The strange case of the giant hairball

Now that is one huge hairball...doesn't pay to eat your hair! Huge 15 inches by 5 inches of hair...and weighed 10 pounds...BD

(CNN) -- 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. art.hairball.nejm.jpg Doctors say this hairball removed from a woman's stomach weighed 10 pounds. 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.

"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years -- a condition called trichophagia," they wrote.