Woman addicted to eating mattresses consumed eight beds in 20 years

A woman who developed a strange addiction to eating mattresses vowed to stop after she wound up eating not only her own bed but also her mother's.

This odd story comes from the TLC series My Strange Addiction and focuses on a woman named Jennifer who was 26 at the time she was featured on the show in 2013.

According to the documentary Jennifer used to eat .09 square metres of a mattress a day and had consumed 8 mattresses within 20 years. She admits that she began eating her mother's mattress after she finished eating her own and usually gets the urge around 2 o'clock in the afternoon or after sex.

She adds: "I like my mattress plain and straight up, no mayonnaise, butter, none of that. The side effects of eating mattresses, gas is really the only one you'd have. It enters my body and leaves my body, it enters my system and goes out."

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Despite Jennifer claiming that the mattress used to pass through her digestive system without any problems and would often come out whole again her family began to raise concerns about her health after she opened up about her "embarrassing" problem.

Now, these aren't entire mattresses, complete with springs. These are more like the foam toppings that you would place on top to make your night's sleep more comfortable.

Despite this, there are still major problems that can occur from eating mattresses such as liver and intestinal damage and even death. Jennifer even admitted to her family that she "didn't care" about the effects that it might be having on her and added that it's hard to get over an addiction once you have one.

Jennifer does eventually agree to go and see a doctor to get herself checked out. There she admits that she eats mattress foam every single day and also suffers from 'sulphur burps' which she describes as a "fart in her mouth." The doctor told her that might be because parts of the foam is blocking her digestive system causing any food to ferment inside of her resulting in the food turning to gas.

The doctor admits that he is surprised that Jennifer has managed to remain in good health for so long but after an x-ray, suspects that her stomach could be full of the mattress and tells her that if she continues she could face an emergency or die.

Jennifer's Mattress Eating Addiction Is Causing Serious Health Issues | My Strange Addictionwww.youtube.com

The segment ends with Jennifer vowing to quit eating mattresses for good.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.