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Plastic-Eating Teen's Habit Threatens Her Life
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A Sacramento teenager has been hooked on eating plastic items like water bottles, CD cases and TV remotes for 11 years. Due to feature on Season Three of the hit TLC show My Strange Addiction, 18-year-old Kailyn's habit has been introduced to the world in a big way. What began as a method of stress relief after she was abused aged just six continued for over a decade. Kailyn says she's eaten up to 60,000 articles of plastic in that time. She started with plastic beads but branched out: “I have eaten 12 remotes, over 5,000 beads, over 1,000 cocktail swords, 100 forks, about ten water bottles, two pacifiers, three CD cases, about 50 hangers, about 25 plastic lids on to-go cups...” she says. She counts TV remotes and cocktail swords collected from her job as a hostess among her favorites, explaining that she enjoys the texture of plastic and often prefers it to food. During her soon-to-be-aired episode, Kailyn visits a doctor who discovers that her addiction has caused life-threatening damage to her liver; it's now 60% larger than it should be. It seems that the doctor's warnings are the wake-up call she needed. “It upsets me that the one thing that soothes me and makes me feel good is actually poisoning my body,” she says. Kailyn has since quit eating plastic and sought therapy, while undergoing treatment for her enlarged liver. Season three of My Strange Addiction starts Sunday at 10pm EST.
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Fionna Agomuoh is a tech writer and product reviewer, as well as the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of TechieSupreme.com. Fionna previously worked at several media companies, including Newsweek Media Group and Business Insider. Find her on Linkedin or follow her on Twitter.
