2. Polya’s urn. Suppose we have an urn containing one red ball and one blue ball. We draw a ball at random from the urn. If it is red, we put the drawn ball plus another red ball into the urn. If it is blue, we put the drawn ball plus another blue ball into the urn. We then repeat this process. At the n-th stage, we draw a ball at random from the urn with n+1 balls, note its color, and put the ...

A Pakistani girl presented with acute abdominal pain and raised serum amylase and alkaline phosphatase concentrations. She was found to have a gastric trichobezoar with a tail extending to the mid-ileum. The altered biochemical parameters returned to normal after surgical removal of the bezoar. Irritation of ampulla of Vater by the bezoar tail is believed to have caused transient pancreatitis.

The Rapunzel syndrome is an unusual form of trichobezoar found in patients with a history of psychiatric disorders, trichotillomania (habit of hair pulling) and trichophagia (morbid habit of chewing the hair), consequently developing gastric bezoars. The principal symptoms are vomiting and epigastric pain. In this case report, we describe this syndrome in a young girl.

INTRODUCTION Trichobezoars are an infrequent form of bezoar found in the stomach or intestine, created from ingested hair. This condition has been well described in the surgical literature, but less reported in psychiatry. CASE PRESENTATION We describe the case of an 18-year-old Middle Eastern Caucasian woman with trichotillomania who presented to our emergency department with a history of ce...