RSS Feed
May 25th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Youngster suffers from extreme form of a disorder called Pica
- Eats blinds and plaster from walls as has a constant need to chew
- Zach is also autistic and cannot speak
- Mother Rachel plans to build ‘safe room’ without objects he can eat
By
Daniel Miller
06:37 EST, 24 May 2012
|
09:30 EST, 24 May 2012
Five-year-old Zach Tahir suffers from a rare medical condition which means he’s slowly eating his way through his bedroom.
Zach has a constant need to chew, but as he can’t distinguish between food and inedible objects he wants to eat everything from window blinds to the plaster on his walls.
The youngster from Salford, Greater Manchester, who is autistic and cannot speak, has an extreme form of a disorder called Pica.
Five-year-old Zach Tahir suffers from a rare condition which means he can’t tell the difference between food and inedible objects
Some of the loose plaster in Zach’s bedroom which the youngster has been eating
To keep him safe mother, Rachel Horn, has to go to extraordinary lengths ripping up celery to encourage him to eat it instead of thread and even sprinkling nuts on the carpet.
Rachel has now launched a fundraising drive to build a ‘safe room’, without objects Zach could try to consume.
Rachel, 32, said: ‘He eats almost anything – mud and moss, stones, carpet, grow bags, thread, paper, wallpaper and hair.
‘He loves to climb on his windowsill and eat his black-out blind. He likes to have something to chew on at all times. It is not the taste he likes, but the texture.
‘It’s frustrating as Zach doesn’t speak – not one word – and meal times are a nightmare.
He doesn’t sleep much and I get exhausted, but unlike other autistic children he loves to give me hugs and he dances.’
Zach, who lives with his mum and sister Isabella, two, was diagnosed with autism and learning difficulties aged three. His Pica, which is believed to be linked to autism, was diagnosed around the same time.
Rachel first noticed her son wasn’t developing at the rate of other children when he was nine months.
She is hoping to raise £15,000 to make Zach’s bedroom safe, furnishing it with items including a special mattress without seams.
She has organised events including a sponsored walk in Buile Hill Park on June 3 and a car boot sale a week later.
Caroline Hattersley, of The National Autistic Society, said: ‘People with autism often experience sensory difficulties.
‘For some individuals, the texture or taste of inedible items may give positive sensory input.’
Pica is surprisingly common – although cases as extreme as Zach’s are rare. Experts say as many as 21 per cent of children aged one to six can suffer it at some stage.
Pica derives from the Latin for magpie – a bird with a reputation for eating almost everything. It appeared in medical texts as far back as 1563 and is believed to be common in pregnant women.
In some cases, a lack of certain minerals – such as iron and zinc – may trigger the unusual cravings.
PICA, A CONDITION THAT CONTINUES TO BAFFLE THE DOCTORS
The habit of eating non-edible objects could arise from some sort of deficiency.
Some sufferers eat dirt, according to Dr Carol Cooper, and many of them are found to lack iron, which is present in soil.
Others develop the condition because of extreme stress, though it is not clear why.
A desire to eat cleaning agents may be linked with obsessive-compulsive disorder or just a liking for fragrances. Pica can lead to dangerous complications in the body’s metabolism.
One type of treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy with an experienced psychologist.
Sponge cake: Nicole Bonner has eaten 1,000 sponges in the past few years
- Other sufferers who have made the news recently include Natalie Hayhurst, who at the age of three, nearly died last February after eating a lightbulb that she tore from a bedroom night-light. Natalie also admitted wolfing down almost a whole brick, ‘like it was a chocolate chip cookie’.
- Last year, Nicole Bonner, then 22, said she had eaten around 1,000 sponges in the past five years after developing a strange craving for soap during her pregnancy.
- Kerry Trebilcock, 21, confessed to eating more than 100 bars of soap, giving her stomach cramps, constipation and diarrhoea. She said she often ‘spices up’ her sponge diet with hot sauce or mustard, or dunks her strange snacks in tea or hot chocolate.
