Brain Surgey

[Friend8394]

Has anyone had brain surgery for their OCD or know anyone who has? Has it relieved you of obsessions /compulsions? I’m medication resistant and my OCD is really severe, I want to have brain surgery if I learn that it’s successful getting rid of OCD

[BlackOnyx]

Can OCD be treated with brain surgery?

[Friend8394 in reply to BlackOnyx]

Here’s a video about it.. there are more on YouTube

youtu.be/CUMgEz9YBi0(Not working as expected?)

[BlackOnyx in reply to Friend8394]

Interesting.

[DeathtoOCD in reply to BlackOnyx]

Yeah, they can put a device to try and block the brain signals, and I am sure their are other things as well.

[BlackOnyx in reply to DeathtoOCD]

Oh I wonder how often the surgery is done.

[DeathtoOCD in reply to BlackOnyx]

Not sure. I do know that they only offer it to people with extreme OCD, it's like around 10-20% of the population struggles with OCD, of those people it's like a 10th of those, so like 1% of the population. In order to even be considered you have to have gone through like 5 years of therapy and ERP without success. Probably something like a few hundred or thousand a year.

[BlackOnyx in reply to DeathtoOCD]

Oh thats interesting to know. 5 years! Wow!

[dutchgirl71]

I looked into brain surgery many years ago. I was not severe enough for the procedure first of all. Second of all I was not approved because, although I felt like I was treatment resistant, the reality was that I did not really participate fully in ERP. I thought I did, but then realized that even the slightest checking/washing/avoiding compulsion interrupted the full ERP experience. So, in reality, I never completed the exposure properly and that's why it didn't work. They are really hesitant to fiddle with your brain unless it is truly a last resort. It may be worth your looking into....even if you are not a candidate then that is an option to cross off you list. It taught me that ERP is really the best way to treat this debilitating disorder. although I still don't participate in ERP correctly as it is still scary for me, (so I am not a "star student". ) this is what the research suggests and my experience with the brain surgery option.

[Hoping_to_Heal]

Hello again: I read this post again and I have heard of DBS, but it seems really, really scary to me, since it's very invasive & involves drilling into the skull and implanting electrodes, and also implanting a battery pack under the skin above the collarbone. I am an *extremely* severe case as well and I want to get a non-invasive type of radiosurgery called Gamma Knife. Google it. It appears to be a quite promising & effective treatment. Medication and therapy have not worked well for me & I have suffered EXTENSIVELY from this disease for 17 years now and cannot function, so I may be a candidate at this point... If you still have my email address, you can contact me if you want to talk more.