New here, advice on OCD: Hi all, I have recently... - OCD Support

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New here, advice on OCD

7 years ago•8 Replies

Hi all,

I have recently been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive personality disorder and along with talk therapy I also take medication.Currently I am on 30mg Remeron and 150mg Luvox. My doctor has advised that it will take several months to see a positive effect but since I haven't had a major improvement in the past 6 months I am soon replacing Luvox with Clomipramine . There are days that i feel almost 'normal' like my old self but the are other days too where I feel helpless and panicky with my obsessive thoughts ( about anything from getting older and being alone to not wanting to have sex and thus that makes me a freak etc) on full force. I do mental checking almost constantly and when I get myself not thinking about these things I automatically put them in my head again. I was hoping that therapy and medication would at least make things much smoother but so far I haven’t seen a big improvement. From your own experience how long does it take to see a positive effect once you have been diagnosed with OCD? What medication is best to treat it? Will clomipramine help or will I be like that for ever?

Thanks for reading this

Pete

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8 Replies

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--Amy--7 years ago

Hi Pete sorry to hear you suffer from this I have pure o ocd and I was put on chlomiprimane and it really did seem to help me stop panicking but the sweating I got from it was just to much I would litteraly be drenched but lots of people take it and don't suffer this side effect it's worth ago. Keep on with CBT if you can there's no quick fix for us which is frustrating but keep doing what your doing every day we get through is a step in the right direction wether we believe it or not x

Pete6• in reply to--Amy--7 years ago

Hi Amy, thanks for your response. How long have you been suffering with pure o? What medication are you on? You are right, there is no quick fix but when you have good days and then all of a sudden you go downhill again its very easy to feel depressed and helpless. Hope that clomipramine will make things easier xx

Aromley_• in reply toPete67 years ago

I got diagnosed back in April, I fell into a major depression along with it, and had a lot of panic attacks during the summer, it gets better though. It’s hard to say when exactly it gets 100% better, but I believe we all have the potential to overcome it with the right strategies. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and exposure response prevention (erp) therapy are said to supposedly do the trick but from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty scary to do but it works. I don’t know too much about medication but I think they work just as well. Hang in there.

--Amy--• in reply toPete67 years ago

I have been suffering with pure o for 15 months now, I now take citelopram 20mg at night it works much better for me on a night time, but took several bad experiences with medication after having to stop taking chlomiprimane which did help alot with my mood xx hope you have had a good day xx

Sallyskins7 years ago

Clomipramine is a good one, though it isn't often prescribed now. It is one of the older tricyclic medications and on the whole SSRIs are the ones prescribed now. I took clomipramine for many years and it helped enormously, although I felt a bit dopey on it.

Give the clomipramine a few weeks to work. I remember feeling like my head was stuffed with cotton wool for the first few weeks, then it was as though a cloud had lifted. I'm not sure what you mean by 'talking therapies' but CBT is the normally recognized one for OCD. I've heard of OCD personality disorder but don't know much about it. It does help to have medication in conjunction with CBT for the best results.

Pete6• in reply toSallyskins7 years ago

I did some research on what medication is good for ocd and anafranil (clomipramine) was among the best. Since fluvoxamine didnt work for me I asked my doctor if we can try clomipramine. I will be starting soon as I first need to taper off fluvoxamine. I know that CBT is considered the best option and my doctor has suggested it but at the moment I cant afford it so I go every 2 to 3 weeks for talk therapy. I think it is helping me even though it is still very early days. The medication in conjunction with the therapy I am getting, I hope will help to lift this cloud that I have on my head and at least help a bit with the 'thoughts' I get constantly. I read somewhere that OCD has ups and downs and when I am up I feel very optimistic that I will get over it but when I am down (as it is the last few days) I feel panicky, overwhelmed and as a response to that I check health forums etc to get some sort of relief. Will hang in there and hope that at some point this will be over! Thanks for your response,

Sallyskins• in reply toPete67 years ago

Do try and get some self help books. I can suggest Overcoming OCD, which can also be downloaded in part on the internet. It is considered a standard, and it uses CBT techniques. I have found it helpful to me. There are some others, such as Mind over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine A Padesky which aren't for OCD in particular, but do help as well.

Can I ask where you are based? It sounds as though you can't get free treatment, which is a pity. But self-help books can enable you to use CBT techniques on your own.

It is possible to function even with OCD! It's a fluctuating condition, so expect to have ups and downs, It can feel overwhelming, but then you have good spells as well where it hardly affects you. Clomipramine is good, and I hope it works for you.

Pete6• in reply toSallyskins7 years ago

I used to live in the UK but recently moved overseas where free treatment does not exist! I will have a look at the self help books you suggested and hope they will be helpful to me too. Thank you.

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