Direct usage of tobacco claims a staggering 8 million lives every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The tobacco epidemic is a notorious public health threat the world has ever been exposed to. And as dangerous it is, recently, it has come to light that a person smoking for decades developed a condition. Curly black hair started growing at the back of his throat, inside his mouth. Seldom, we come across strange medical scenarios in the modern day that even take the best doctors by surprise –even the most prolific ones, and this case is one of those. Let’s take a look at this incident.
The number of people living on the planet is more than 800 crore. It will surprise you to know that more than 130 crore out of these 800 consume tobacco or tobacco products. This figure is from the WHO. People also have to face colossal health conditions due to the consumption of tobacco. Some fall prey to other diseases, while some fall into the rabbit hole of cancer, and die.
In this case, a 54-year-old man from Austria, whose name remains undisclosed, has been reported to be going through a strange condition. Along with hair growing in his throat, he is also facing difficulty in breathing. Doctors have no idea how this could have happened. The man also complained of a hoarse voice and chronic cough. He has been smoking many cigarettes every day since the age of 20 starting 1990. He also reported that there was an incident of coughing out a hair during that time.
In 2010, while trying to diagnose his problem, doctors sent a camera down his throat, through his windpipe. The picture showed several hairs growing in his throat. They removed the hair from his mouth and gave him antibiotics after bacteria were found in the hair, for temporary relief. But this condition hadn’t reversed. The hair never stopped growing till the present day. The man was given treatment for a rare condition called endotracheal hair growth.
An article about this was also published in the American Journal of Case Reports. The doctors who came from Austria said that smoking can cause inflammation in the throat, due to which the cells can turn into hair follicles. Whenever the doctors took a look into his throat, six-nine two inch hair had grown in his throat. Some of this hair also got stuck in his voice box and they would go upwards into his mouth.
The doctors said, “We guess that the hair growth started due to the patient’s habit of smoking cigarettes. Due to this, perhaps the hair follicles inside started growing rapidly in the form of hair. But due to the rarity of such cases, the assumption cannot be proved.”
After this, the doctors urged the man to give up the habit of smoking. In 2020, he also gave it up. After this, the doctors burned the roots of the hair growth through endoscopic argon plasma. In a year, there were two more hairs that grew, and doctors did the same procedure again. Since then no hair growth has been there.
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