What NON abx drugs have you tried-success? or no?

[Megs_Mom]

Again, so this post is not taken out of context - this is a tool which if well practiced can help your child keep from spiraling out of control - maybe not in the worst of an episode, but for many kids. And it really worked to reduce the impact of OCD even when we were untreated. But I would not recommend this for a PANDAS child without medical treatment as well. I found that when we added the abx, the ERP work went SO much faster and so much more easily. I don't want another episode, but we will immediately go to increased antibiotics & likely steroids in the hopes of keeping an episode down to a week or two instead of months.

Thanks so much for taking the time to type it all down! We have done some CBT following a book for grown ups, but we'll definitely get the books you recommend, and start working on it again. Dr. Latimer said it doesn't really work, but I think she meant it doesn't really work BY ITSELF. I know a lot of what I see are very hard set habits by now. We are starting new abxs and steroids tomorrow. I will give it a week and then slowing start picking apart the monster! I am so hoping this will work!

If you ever need to brainstorm ideas for a specific compulsion, just let me know. I had a good therapist to help us come up with creative ways to approach it, and that really helped. I also went back to pediatric game ideas, and talked to a kindergarden teacher about ideas - often for a much younger child & then incorporated the ERP into the game. So for example, one of Meg's huge fears was putting her hand over her heart (she thought this meant that she was wishing for something bad to happen - nice at a basketball game during the pledge....everyone staring, like "why doesn't that mom get her kid to behave!"). So we'd play the card game war, and if she lost a war, then she had to put her hand over her heart for 20 seconds. Then we'd go back to playing the game. If I lost a war, then I'd have to do something equally hard for me, like do a cartwheel (not attractive, let me tell you,; I am 40 and could not do a cartwheel at 18!). The game helped the ERP go down - kind of like the "spoonful of sugar". We did this with monopoly, card games, hand clapping games, finger war, etc.