Internal hair

A report at Gulf News:

Cairo: A medical team at a Saudi hospital had removed 2 kilograms of hair from a woman’s stomach, ending years of pain, media reported Monday.

The woman in her 20s had long suffered from excruciating pain, the cause of which was not clear until recently.

She underwent a massive clinical examination at the King Abdul Aziz Hospital in the western Saudi city of Taif that eventually specified the source of her pain, spokesman for the city’s health department Abdul Hadi Al Rabae told Okaz newspaper.

A strange object was seen recoiling inside the abdomen and forming a strangling wall of the intestines, the official added.

“The medical team decided on an urgent intervention to reach the strange object, which was found out to be a formation of interlocked hair weighing two kgs. The mass was forming around the wall of the intestines inside the abdominal cavity and was increasingly growing in a medical rarity,” the official.

I presume it was "growing" because she was eating more hair.

This condition, called trichophagia, was discussed in detail in this article at The Conversation.

I didn't know this:

Both trichophagia and pica have been found to occur in people with iron deficiency. In some case reports of Rapunzel syndrome, hair pulling and hair eating stopped after the person was treated for iron deficiency or coeliac disease.

So, eating red meat helps some women (it's mainly found in women) avoid eating their hair.  Sorry, cows.

[And yes, I know, there are other ways to get a boost of iron in your diet.]