![\"laundry\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/discoblog\/files\/2010\/05\/laundry.gif\" "\\"laundry\\"")
They change their clothes frequently. They shower repeatedly, sometimes using a whole bar of soap in one go. Some even swallow perfume.<\/p>\nThey change their clothes frequently. They shower repeatedly, sometimes using a whole bar of soap in one go. Some even swallow perfume.<\/p>\n
They think they smell bad, but they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Olfactory reference syndrome is a rare psychiatric disorder, but it can lead to isolation, depression, and suicide. It’s also a little-noticed, little-studied syndrome. But now a study<\/a> to appear in Depression and Anxiety<\/em> has looked at twenty sufferers and reviewed current literature on the disorder to determine its general characteristics.<\/p>\n Psychiatrists have known about the disorder’s symptoms for over a century, but treatment and diagnosis are difficult, in part because the syndrome doesn’t currently have its own classification<\/a> in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders <\/em>(DSM)–the handbook of mental health professionals. The manual combines the syndrome with other disorders, such as social phobia, delusional disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The new study gives recommendations for updating the next version of the manual, and suggests adding this disorder to an appendix of conditions that need further research.<\/p>\n <\/span>As reported<\/a> by HealthDay News, <\/em>nineteen of the study’s twenty volunteers exhibited at least one compulsive behavior, like repeated self-sniffing or showering. On average, they spent eight hours a day thinking about their smell. Fearing social interactions, forty percent had been housebound for over a week.<\/p>\n Many patients thought the smell came from their mouth, but they were also concerned with their armpits, genitalia, anus, feet, and skin, according to a MedPage Today article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Katharine Phillips, a coauthor of the study and a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, presented these and other findings on Tuesday at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting<\/a><\/span>. She told<\/a> Reuters Health:<\/p>\n “I think it’s a very secret and hidden disorder, because these patients tend to be very ashamed of themselves…. I have been so struck by the intense suffering that the patients experience.”<\/span><\/p>\n Related content: Image: flickr \/ mysza831<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n They change their clothes frequently. They shower repeatedly, sometimes using a whole bar of soap in one go. Some even swallow perfume. They think they smell bad, but they don\u2019t. Olfactory reference syndrome is a rare psychiatric disorder, but it can lead to isolation, depression, and suicide. It’s also a little-noticed, little-studied syndrome. But now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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