A 14-year-old girl was recently hospitalized for constipation and stomachache, only for doctors to discover that her stomach was filled with hundreds of undigested milk tea pearls!
Milk tea is one of the most popular drinks this generation has seen. In fact, you could find long lines at the milk tea shop counter, with many customers patiently waiting for their turn to have the sugary drink.
Experts have warned that drinking too much milk tea is bad for the health, but just like warnings against softdrinks, this had fallen on deaf ears among customers who simply love the drink. Psychologists even warn that those who line up for milk tea are really just there for social media likes, but many argue they really love the drink.
In Zhejiang Province, China, a 14-year-old girl experienced intense stomach pains and constipation. She refused to eat because of her stomachache and could not move her bowels, leading her parents to rush her to the hospital last May 28.
When asked, the girl claimed that she had only drank one serving of milk tea about 5 days prior to the start of her stomachache, but the doctor found hundreds of the milk tea pearls inside her stomach and the rest of her digestive tract. According to the doctor, it was possible that the girl was simply trying to hide her habit of drinking milk tea from her parents as she would have taken in a lot of the popular drink for the problem to be this severe.
Photo credit: Weibo / Asia One
The doctor further explained that the milk tea pearls are made from starchy tapioca that the body finds difficult to digest.
After discovering the source of the girl’s problem, she was given laxatives and was warned to limit her intake of milk tea in the future.