What’s worse than finding a hair in your food? Eating with hair growing in your mouth! This is what a young Italian suffers from, suffering from a unique form of hormonal disease causing excessive hair growth.
In 2009, Daniela (first name changed), a 19-year-old Italian girl, presented to the hospital complaining of an unpleasant hair on her palate. After blood tests and an ultrasound, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This disease, due to hormonal disruption of ovarian or central origin (in the brain), leads to excessive production of androgens, particularly testosterone. The patients suffer from disorders ofovulationovulationexcessive adiposity,acneacnehair loss (alopeciaalopecia) and hyperpilosity (hirsutism). But while hair usually grows on the body and face, Daniela sees a hair growing in her mouth. Doctors then judge its presence accidental. They removed the embarrassing hair and prescribed birth control pills, which fixed the problem.
Six years later, the young woman returned for consultation. She stopped her hormonal treatment and this time, additional hairs appeared on her gums. Its chin and neck are also covered with rough hair. When examining his oral cavity, doctors discovered brown hairs “like eyelasheseyelashes » between the incisors, which are once again removed. But the situation continues to get worse. A year later, hairs emerged between many teeth, as well as on the jaw maxillarymaxillary than mandibular.
Barely five cases recorded in the medical literature
A stunning and totally unique case, doctors describe in the newspaper Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology. “ To our knowledge, there are only five cases of oral hair in the literature. », indicate the authors, and none yet associated with PCOS and in a woman. In 1980, a single hair was examined in a 45-year-old man, linked to the fortuitous presence of a glandgland sebaceous in the gum. In 1986, a 13-year-old boy consulted for fine black hairs measuring 4 to 6 millimeters growing in his upper gum, a symptomsymptom which doctors link to his premature alopecia. The most astonishing case is that of a young boy of 11 years old, whose hair extended over his tongue, palate, pharynxpharynx and the inner lip, with rapid growth and then loss of eyelashes.
A curious form of ectopia
Regarding Daniela, “ one likely explanation is the presence of ectopic sebaceous glands in the tissue oraloralexplain the doctors. The oral cavity is derived from a structure called the stomodeum (a tissue located in the cavity between the brain and the pericardium in theembryoembryo), which could have ended up in the mouth during a anomalyanomaly of development “. The latter, equipped with sebaceous glands and other skin cells, can then produce hair. In the absence of hormonal treatment to correct hyperpilosity, the hair will then grow back indefinitely like that of any piece of skin. This is literally called having a hair on your tongue.
