Hi
My son has been taking SSRI inhibitors-OCD medication for more than a decade now. The problem is that it completely drains him of energy, motivation and makes him sleepy and severely lethargic all the time. If he tries to get off the medication, the Ocd thoughts come back, stronger and more debilitating
Is there any way out of our nightmare? Has anyone faced the same problem and come out of it ?
Thanks for your support
My 30 year old son came off his SSRI too quickly and that's when his OCD started. I've learned a lot since then about coming off SSRI's. My son's doctor had him go from 40mg down to 0 in only 7 weeks, and that was what caused his problems. Unfortunately, most doctors are not knowledgeable about how to get their patients off SSRI's. There is a website that is very helpful called "Surviving Antidepressants" and members are very knowledgeable. Basically, the key to successfully coming off is to wean very, very slowly and gradually. When you get to the site, look up Brass Monkey's weaning technique. My son had to go back on his SSRI to get the intrusive thoughts to go away. He will begin weaning again soon and will lower his dosage only 5% every month. After each drop, if the symptoms start to come back he will hold that that dose even more than a month, and then only drop another 5% when the symptoms subside. Best wishes to you and your son.
I'm sorry to hear about your son Helpgod7 . I'd like to share with you about my experience in case this helps in any way as I voluntarily decided to stop taking my psychiatric medication last year.
I chose to come off my SSRI meds because I decided to do LENS therapy (low energy neurofeedback) and it works better when not taking SSRIs since the natural neural pathways are more accessible this way and the brain can give an accurate view of it's functioning level and flexibility. LENS can help with many things (anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD and many other issues) but it brings trauma out of suppression and this can be an extremely challenging experience to face. The purpose of LENS is to create new neural pathways by relieving brain gridlock and maladaptive behavioral patterns. By bringing trauma out of suppression, a person can handle their issues more directly because they're out in the open as opposed to hiding in the brain. Also, with the process of LENS itself, the brain often does its own rewiring. It's as if a mirror is held up to the brain, it views its current pattern and changes it towards new ways of functioning.
While I have improved so much with my depression systems, have so much clarity and insight on my issues which leads to strong decision making and more effective problem solving and am more motivated with self care and life goals, my OCD intensified while doing LENS. I think I progressed too intensively too quickly. I wanted to do the LENS treatment in 4 months though, since I had to travel for a while after that period. I did LENS treatment 2x/week and progressed to an intense level and had to cut back the intensity as my OCD intensified and I had both anxiety attacks and 1 severe panic attack during the time period I underwent LENS. I think had I taken a longer time and only went 1x/week my system would have been able to tolerate LENS better and that maybe my OCD would have been more independently manageable.
I don't regret LENS and am grateful for it in many ways. With greater appreciation of my life with LENS treatment, depression has drastically reduced and I'm able to follow a more healthy routine and lifestyle. I just have to now face that OCD is more intense than it was before as a result most likely of advancing to intensely too quickly with the treatment.
I tried working with my therapist on OCD treatment but she is helping me a lot with cPTSD from other issues so I often felt like there wasn't enough time in our sessions to work on OCD. So I did some research and came across nOCD. I now have an OCD-specific therapist that I'm working with. We just started treatment shortly before I started traveling so I'm only in the beginning of my treatment. I will continue end of this month. nOCD uses ERP (exposure and response prevention) to help clients with OCD. It's a challenging process but nOCD has had a lot of success in helping clients alleviate their OCD symptoms. Also, nOCD has advocates to support clients (the advocates also have OCD and have undergone ERP), an app and community chat to help also.
Perhaps you can explore alternatives to SSRIs as there are options out there. While I personally have my own journey, I would just encourage you to do your own research in order to decide which treatment is best for your son.
Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I agree that there are lots of options out there but we have to find that something that will work.
Thanks so much and take care
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