Woman Addicted To Eating Toilet Roll’s Mum Says It’s ‘Like Crack’

According to a woman who is addicted to eating toilet paper, she consumes about 75 sheets per day, with her mother describing it as "like crack" to her.

Kesha, a resident of the American city of Chicago, was highlighted on the TLC show My Strange Addiction because she suffers from xylophagia, an eating habit that involves paper consumption.

Credit: TLC

The 34-year-old has been eating toilet paper nearly every day for the past 23 years.

Although she now can't break the habit, she thinks that her compulsion stems from a childhood trauma that she experienced when she moved out of her home and in with her grandmother and aunt in the sixth grade.

Credit: TLC

“I think I crave it because I love the way the toilet paper feels on my tongue, how it dissolves when it hits my tongue,” she said.

She confesses that she has a 'hard time going to the bathroom' if she eats too much, and says that she experiences 'stomach cramps'.

Credit: TLC

Additionally, Kesha claims that two-ply rolls are "easier to digest" and that is why she prefers them.

Her worried mother said: “Every time I'd see Kesha, she'd have tissue in her hand and she'd try to hide it behind her back.”

“If you tried to take it from her she'd get upset. I've never been able to understand why she eats tissue, and I never will."

However, as psychiatrist Kimm Dennis explained to her on the show, there are serious issues with this habit.

She said: "If your intestines rupture inside your abdomen, that could be fatal, and could be fatal pretty quickly.”

“You’re putting your body at risk and really playing Russian roulette with your life."

Eating paper is clearly not a common practice, and while it might not ultimately be fatal, it can still be dangerous for you.

Pica, which derives from the Latin word for magpie, is the term used to describe the urge to consume things and a craving for things other than food.

Although it is most frequently seen in pregnant people, as we can see from this instance, it can also appear in other people.

In Kesha's case, she was unaware that her condition might be harmful to her health until she spoke with Kimm Dennis, but ideally, she will have found help to stop her from harming herself as a result of her strange addiction.