A Case of Compulsion!

The female patient of forty years of age has quite a high socio-economic level. Her main complaint: constantly washing her vagina. She washed her vagina countless times every day, over two hours a day. This complaint had been continuing for almost eleven years.

She visited many physicians. The patients, who had been attempted to be treated with obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis for years, consulted our clinic two months ago. During the psychiatric examination, there wasn’t any other attributes than a mild depression and the complaint mentioned above.

It was attention-grabbing that the complaint of vagina cleaning started suddenly. Medical inquiry was deepened. A search is made to see whether there were any accompanying medical diseases during those days. She said there weren’t any attributes. But she mentioned that she had difficulties while urinating for approximately 11 years. Then a urology consultation was requested.

During the urological treatment carried out, she was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis. She was treated. One month later, the patient’s depression and psychiatric symptoms were fully over, and her need to clean her vagina came to an end.