2kg HAIRBALL Removed From a Chinese Girl's Stomach

An eight-year-old Chinese girl who throw up (vomit) after eating had a huge hairball in her stomach.

The girl from Zhoukou, in Henan Province, had also lost weight, leaving her far smaller than her classmates, prompting concern from her parents.

When she fell particularly ill after meals over the recent Chinese New Year, her father decided it was time to seek medical advice.

A doctor at the local hospital performed a physical examination and discovered a lump in her abdomen - and a CT scan showed that there was an object in her stomach but it wasn't clear exactly what it was.

The girl was referred for a consultation with paediatrician Dr Zhang Shufeng, at the Provincial Peoples Hospital, who discovered that only not did the unnamed girl like chewing on her hair, she also bit her nails and munched on her clothes.

The doctor ordered surgery and removed a hairball - complete with balls of clothing fibre and the odd scrap of food - that weighed almost 2kg (4.5lb). 

The tightly-formed hairball - which it is thought had been growing for a number of years - was in the exact shape of the little girl's stomach and had begun to block any food at all from being digested.

Culled