Woman addicted to eating her own hair had to have a one foot HAIRBALL weighing a stone removed from her stomach
Cheltenham mum suffered agonising stomach pains after chewing her locks for six years
A MUM who was addicted to eating her own hair had a ONE FOOT hair ball weighing a STONE removed from her stomach.
Sophie Cox, 23, started yanking out her hair in her sleep and eating it as a teenager and was diagnosed with trichotillomania and trichophagia.
She progressed to pulling out her hair during the day, thinking it was nothing more than a harmless habit.
But, after falling pregnant with daughter Alice, she baffled doctors when she began to suffer from stomach pains and lost weight.
Two months after her baby was born, in October 2014, the pains became excruciating and left her doubled in agony.
The Cheltenham mum-of-one said: "By October 2015 I couldn't eat without vomiting and my stomach would swell up.
"I'd lost six stone in two years and dropped six dress sizes, taking me to a size 12.
"Doctors had no idea what was wrong with me, they tested me for gallstones and stomach cancer but found nothing.
"By then I was reliant on my partner Craig and family to look after Alice as I was in constant agony. I thought I was dying."
Finally, Sophie had an endoscopy at Cheltenham General Hospital where a small camera was passed down her throat and into her stomach.
It was then that doctors discovered the giant hairball.
Sophie said: "When they showed me the scan I was speechless. It looked like something from a horror film.
"The specialist hadn't seen anything like it in 30 years. It was too big to break down in my stomach, leaving me malnourished and dehydrated.
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"Seven years-worth of my brunette locks were clumped together in my tummy and the hairball was growing by the day - it was killing me.
"It was 30cm long and weighed a stone, a huge mass of my hair clumped together with bile."
Sophie had to wait four months for surgery and in April the hairball - called a trichobezoar - was removed in a six-hour operation.
She said: "I felt instantly better when I woke up, even though I was sore and groggy.
"It was disgusting. I cried with relief that it was gone."
Sophie was a toddler when she first yanked her hair out and ate it but says her family wrote it off as 'a phase' because she stopped after a few months.
But in 2010, when she was 17, she noticed bald patches and realised she was pulling out her hair in her sleep.
She said: "I would wake in the night and find strands of hair in my mouth.
"I was so embarrassed I was ashamed to tell anyone or try and get help."
A year later the compulsions began to come during the daytime when she was “emotional, tired or stressed”.
She recalled: "If I was having a hard day I would absent-mindedly wrap a lock of hair round my fingers, tug it out, and then feel a satisfying pain shoot through my scalp.
"Then I'd stuff the strands into my mouth and feel instant relief.
"Friends would notice and slap my hands away from my head, but they thought it was a habit, not a condition.
"If I repressed the urge during the day I'd only pull out more clumps at night."
Sophie attempted to hide her bald patches with clip-in extensions but in 2013 her mum spotted them and insisted she saw a doctor.
Sophie said: "I was diagnosed with trichophagia and prescribed anxiety medication.
"It didn't work. I continued to rip my hair out, taking pleasure in the pain and in chewing it."
In March 2013 Sophie met partner Craig Saunders, 25, and for the first few months of their relationship managed to keep the illness a secret.
But when he asked her to stop wearing hair extensions she admitted the truth.
Sophie recalled: "When I explained my compulsion, like everyone else he struggled to understand it.
"But he promised he would do all he could to support me."
A few months after they met, Sophie she cut her hair short to limit the damage and says she was tugging and chewing it less.
But within a year after the birth of baby Alice she was becoming desperately ill.
Since the operation she is monitored regularly for hairballs and is on the waiting list to see a psychologist to work out the underlying cause of the condition.
She added: "I'm just so thankful the hairball was found before it was too late.
"Now I can get on with being a hands-on mum."