Article Sidebar
Published:
Apr 11, 2017Article Details
http://www.sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/pages/view/policies#part_4
Copyright
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose.
AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
Achalasia as a complication of bulimia nervosa: A case report
Abstract
Objective: Oesophageal achalasia is a medical condition characterised by oesophageal aperistalsis, an increased resting pressure with partial or incomplete relaxation of the lower oesophageal sphincter. Bulimia nervosa (BN) is an eating disorder manifested by binge eating attacks followed by recurrent inappropriate compensatory behaviours, such as self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise. Dysphagia, regurgitation, vomiting, retrosternal pain, heartburn, weight loss, avoidance of eating, consumption of large amount of liquids and aberrant eating behaviours are symptoms of both achalasia and BN. Owing to these common signs and symptoms, oesophageal achalasia can be misdiagnosed as an eating disorder. In addition, oesophageal achalasia can occur as a complication of BN. It is often difficult to distinguish organic and psychological vomiting or comorbidity because of overlapping of the symptoms.
Case report: We report the case of a patient who developed oesophageal achalasia following severe, repetitive vomiting as a complication of BN.
Conclusion: We want to raise awareness regarding the development of a medical illness in the presence of a psychiatric disorder. Importantly, physicians should have a fundamental knowledge of these two diseases regarding their clinical patterns to differentially diagnose one or both disorders as quickly as possible.
