Psycogenic hemolacria
about a case
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70313/2718.7446.v18.n1.394Keywords:
hemolacria, blood tears, post-traumatic stress, ophthalmology, school bullingAbstract
Our objective is to present a clinical case of a girl with hemolacria, who after having been studied and having ruled out secondary causes, was diagnosed as having a post-traumatic psychogenic disorder associated with abuse and school bullying. The patient was 11 years old and consulted at the Hospital de Pediatría Garrahan (Buenos Aires, Argentina) due to repeated episodes of right ocular bleeding which occurred and spontaneously resolved. The patient was admitted for interdisciplinary evaluation. During the hospitalization, clinical evaluations of multiple specialties and complementary studies requested by each of them were performed, without obtaining any abnormal result. Some time after her discharge and with the help of the mental health service, a diagnosis of post-traumatic psychogenic cause associated with school bullying and abuse was reached.
Although psychogenic hemolacria is not well understood and poorly described in the literature, knowledge of this rare entity allows us to make a diagnosis in those patients where the clinical assessment is normal but the bleeding episodes do not improve. At the same time, tears of blood may represent an alarming clinical sign that warns us about life-threatening situations that may be treatable, as occurred in the case presented.
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