We all know “that” feeling: when you’re backed up and just can’t “go.” It’s certainly uncomfortable, and at times, even painful. But when you hear what happened to one young man in China, you’ll likely never complain about feeling bloated again.
The 22-year-old guy had been blocked up for, apparently, his entire life when he finally went to see a doctor to figure out what was causing his horrendous condition to continue unabated. He was diagnosed with Hirschsprung’s disease, an unfortunate illness that makes it impossible to go #2, causing it to build up in your system.
No surprise, with that much of a backup – 28 pounds worth, it turns out – the poor man appeared to be nine months pregnant, and probably felt worse than any expectant mother. Physicians who examined the unnamed gentlemen suspected it was congenital.
In order to give some relief, doctors at the Tenth People’s Hospital of Shanghai had to cut out a massive section of his extremely bloated bowel: 30 inches, to be exact. It looked like some kind of strange animal had been removed when they showed the excised bowel section following surgery.
Although the young man had tried laxatives in the past, they gave him little relief, he said. Doctors say this is because, with Hirschsprung’s disease, the sufferer’s bowels swell, due to missing nerves that normally control stomach passageways.
Following a three-hour surgery by Dr. Yin Lu, the man finally had some relief, likely for the first time since he’d been born. Although most babies stricken with Hirschsprung’s eventually outgrow it, if it goes undiagnosed, it can lead to bowel infections or enterocolitis. It can be hereditary and always requires surgery to correct.
Some 5,000 newborns globally have the disorder, and more baby boys than girls are born with it.
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