A Case of Small Bowel Strangulation Caused by Meckel’s Diverticulum in a Patient with a Mental Disorder

Abstract

Patients with mental disorders cannot always explain their somatic symptoms adequately. In addition, some somatic diseases may be overlooked in patients receiving antipsychotic medications because such medications can obscure somatic symptoms. On the contrary, patients with mental disorders sometimes describe only somatic symptoms instead of mental symptoms even when they are not suffering from a somatic disease. Therefore, when patients with mental disorders complain of abdominal pain, we should examine the symptoms, regardless of the cause being a mental disorder or a physical illness. Here we report the case of a patient with a mental disorder who complained of abdominal pain that was eventually shown to be caused by strangulated bowel obstruction due to Meckelʼs diverticulum.