OCD- medicine

[Nea54]

hi. I’m about to start on medication in hope that this will help with my ocd. I developed ocd after my first child was born. How long did it take for you before the medicine started to kick in? I hope that someone has found help in using antidepressants.

Just reading this and wanted to say that while you may always have a tendency towards OCD it won't always be as horrific as when you're in a crisis. My daughter was diagnosed with OCD and has ups and downs but she manages well most of the time and is able to rationalise much of what used to completely dominate her life. She's currently in a good place at present but she knows that when she's not she can talk things through with us and, if she wants, go back on the SSRI to calm her mind.

@dunant173 thank you so much for this:) I need to have that hope too, because right now it’s really though and has been it for a while. I don’t have any family to talk to about this because they are tired of it, and my husband can not be with me this way, so it’s really hard.

@IWillAlwaysBeinaClubWithYouin1973 sorry to hear about your daughter, I do hope she is in recovery for a long time rather than active hell.

I was diagnosed 7 years ago, the first 5 were awful with hospitalisations and treatment and trying various meds. It's only since I got on my current antipsychotic (lurasidone) that things have gone quiet in my mind, mostly. I tried aripriprazole and the side effects were horrible, then olanzapine which was great but made me gain a lot of weight, now feel great on lurasidone.

@OP I'm sorry if I made you lose hope, my point was meant to show you the opposite, that we can recover once we learn how to ignore the ocd voice and move towards the rational thoughts instead.

Thank you @NessaSmith that's kind of you to share information. As an aside DD has put on 7 stone in 5 years on those drugs, so now she has that to deal with as well and she doesn't qualify for eating disorder or weight loss treatment.

I think the OP would really benefit from being in a support group she must feel very lonely, I know the OCD Action groups were my lifeline.

@NessaSmith thank you, I hope I will get there one day:) What I find so hard about this is that everything can be dangerous for the baby (OCDvoice) and if I do not listen to that warning and something happens, something can happen to my baby because of me. And this is so awful to think about. Most people who get warnings from their own brain thinks «oh, that was smart», and I have to think «yeah,who knows» and do the opposite. That’s sounds crazy.

@IWillAlwaysBeinaClubWithYouin1973 thank you:) yeah, it’s though to loose everyone around because of this. But I understand them too.

Only just seen this but I can say that 100 mg of sertraline has been a lifesaver for a close family member.
I don’t want to go into too much detail here but his OCD and anxiety was off the wall when he finally sought help. He had reached the stage when he felt life was not worth living. Thankfully his GP went above and beyond and supported him on a daily basis and then on a reducing scale until his wait for CBT was over. There were a couple of unpleasant side effects when he first started on the medication but these soon passed and within 10 days or so he was much calmer in himself.
His OCD was triggered by hearing a word commonly used everyday which caused him to carry out ever more complicated and time consuming rituals to neutralise the effect hearing it had on him. CBT took the form of him having to say, listen and write the word and then keep a diary of how it made him feel each time. Eventually he was able to see for himself the progress he was making. He also joined a local OCD support group and found that it helped being able to talk to people also suffering with this very debilitating disease.
Seeing the life my brother has now several years down the line you would never know how much he suffered, and unless his medication shows that it is doing more harm to him than good it is likely that he will take it forever.

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@Pinkfluffypencilcase my therapist at the moment won't do EMDR with me until I am more stable, but I can't get stable while my OCD is raging. Feel stuck in a loop and paying £140 a week for the privilege! How were you feeling before starting EMDR?

@MsGoodenough I was through the floor tbh. She did spend 3 sessions just mapping out then a session on safe place.

What is your therapists plan for your treatment?

I've been having weekly sessions since September and feel like I'm just going round in circles. She says we're preparing for EMDR but I need to be stable. No timescale put on it. She s a clinical psychologist but I find it quite woo, lots of tapping my hands and putting my anxious/younger self to bed, putting worries in a box and shutting the lid, which just doesn't seem to work for me. I've called a pause because I get so anxious in sessions thinking about the money I'm spending while getting nowhere. But now terrified as I'm left without a therapist. As my OCD is all around decisions having the decision of what to do next is another nightmare!

What does being stable look like to your psychologist? I can see how that is frustrating. I think emdr does feel about woo. Looking at her hands whilst she moves them left to right.

Hi there, sorry to hear you’re going through this op. Medication has been crucial for getting to a place where my ocd is under control. I have been taking meds for about 10 years now and it did take me time to accept that I will probably take them for always, but I honestly now am at a point where I don’t mind that this is the case! I have similar types of thoughts to yours although they are not focussed around one thing. I have also had cbt but honestly without the combination of meds and can’t I don’t think I could have got to a manageable point. I still experience the ocd, but have now been about 7 years without being at crisis point. Also about your earlier question about how long it takes, I would say with me I felt a bit worse for the first week of taking the meds (also had some physical symptoms, headache and so on) which then stopped, then I think from
week 3 onwards I started getting some breathing space thanks to the medication. Best of luck op hang in there, if you do decide to start the meds be gentle with yourself as much as it’s possible to 💐 and remember to take the prescribed dose according to instructions etc and keep
in conversation with your dr etc x

Are you having this privately or nhs @MsGoodenough? Would it be possible to try with a different CP? X

Privately and it's insanely expensive (£140 for 50 minutes). We haven't done any EMDR yet. I've had probably 16 sessions.

