A 14-year-old girl has reportedly had over 100 tapioca balls stuck in her body after drinking too much milk tea.
Her parents took her to a hospital in eastern China after experiencing constipation for 5 days, according to a local newspaper.
Doctors said that the girl, Xiao Shen, had failed to digest the tapioca balls that came with the popular tea.
Xiao Shen loved to drink ‘bubble tea,’ a popular beverage in Asia which contains milk, tea, and tapioca balls. These small balls, also called boba or pearls, are made of tapioca starch which is obtained from the dried roots of the cassava plant.
In mainland China, one cup of bubble tea costs 10 yuan (£1).
The teen’s parents took her to the People’s Hospital after she kept on complaining about stomach pain. They said that Xiao Shen had been having bad appetite and constipation.
Dr. Zhang Louwei said that the patient’s abdomen was ‘bulging.’ An X-ray revealed more than 100 tapioca balls trapped in her body, filling her intestines, stomach, and rectum.
The doctor suspected the balls inside the teen’s body had been gathering over a long period of time. He prescribed a laxative to help her remove the balls.
Dr. Zhang also warned others not to drink too much milk tea as tapioca starch could be difficult to digest. He said that the company might add artificial preservatives and food additive to the tapioca balls to ‘improve the texture.’
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