Trichobezoar

A dog came into the clinic yesterday for vomiting.  Radiographs were taken in the morning then again in the afternoon.  A foreign body was suspected so the dog came in this morning for a recheck.  I took new radiographs which looked just like the day before.

A normal stomach will empty in 6 hours or less.  This dog had not eaten anything for 24 hours and the stomach (outlined in black) was still full.

                                 

The owner had no history of it eating anything foreign that was abnormally large.  She just liked to pick up small things off the floor and eat them.   And the dog is only inside or on on a leash outside.  The owner ok’ed the exploratory and we were making guesses as to what we would find.  None of us expected this……..

This was a large mat of mostly human hair.  There were bits and pieces of other things, yarn, plastic tags, garland, but mostly hair.  Because it was so solidly matted, the gastronomy (incision into the stomach) was larger than I liked, but there was no other way to get it out.   All of that came out of a 20 pound dog.

A trichobezoar is a gastrointestinal obstruction caused by hair.  It is usually the animal’s hair but in this case it was human.  The owner said she was planning on getting her hair cut short anyway, this has reinforced that decision.