Before the hospitalization

On Thursday I had an appointment with my psychiatrist.  He's a good guy and makes me feel better just talking with him.  Mark came in with me this time.  I wanted Mark to know more about OCD than I could explain.

Doctor Michael explained that it was perfectly "normal" for my OCD symptoms to have become more pronounced over the past few months, with everything that had been going on with Baby Girl and court and her leaving.  He would have been shocked had I NOT shown more symptoms as of late.  He also explained that although OCD is looked at as a bad affliction, there are SOME good traits to have associated with OCD.  My house is clean.  My life is relatively organized.  My parenting skills are sharp.

I brought with me my blog entitled "I'm quirky".  He admitted he had not had a patient with a grease phobia before.  However, his thought is that it's not a horrible phobia to have, as grease is not healthy anyway!

I had been researching and remembering that I had been on Trazodone in the past.  We discussed at my appointment and Doctor Michael thought it would be a good idea to try it again, especially since I have been having troubles getting to sleep and Trazodone helps with insomnia.  And so I took my first Trazodone last night in the hospital.  It can take up to ten weeks to take full affect, so we'll see.  Here's some information I have found in researching:

Dr. Shila Mathew, M.D., a board certified psychiatrist and cofounder and Medical Director of holisticonline.com, stated that the first-line treatments for OCD is antidepressants, especially SSRIs. However, these often give severe side effects to the patients. These may include sleeplessness (insomnia), sexual dysfunction, nausea, weight gain, etc. When the patents are given SSRI and trazadone, it was more effective and the patients' side effects, especially insomnia, improved.

Dr. Mathew said that there is considerable evidence that trazodone may have antiobsessive properties. In one early investigation, trazodone reduced the obsessive symptoms in a single patient by 40% and that the improvement lasted for 5 months. Another study showed that six of 10 patients with OCD improved significantly after 10 weeks of treatment with trazodone. In another study, eight of 10 OCD patients showed an improvement with trazodone.

Trazodone appears to be particularly effective in reducing the side effects produced by SSRIs, such as nausea, gastrointestinal distress, anxiety, sleep disturbances, weight gain, and sexual dysfunction. Resolution of these symptoms occurred quite rapidly in all SSRI-treated patients in whom trazodone augmentation was added. Trazodone is very tolerable and is useful addition to long-term therapy with an SSRI, such as is commonly necessary for OCD patients.

My hope is that the new medicine helps with my OCD.  I think just talking with my psychiatrist will help as well.  He's not a total believer in cognitive therapy for patients with OCD.  He does believe that the research is correct in that patients with OCD  seem to be highly intelligent!  I liked that part!!