Paxil, Celexa, Prozac for OCD

[Guest jujubean146]

I recently began taking medsfor OCD & am wondering if anyone can tell me about the resultsof taking Prozac for OCD,did it reduce symptoms of OCD, even midly? Does nayone have advice aboutalternates to taking medication?!?!?

[Guest Tracy]

jujubee,

 

I've been on a combination of Prozac and buspar for about 3 years now. The buspar is just about worthless for anything except making me feel groggy but the prozac has relieved my ocd symptoms. I'm on 20-30 mg a day. My doctor started me on the lowest therapeutic dose and we worked up from there. No need to take more if less does the trick.

 

I'm also finding out that medication alone doesn't offer many ocd'ers the answer. Very few of us have success in treatment with meds alone (one statistic I saw suggested as few as 20%). I'm currently checking into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which sounds like it's a b*tch to go through but the side effects of the prozac over the long-term have really started getting to me (weight gain and crushed libido...no fun for a committed relationship).

 

I have a standing appointment with my OB/GYN to test DHEA/cortisol levels. I've heard that if my DHEA levels are low cortisol levels are probably high and an imbalance between them can contribute to anxiety, depression, etc. If they are imbalanced then my doc might be able to put me on a DHEA supplement to normalize them.

 

The supplement seems to have helped people with their sexual side-effects. I didn't want to just start taking the DHEA without the test. Because if my DHEA levels are normal and I add to them with a supplement then the side-effects are reported to be pretty nasty.

 

Barring that, I'm asking her to put me on Intrinsa (testosterone patch) if my testosterone levels test too low. Of course, I have to wait until Proctor and Gamble get FDA approval but they're predicting late 2004 early 2005. I'm finding that SSRI's are notorious for sexual side-effects.

 

I'm also looking into Inositol as an alternative to prozac. The research of the research I've done suggests that it might help with OCD almost as effectively as an SSRI. The dosages I've seen talked about are 18 grams of the stuff building up to the dosage at a 1/2 a gram a week.

 

But like most supplements, no pharma mega-corporation is going to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars for clinical trials if they can't patent the product. Since Inositol is a B-vitamin, I don't think I'd hold my breath for thorough research. Being as B-vitamins tend to be pretty safe, I'm willing to take the risk though :-)

 

I also recently started gearing down on my caffeine intake (all caffeine...coffee and decaf, tea, soda, etc.) It's helped a lot with my anxiety levels and I'm sleeping much better than I have in a long time. Caffeine also kills B-vitamins (Inositol is a B-vitamin) so if I'm going to try to switch to Inositol I really have to get caffeine out of the picture. Besides that, it's been suggested that caffeine can thin the mylein sheath and increase the levels of epenephrine (adrenal system) in your body. Not good for an anxiety disorder.

 

Hope that helps,

Tracy