We’ve all experienced a little trouble going to the bathroom sometimes, and it’s pretty much never pleasant.
Just being constipated for a day or two is frustrating enough, but imagine feeling constipation for 22 years!
That may sound like something out of a nightmare or horror movie, but it’s exactly what happened to one man with Hirschsprung’s disease.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Hirschsprung’s disease takes a toll on the large intestine, or colon, and makes it hard to pass stool. Hirschsprung’s is present at birth and usually diagnosed early in life.
As Dr. David Rosenfeld explains on The Doctors, it’s unlikely that this man was not using the bathroom for 22 years, but he definitely had a harder time going than others might. Over 22 years, though, waste that he couldn’t pass began to gradually build up — until he eventually had 30 pounds of poop backed up inside him.
Dr. Rosenfeld says it was as if this patient had been “pregnant,” the waste had built up inside him for so long.
There’s no doubt that 30 pounds of anything is a lot to carry inside you. I can only imagine how much relief this patient probably felt when his surgery was complete!
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