- Tempestt Henderson, from Florida, told how she eats up to five bars of soap a week – and washing powder too. She said: ‘I remember the first time I dipped my fingers into the washing powder. I dabbed the powder onto my tongue and it tasted so sweet, and salty…it just felt so right. I was hooked straight away.’
- Teresa Widener, a 45-year-old woman from Bedford, Virginia, has regularly sucked the dirt off rocks before crunching them between her teeth. ‘I like that it has an earthy flavour’, she said. ‘If I know I have some at my house I feel better, just knowing they’re there…they’re there for me when I’m upset or whatever.
-
Parents’ outrage after girl flashes her naked crotch under…
-
‘Just finish it here,’ Shafilea Ahmed’s mother told her…
-
Man goes to hospital with a kidney stone… and discovers…
-
Missing girl ‘buried in murdered mobster’s tomb was…
-
‘He would get angry at nothing’: Family of man who…
-
One-time football star who spent six years in prison for…
-
Beautiful flowers? Look a little closer and you’ll see these…
-
Seized from smugglers, the leather-bound ‘gospel’ which Iran…
-
Casey Anthony ‘piles on the pounds after months of sitting…
-
Panic spreads across Georgia as FOURTH victim of…
-
Grieving pit bull stays with dead mate for 14 HOURS… and…
-
Undercover US agents brought down our new Superjet:…
Share this article:
Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.
The comments below have not been moderated.
-
Newest -
Oldest -
Best rated -
Worst rated
I knew a boy who did this also and it can be very difficult and i think the mother sounds like she is doing a great job and a i hope she is able to do a nice, safe room for her son, as i know how expensive things can be. I cant believe the nasty comments on here and the comments about their dog. This is a little boy with autism we are talking about, not a puppy or toddler, this is a young boy who isnt developing in the same way as others and needs support. I think some people must just have no idea about the outside world at all.
Report abuse
my son is the same, at age 11 he cannot talk, his understanding is that of a toddler, he has pica, he wears nappies and is severely autistic, I also have another son with autism a year older at 12 (he wasnt diagnosed until age 2) living with this condition is a nightmare and stressful, I wish this boy well and urged the more ignorant readers to stop assuming a good smack will sort out a childs disability. There is a lack of support for parents with disabled children and even less next year when the government takes the desperately needed financial support away from disabled families.
Report abuse
What is it about this paper that attracts such heartless and ignorant commenters? Clearly you have never had to deal with anything out of the ordinary and live in such narrow minded little worlds that I genuinely fear for you if anything untoward happens in your lives. You will never cope.
Report abuse
This mum is clearly trying to do her best for her son. She admitted that she is exhausted. I would think that anybody with intelligence would feel some form of empathy for her situation. Maybe some people should think about how this family will feel when they read some of these comments. But then again, the comments pages of this newspaper seem to have turned into the ‘Daily Troll’ over the past few months. Pretty sick when a story about a disabled child becomes fair game.
Report abuse
Stick him in a supermax cell, made entirely of conrete. That should cure him of this ” condition”.
– Kate Evans, Nottingham, England, 24/5/2012 17:06
What a vile, nasty, uncaring comment. And what’s with the speech marks?
Report abuse
To anon, anon, I really hope you never have a child with disabilities!!!! Have you any idea of the cost of specialist equipment for children with learning disabilities?!
Report abuse
She wants people to donate to her so she can give her son a ‘safe room’?!?
What happened to parents just giving their kids what they need off their own backs without pushing the responsibility on other people???
Anyway, awful area where she lives…poor kid won’t stand a chance of a ‘normal’, happy childhood anyway. Especially with a ‘mother’ who obviously doesn’t care about simple, basic things such as dental hygiene. And there’s no excuse for that, she’ll get it free?!?
Report abuse
Some very nasty comments on here,if this was a middle class child from a 2 parent family the the comments would be completely different. You don’t chose your parents.
Report abuse
Is there a dad then? On the evidence of the surname probably not.
Report abuse
Stick him in a supermax cell, made entirely of conrete. That should cure him of this ” condition”.
Report abuse
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
Posted in 
Tags: 
