A medical student of normal body weight comes with parotid abscess and dental caries. She gets irritated on enquiring about her eating habits. What is the most probable diagnosis?: (A) Adjustment disorder, (B) Bulimia, (C) Anorexia Nervosa, (D) Conversion reaction
Answer is B. Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food and feeling a lack of control over these episodes. This binge-eating is followed by behavior that compensates for the overeating such as forced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting, excessive exercise, or a combination of these behaviors. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight, intense fear of gaining weight, distoed body image, a self-esteem that is heavily influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape, or a denial of the seriousness of low body weight, lack of menstruation among girls and women, extremely restricted eating. With binge-eating disorder a person loses control over his or her eating. Unlike bulimia nervosa, periods of binge-eating are not followed by purging, excessive exercise, or fasting. As a result, people with binge-eating disorder often are over-weight or obese. Adjustment disorder occurs when an individual is unable to adjust to or cope with a paicular stressor, like a major life event. Conversion disorder is where patients suffer from apparently neurological symptoms, such as numbness, blindness, paralysis, or fits, but without a neurological cause.