A rare case with different presentation of specific phobia: Case Report

BACKGROUND: Presentation of different phobia's namely photophobia, thermophobia, ligyrophobia at a time has not been described in extant literature to the best of our knowledge. CASE PRESENTATION: An 51yr old female came to OPD with complaints of fearfulness, nervousness, headache, restlessness since 3months, gradually started having episodes of fearfulness and nervousness when exposed to artificial light, fan air, hot food items such as tea, rice and intolerance to loud sounds of electrical appliances such as mixer grinder, motor and has no disturbance with natural light, wind breeze. During such situations she would feel restless,has headache, fearfulness that something might happen to her. Due to this she started avoiding those circumstances and her symptoms would subside spontaneously after some These symptoms increased in intensity over a period of time, had decreased appetite and developed weakness along with unrestful sleep. On mental status examination she was anxious upon entry and and asked to switch of fan,has increased psychomotor activity and expressed thoughts of fearfulness that something will happen to her and no perception abnormalities. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION: This case highlights different & multiple presentations of specific phobia i.e, photophobia, thermophobia, ligyrophobia at a time and presented to extent of severity that caused her avoiding food,decreased interaction with environment for 3 months and causing severe detioration of her mental condition. This case study suggests that specific phobia with multiple presentations can be a serious debilitating mental condition.