Doctors of the Tenth People’s Hospital of Shanghai in China removed about 28 pounds of feces from the bowels of a man who they believe has been constipated his entire life.
22-year-old Zhou Hai, went to the hospital because he was experiencing abdominal pain and difficulty breathing. Turns out he’s been suffering from a rare disease called Hirschsprung’s disease, a condition that causes an individual’s bowels to swell because nerves are missing from that area. Over the course of his lifetime, Hai went untreated for the disease but resorted to laxatives to relieve himself. But the laxatives only offered minimal relief, which resulted in a lot of feces still being built up in his intestines.
After a three-hour operation, according to Inverse Science, surgeons successfully removed 30 inches of enlarged bowel from the patient’s body. Because of the painful enlargement and feces backup, Hai appeared as if he was nine months pregnant and “about to explode,” medical experts said. Tests conducted determined that he had months, even years of feces inside a portion of his colon, which caused the massive swelling of the abdomen, according to the Daily Mail. However, he is expected to recover.
What is Hirschsprung’s Disease?
The Motility and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders Center says Hirschsprung’s disease occurs when some of a baby’s intestinal nerve cells don’t develop properly, causing them to interfere with the movement of food and stool in the intestines. This eventually causes the baby’s intestines to become blocked with stool and makes them constipated. This can also result in enterocolitis, a serious infection that will cause the child to have pain, diarrhea, and fever.
In the United States, Hirschsprung disease affects approximately one case per 5400-7200 newborns annually, according to a report by Medscape. And international studies have reported rates ranging from approximately one case per 1500-7000 newborns. The specific age at which newborns are diagnosed with Hirschsprung disease has decreased over the past century; in the early 1900s, the median age at diagnosis was 2-3 years and then from the 1950s to 1970s, the median age was 2-6 months. Now approximately 90 percent of patients diagnosed are diagnosed in the newborn period, which refers to an infant under 28 days of age. Hirschsprung disease should be considered in any newborn that fails to pass meconium (infant stool) within 24-48 hours of birth, the report says.
The disease is uncommonly diagnosed in adults and is said to occur more in males than females. the male-to-female ratio is 4:1. The report states that in about nine percent of cases, Hirschsprung’s disease is also associated with chromosomal abnormalities or syndromes present at birth such as Down Syndrome.
Symptoms of Hirschsprung’s disease
Eighty percent of children diagnosed with the disease show symptoms in the first six weeks of life. Some, on the other hand, don’t show symptoms until several months or even years. For infants, symptoms include failure to have bowel movements in the first 48 hours of life, constipation, gradual bloating of the abdomen, gradual onset of vomiting and fever, the Motility and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders Center said. Children who don’t have symptoms right away will eventually experience really bad constipation, loss of appetite, delayed growth and will pass small, watery stool.
