Wernicke's encephalopathy in a non-alcoholic patient. About a case

Wernicke's encephalopathy is an acute and reversible neurological disorder due to thiamine deficiency. Chronic alcoholism was its cause in the past. Currently, there are many other conditions which favor this condition: prolonged intravenous feeding, hyperemesis gravidarum, anorexia nervosa, regional enteritis, malabsorption syndrome, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, abdominal surgery and excessive vomiting. This last cause precisely led to the appearance of this pathology in a 31-year-old patient who went to the Provincial Hospital of Cienfuegos due to having repeated vomitings for more than a month, weight loss and abdominal pain, reason for which had a surgery where jejunal plastron secondary to microperforation was found.After recovery, she is admitted again 11 days later with ataxia, deviation of the right eye towards the nasal angle due to paralysis of the VI cranial nerve and mental confusion. Initially a Guillain Barré Syndrome is suspected but when performing a Skull Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, the presence of hypointense lesions leads to the diagnosis of Wernicke’s Encephalopathy