Signs and Symptoms
Pica is the eating of substances with no significant nutritive value such as earth or ice. Subtypes are characterized by the substance eaten for example:
- Amylophagia (consumption of starch)
- Coprophagy (consumption of feces)
- Geomelophagia (consumption of raw potatoes)
- Geophagy (consumption of soil, clay, or chalk)
- Hyalophagia (consumption of glass)
- Consumption of dust or sand has been reported among iron-deficient patients.
- Lithophagia (a subset of geophagia, consumption of pebbles or rocks)
- Mucophagia (consumption of mucus)
- Odowa (soft stones eaten by pregnant women in Kenya)
- Consumption of paint.
- Pagophagia (pathological consumption of ice)
- Self-cannibalism (rare condition where body parts may be consumed; see also Lesch-Nyhan syndrome)
- Trichophagia (consumption of hair or wool)
- Urophagia (consumption of urine)
- Xylophagia (consumption of wood or paper)
This pattern of eating should last at least one month to fit the diagnosis of pica.
Read more about this topic: Pica (disorder)
Famous quotes containing the words signs and, signs and/or symptoms:
“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)