P01-125 - Choking phobia: case report

Abstract

Choking phobia is a condition characterized by intense fear of choking accompanied by avoidance of swallowing solid food, drinking and taking pills in the absence of anatomical or physiological abnormalities. Patients may present a significant weight loss, about which they usually feel uncomfortable.Fear respondents are elicited by the phobic stimuli and the patient learns to emit avoidance or escape behaviors as an attempt to reduce a hypothetical risk of choking. These escape and avoidance behaviors are characterized by a quantitative and qualitative restriction of food intake, as well as concerns about food texture, size of bite, and topographical changes in the eating response. Patients start to eat slowly, thus leading to social dysfunction.The authors propose to describe a case report, treatment and the results for this condition.R. is a 34 year old married male. Phobic symptoms started in 2005, after experiencing a choking incident with bone of fish. He progressively began limiting his intake of various food items by avoiding items he considered to be dangerous. Over the time he completely banished certain kinds of food from his diet and started to ingest all the aliments passed over a strainer. He refrained from eating at social events were he could not control the production of meals. This situation has implications in his marital life with constant conflicts.In spite of the insistence of the relatives he postponed around 3 years the search of medical treatment for this situation.He began pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment.