ATYPICAL CASE OF PICA RESPONDED TO SSRI

Navneet Kaur Bhatia, Navleen Kaur Bhatia and *Manjeet Singh Bhatia

ABSTRACT

Pica is a common disorder in childhood, however, in adults it is associated with mental retardation, psychosis and pregnancy. A few case reports have described it being associated with obsessive compulsive disorder in adults. We describe the case of an adult male patient who developed an impulse to ingest 4 to 5 bottles of mouthwash. These thoughts were ego-dystonic and kept on hammering his mind until he ate it. He was diagnosed as having pica. We prescribed him vilazodone 20mg with clonazepam and asked him to ventilate his feelings during stressful situations. He showed remarkable improvement in pica symptoms in 4 weeks. It can be concluded that stress may induce the pica in some adults and that such feelings have impulsive/compulsive characters.

Keywords: Pica, Mouthwash, Obsession, SSRI, Vilazodone.