Sorry @MsGoodenough just saw you are paying for this. I wonder if it might benefit you to try with a different clinical psychologist? I found I didn’t ‘click’ with one even though they had the credentials etc but another was really very helpful x

I take 30 mg Citalopram and it quietens my mind hugely. Then, I feel so well I forget to take it and go on an OCD spiral which is no fun. When taken correctly, I find this medication incredibly helpful. I still have days where I ruminate but nothing like I did pre-medication. It’s like turning the notch down from 10 to 2. I hope you find the same. It can be life changing.

Urgh it’s so, so much money isn’t it (this world eh 😳) Have you found any help in the sessions so far? I went privately too and ended up having way more sessions than I thought I would (but actual emdr) but it was very helpful.

40mg citalopram daily has helped me greatly with my ocd. If I get tired or stressed I can feel it getting worse but have strategies. I’ve read everything I can about it, listened to podcasts etc. mine is around several things (harm coming to my pets through say a house fire where I’ve left the oven on) but mainly the fear that I might go mad just due to thinking too much about madness/watching a film where someone goes mad etc.

i saw a fab therapist who made me stand up, close my eyes and think as hard as I possibly could that my skin was green. To set my whole mind to desperately trying to turn my skin green. After 30 seconds he told me to open my eyes and of course my skin had not changed to green. He was trying to show me that no matter how much I worried about going mad, my thoughts were just thoughts and couldn’t turn me mad. Hopefully I’ve explained that in a helpful way.

some things I just can’t do, they’re not worth it, e,g, having candles on. I’d banned them in the house for 15 years but tried again this Christmas. I managed it but the stress afterwards was just too much so I’ve decided I’ll cut myself some slack and just not have candles. If we’re going away for a day or longer I’ve found taking pictures of things being switched off (oven/hair straighteners etc) helps. Then If the fear starts I can look at the photos so I know they’re off. This is ‘pandering’ to the ocd a bit but allows me to enjoy the time away and now I hardly ever even look at the photos.

Oh also I’m happy to stay on the citalopram for life. Tried to come off it a couple of times but ended up ill so now I’m just happy that something works.

when you first start medication for ocd it can make it worse for first couple of weeks but keep on going.

@millymae thank you so much for sharing the story with me/us. We need to hear stories that’s gives us hope. Right now I’m with the thought they it’s going to be like this forever, and that medication won’t help for me. So this gives a small hope in this dark time. Again, thank you.

@PeassPlease thank you so much for sharing your story with me, this gives me a little hope now that all feels hopeless. I feel like it’s going to be like this forever and that no medication could help me. It’s really horrible. I’ve tried therapy for so long, CBT and EPR, so I feel like I’m a hopeless case. So thank you for sharing this.

@Mumwork thank you so much for sharing. I’ve thought about that too, will I always need medication. What if they work (right now I don’t believe that anything can get me out of this dark place), and I feel better and some years from now I want to quit, will I be back where I am and stuck with medication forever? That’s just something I think about. I hope I’m lucky that the medication will help me.

@BanditoShipman thank you so much for sharing. I’m so glad that the medication is working for you. I hope I’m as lucky. I feel like everything can be dangerous for my baby, and if I don’t listen to the warning and something happening-it’s all my fault. It exhausting and all the thing that my life is about is «what is dangerous in this situation». I just want to be happy with my lovely family and my sweet little baby.
I’m scared that if I started on medication I will be ill if I try to quit. What if for some reason I have to quit some day, maybe if I in a couple of years feel much better and want another child. I will not take medication while I’m pregnant so that means that I could never be pregnant again.

Hello, I am really sorry to hear you are suffering with OCD. It is such a cruel illness. I joined mumsnet so I could reply to your post and so you know you are not alone. I have OCD and medication has been incredibly helpful for me. When I had my daughter, my OCD went into overdrive and I was extremely unwell. I tried fluoxetine and sertraline first but they didn’t help so I was then prescribed clomipramine. Within about three weeks of taking it, I felt so much better. Although I still have some OCD thoughts they are so much fewer and when I do get them I can move past them (before medication it was like the thought got stuck and just went round and round getting worse and worse). I have continued taking it for the past thirteen years and for me I have made peace with the fact that I will probably need to take it forever. CBT also helped me to gain more insight into OCD and how it works. If the first medication you try doesn’t work, ask for something different. From what I was told, it sometimes can take a few tries of different medication until you find one that works best for you. I hope that you find some relief from your OCD soon.

@JL47 oh that was so kind of you to do, thank you so much! :) and I really need to hear that something can help,because right now it feels so hopeless and that I’m going to be stuck in this forever. Did you do compulsions or did you have intrusive thoughts, or both?:) I feel like this mix is so exhausting and I wonder how a medicine can help me with that:) so they have worked well for you all these years? That sounds amazing :) I will try not to loose hope if the first one doesn’t work.