OCD returned with a vengeance tonight

[Guest guest]

Hi to all, and HAPPY New Year!!!

It's been a while since I posted. I guess I was superstitious if I

posted about how well my daughter was doing, that our luck would

change. Our dd has been doing great for many months now, but our

new year didn't start out so great...It's been such a long time that

OCD reared its ugly head, that I was caught completely off guard,

and here it is 1:35 in the morning and I am just so sad and worried.

My 10 year old daughter with PANDAS (diagnosed last Spring) has been

doing great since September. She hasn't been able to tolerate

SSRI's (currently taking only 1-2 mg of Zoloft).

She had been seeing a Psychologist weekly for ERP therapy up until 3

months ago, but in the last few months, she has refused to do any

work regarding her OCD. We haven't seen the psychologist in the

last month. My daughter begged us not to take her. She said she

wanted December free and she was feeling fine.

Well tonight we went out to a New Year's Eve party, and she was

eating some chicken and somehow she started worrying that she ate a

bone. She couldn't get it out of her head...was worried about

digestion, her circulation, her heart. She felt like she was

choking. (She suffers from intrusive thoughts.) She had an anxiety

attack, and finally fell asleep about 1:00.

We don't see the psychologist until the 10th of January, and I was

wondering if anyone could offer some advice about exposure or

anything I could do to help her. Her thoughts in the past have been

about the devil, suicide, mummies but never about food or eating.

Thank you so much.

nne in Ontario

[Guest guest]

Hi nne,

I'm sorry to hear about this! I don't have any

experience with obtrusive thoughts (at least never

severe enought that I recognized them as OCD and they

always went away). So my ideas here may not be the

most helpful. I'm sure soneone else here will have

much more experience and knowlege with this.

Anyhow, the only thing I can suggest is that you have

her think about these thoughts them while practicing

deep breathing exercises (breath deeply in through the

nose, into the stomach, and then out through the

mouth). Have her do this until she feels completely

calm while thinking of them (however long this takes).

You could even have her try writing about it so she's

completely focused on the thoughts. Deep breathing

exercises should be done every day, multiple times per

day to help make relaxation techniques automatic.

Tess

>

> We don't see the psychologist until the 10th of

> January, and I was

> wondering if anyone could offer some advice about

> exposure or

> anything I could do to help her. Her thoughts in

> the past have been

> about the devil, suicide, mummies but never about

> food or eating.

> Thank you so much.

>

> nne in Ontario

>

>

>

>

__________________________________________

DSL – Something to write home about.

Just $16.99/mo. or less.

dsl.