Tell me about medicating your child for anxiety/cod
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Anonymous
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We're 5 months into therapy, and DD's therapist has suggested we start thinking about medication. How did you decide to medicate your child for OCD/anxiety? What medicine did you use? What were the results?
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Anonymous
| And do you wish you had done it sooner, or do you regret doing it at all? |
Anonymous
| How old? How severe is the OCD? |
Anonymous
| 10. Worse some days than others, but bad enough that I'm not immediately discounting the idea of meds anymore. I'll read anything anyone suggests to get more ideas. |
Anonymous
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We medicating DS first. It didn't work well and the side effects became intolerable. We then did ERP unmedicated and it worked much better.
Is the therapy not working? ERP was tough but we saw improvements pretty quickly. No where near complete improvement--that took a pretty long while-- but better than what we saw with medication, which wasn't much. Others have reported much better success than we had with medication. If I had to do it over again, I would have gone for much longer term antibiotics (Pandas) with ERP and skipped the SSRIs altogether. |
Anonymous
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We medicated at age 9 for GAD/OCD using zoloft. It took awhile to work, but after about 3 months, the difference was extraordinary. She has thanked us numerous times and has shared similar thoughts with her therapist. She still needs weekly therapy, but her life is now manageable and her outlook on life is much more positive.
She has had no side effects. As you can probably tell, we definitely have no regrets though we were definitely hesitant at first. |
Anonymous
| Make sure you rule out PANDAS, it is the cause of my DD's OCD/anxiety. Low dose SSRI has helped her tremendously as well as antibiotics. |
Anonymous
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We medicated my DD at age 8 with zoloft. At first, 25 mg worked (saw a huge difference in a week - HUGE). After a few months, her tremendous anxiety/OCD came back and we bumped up to 50 mgs and again, within a week, a huge difference. (She has not had any side effects.) I kick myself that we didn't do it sooner and am mad that I didn't get better advice from providers we were working with at the time.
When we started medication, she could barely leave the house, often could not attend school, had trouble sleeping, threw colossal rages (didn't realize this was related until after meds) and had persistent thoughts of violence, tragedy or hurting herself. (This happened slowly over time, so looking back, it's hard to pinpoint a time where I should have seen that THIS is when I should have pushed for medication.) She had always been an anxious kid - trouble sleeping, stomachaches at school, separation anxiety, but around age 7, it started becoming much worse. But honestly, zoloft has given us our daughter back. We didn't realize the huge toll it was taking on her and the whole family. We also do weekly CBT with a fantastic provider and I feel like with that solid foundation, we may never get to crisis mode again. Although it can take a little bit of time to find the right dose and right med (although it our case, like I said, we saw results almost immediately) if your DD's life is restricted in any way because of her anxiety, you can always try it. If it doesn't help or there are side effects, it's easy to stop. |
Anonymous
| Age 16 and just started with Lexapro. Decided because he's doing very poorly in school. I wish we had done it earlier because I think it would have improved his life. But he wasn't receptive until things got to the point of terrible and he's old enough that providers want buy in from him. |
Anonymous
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Hi, OP
My daughter went on Prozac at age 13 ( HFA, anxiety and then later OCD) We noticed the change overnight and it was very positive. Now 17 she is only on 20mg but her OCD is getting worse so her doctor and I are observing her for a week before we decide to increase the dosage. Good luck! |
Anonymous
Be skeptical readers -- no SSRI works overnight, and in fact they take 4+ weeks to achieve optimal therapeitic level. |
Anonymous
In theory, yes, but many people report that they do experience changes very quickly. Two psychiatrists have told me that although they generally do take quite a bit of time to build up in the system, for some people there seems to be a quicker response. |
Anonymous
| We started at age 6 for GAD with Prozac. Absolutely life-changing. I hadn't realized just how much my child's anxiety was dominating our whole family. |
Anonymous
| Our DS started Prozac in 3rd grade. He was participating in an NIH research study on anxiety and CBT. After evaluating him, they determined (and we agreed) that CBT alone wasn't sufficient and, through them, he started on the Prozac. As PP noted, it took several weeks before we saw any improvements - but we also didn't see any negative side effects. DS was on it for about 9 months and it made a significant difference. His anxiety was still present but the medication allowed him to control it (and use his CBT techniques) rather than it controlling him. DS is now in 7th grade and has not been on it again. But, I won't hesitate to put him on it again if he has long period of interfering anxiety. |
Anonymous
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Be skeptical readers -- no SSRI works overnight, and in fact they take 4+ weeks to achieve optimal therapeitic level.
[Report Post] I am the person who said my daughter had immediate positive reaction in taking Prozac. I don't understand your post, PP. I was only sharing my experience and wasn't assuming that it would be the same with the OP and their child. Why would someone lie about their experience? Why would you say something that suggests that I have? Please rethink your thoughts about something you know nothing about! |