Video Game-Addicted Boy Stopped Using The Bathroom, Damaged Bowel To Keep Playing

An English boy was so addicted to video games that he damaged his bowel and bladder after he stopped going to the bathroom to continue playing online.

The 10-year-old boy was playing World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Fifa for up to eight consecutive hours with his father and had become so constipated that his bowel and bladder stopped functioning correctly, the Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Dr. Jo Begent, a consultant pediatrician at University College Hospital in London, revealed during the NSPCC’s annual conference on child safety online this week that the unnamed boy suffered a dilated bowel. Multiple outlets are reporting the patient had to undergo surgery.

"I was doing my general pediatric clinic one day and a boy walked in, a 10-year-old limping and looking really poorly," Begent said. "He had a mass coming out of his pelvis and I panicked and wondered if he had a type of cancer."

After further examination of the child, Begent learned that the boy’s issue came from holding in his bowel movements for extended periods of time. An MRI scan showed that the boy’s bladder had become severely swollen.

"When I took the history in better detail this boy was gaming so much that his bladder and bowel were so deformed because he had stopped going to the loo," she added.

Begent explained that the boy’s father also played video games extensively which may have influenced the child to do the same.

"The boy was an incredibly gifted footballer but he and his son used to game together," she said, according to Daily Mail. "As a result, he had become extraordinarily constipated and his bowel and bladder had become dilated and dysfunctional. You could feel it. It felt like a craggy mass that was like a cancer with a hardened wall."

The boy received treatment including laxatives and other techniques to help him regain normal control of his bladder, including "masses and masses of psychological help," Begent said.