PICA/OCD spectrum

[ohwaitiforgot]

I suffer from Pica, and it started when I was around 10. It is a compulsive habit that they have never been able to figure out. I am not deficient in ANY vitamins. I recently learned that Pica is part of the OCD-spectrum, and that makes a lot of sense.

My "non-food of choice" is newspaper. (Like I said) It is a compulsive thing, and worse than my addiction to cigarettes. I CRAVE it. SSRIs and all the other medications I have ever been on have no effect on it. When I first started research on it, all I could find were explanations pertaining to pregnancy and children with severe disabilities.

I have not been diagnosed with OCD. I do have OCD tendencies, such as severe compulsions at times, and also obsessions... and compulsive skin picking.

Does anyone else have any info on Pica as it is related to OCD, and does anyone else suffer from this? I'm lost.

[muldoon]

From what I've heard, it's *usually* the result of an iron deficiency, but since you stated that you do not have any vitamin deficiencies (iron is a mineral, not a vitamin, but I assume you know that), I'm guessing you've had a full blood panel done and everything comes through the gates at acceptable levels.

The most in-depth studies about PICA can be found at PubMed. If you want to see the full reports, you must subscribe (entailing a fee). Otherwise, you just get to view the abstracts, which, unfortunately, do not seem to reveal much info on the case studies done for your disorder.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

Hope this helps.