case of a previously healthy 18-year-old woman who consulted a team of gastrointestinal specialists.
She complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss.
After a scan of the woman's abdomen showed
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Does this mean that every single hair we accidentally eat is slowly creating a hairball in our guts? Ewww!
Asparagus, celery, cornsilk and rhubarb can contribute to bezoars too.
correction, a big HAIRY turd.
armymarinemom wrote: “MEAT BEZOARS (!?!) used to be treated first with Adolf’s meat tenderizer which often worked bypassing need for surgery.”
Dare I ask?
Carpet munching?
A half a cup of Drano after every meal will help avoid this.
“I keep fresh grass available for my cats.”
I remember when ‘cats’ and ‘grass’ had whole different meanings.
In the above sentence, you would have been a great friend.
Hair doesn’t dissolve in stomach acids. You need to eat a lot of fiber/roughage to actually bind it and push it through you.
Hillary at risk?
Has the hair been DNA tested? Does it, perhaps, contain a history of her entire life, kind of like tree rings?
I’ve been chewing my fingernails my whole life, same composition...
“Keratins are a family of fibrous structural proteins; tough and insoluble, they form the hard but nonmineralized structures found in reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals. They are rivaled as biological materials in toughness only by chitin.”
It is insoluble...
My hounds eat a little bit of grass every day...Maybe for the same reason...
Sure does the trick.
Hairball: The other white meat.
We used to use adolphs or coke to unclog feeding tubes.
Mmmmm, hair!
This thread is worthless without pictures!
A carpet licker?
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