[George H]

Can somebody please explain to me how the medicines for people who have OCD help the actual person? I am sure there is some science to this with the brain and chemical balances. I can understand how a cough drop allieviates a sore throat, but how does an OCD med rid the mind of obsessive thoughts?How does the person feel after taking the meds? Does he/she feel as if he/she did not have those negative thoughts before? Does he or she feel confident that the brain won't have those negative thoughts come back?

it slows the production of the neurochemical norepinephrine, the chemical that causes anxiety and ocd related behaviors. it usually takes a month 4 the meds to kick in and then the patient may still have the thoughts but not the anxious urge to act out the rituals and"tics". the thoughts seem 2 just become a fleeting thing in the back of their mind and there's no""oh, i have to do this action"feeling anymore. luvox helps some people, but not others.

[EmilyRose]

OCD is considered an anxiety disorder. The person performs rituals due in large part to an overwhelming fear that something bad will happen if they don't do them. That's anxiety. Obsessive thoughts are also related to anxiety, like how if you're really worried about something you can't stop thinking about it, only with OCD it happens a lot more than normal to the point where it interfers with daily life. The point is that even though most of the symptoms are not things that people normally associate with being anxious or nervous, the underlying cause of the behaviors is essentially a form of anxiety, so the disorder responds to many of the same medications used to treat other anxiety disorders.The mechanisms by which certain medications relieve symptoms of anxiety are not fully understood, but the basic idea with treating OCD is to treat the anxiety that produces the obsessions and compulsions. With successful treatment, a person with OCD would experience a significant reduction in the feeling that the'need'to do something (which produces the typical compulsive behaviors) and would experience fewer intrusive and repeative thoughts (i.e. obsessions). Ideally these symptoms would be eliminated entirely, but most patients would likely still experience some symptoms, just not as much.In addition to medication, treatment for OCD should include some form of cognitive or behavioral therapy (i.e. talking to a shrink). The goal of that is for the patient to learn ways to better deal with or control obsessions and compulsions, and reduce their impact on daily life. Since it's unlikely that any medical will completely relieve all the symptoms, figuring out how to manage the symptoms through other means is also important for a successful treatment outcome.