Teen Bedridden After Doctors Misdiagnose Rare Condition With Eating Disorder

A 19-year-old girl is in a critical condition and bedridden in a hospital after doctors allegedly misdiagnosed her rare condition for an eating disorder.

Caitlin White from Perth, Scotland, is suffering from a rare condition called cyclical vomiting syndrome and severe gastroparesis. White’s stomach cannot empty by itself and hence she ends up vomiting at least 30 times a day, according to reports. She started vomiting constantly at the age of 14.

Doctors, however, diagnosed her with an eating disorder. She was also made to undergo nine psychological assessments despite her saying the weight loss was not intentional.

Her family is now asking other doctors to find out a solution to White’s disorder.

“I went to my local GP in January 2014 with acid reflux and I was put on anti-sickness tablets but didn’t work. I’d always had problems digesting but it seemed to just sort itself out each time. I was a sickly child, but we thought that was just the way I was – a stomach bug that wouldn’t go away. Yet my weight was dropping rapidly, and I started vomiting black,” White said, Yahoo 7 reported.

White was told by doctors that the pain was "all in her head" and that she had to undergo nine psychological assessments.

“I physically couldn’t eat – nothing was staying down, and I was in agony. A consultant used the words phantom pain – but I knew it was very real,” she said.

She tried having nutrients after her body started rejecting attempts at putting in feeding lines.

Despite her efforts, the staff at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, kept sending her for evaluation with notes saying she purposely refused to eat. She was later discharged from the hospital but, her health started deteriorating.

She has frequent sepsis, severe hair loss and critically low potassium levels because of which she might end up with no teeth.

White's mother, Pamela Gillespie, said, “We were devastated when Caitlin’s hair fell out. But doctors didn’t even believe that. A family member had been through chemotherapy, and a doctor went as far as to say that Caitlin has pulled her own hair out, in an attempt to mimic her. The constant vomiting, and literally watching my daughter starve – it’s been horrendous. She has to fight to be believed, before she even has a chance at recovering. The longer this goes on, the sicker she is going to get.”

The teenager is now bedridden at Perth Royal Infirmary hospital and her family is not sure about her future.

“I can go through over 300 sick bowls a week. I can’t go out with family, with friends. Life is impossible. The condition feels embarrassing, humiliating. My entire life has been left in limbo,” White said.