Observations placeholder
Psychotic symptoms in a woman with severe Anorexia Nervosa
Identifier
012796
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This is utterly fascinating. Italy, the home of Roman catholicism - how times change! Only a few hundred years ago they would have written down her every word and called her a saint, now they give her olanzapine.
Olanzapine (sold under the brand names Zyprexa, Zypadhera and Lanzek or in combination with fluoxetine, Symbyax) is an atypical antipsychotic that belongs to thienobenzodiazepine class, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It was not intended to be used on anorexics with nutritional deprivation .... or mystics.
A description of the experience
Eat Weight Disord. 2013 Mar;18(1):95-8. doi: 10.1007/s40519-013-0009-z. Epub 2013 Apr 4.
Psychotic symptoms in a woman with severe Anorexia Nervosa : psychotic symptoms in Anorexia Nervosa.
Delsedime N1, Nicotra B, Giovannone MC, Marech L, Barosio M, Marzola E, Abbate-Daga G, Fassino S. 1Eating Disorders Program, Department of Neuroscience, Psychiatry Section, University of Turin, Via Cherasco 11, 10126, Turin, Italy.
With this paper we aimed to describe a case of a woman affected by Anorexia Nervosa Restricting subtype (AN-R) with delusional symptoms, visual hallucinations and severe body image distortion.
We discussed the main AN diagnosis and whether delusional symptoms could be related to severity of AN describing also the use of olanzapine in such a severe clinical condition. The use of olanzapine was found to be effective to reduce both delusions and body distortions, and to improve compliance to treatments.
We found a severe delusional symptomatology with mystic, omnipotence and persecution features.
The psychotic structure seemed preceding the eating disorder and was also found to be worsened by emaciation. The use of antipsychotic helped reducing delusional symptoms and improving compliance to treatments. Finally, the dynamically oriented therapeutic relationship helped the patient to gain weight and to achieve a full recovery from psychotic symptoms.
PMID: 23757258