Long Intro with a Question

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the group and just wanted to do a quick intro and ask a

couple quick questions someone may know the answer to. I am a full

time student working on my degree to become a psychologist myself,

but I never really wanted to work with children. I started noticing

OCD symptoms in my son (now six years old) about two years ago. It

was just little things here and there that were a bit odd, but I

decided it was just an age thing and he would grow out of it. A few

months ago my husband and I were just at a complete loss over what to

do. He was suddenly having huge outbursts at school, complete

meltdowns. My son had been to in-school suspension four times in one

month before he even turned six!! We tried everything we could, and

it finally came down to meeting with his teacher every morning and

every day after school, often times with a phone call or two to my

home each day.

About a month ago I decided to research vitamin therapies for anxiety

disorders (I have taken Paxil for six years, although have never had

any formal diagnosis). I found some vitamins that helped relieve

anxiety and helped with focus as well, so we decided to take that

route while we waited for the psychiatric appointment. The vitamins

almost immediately helped him with his sleep and helped quite a bit

with his behavior at school. But his rituals were not helped by the

vitamins at all. So when he was diagnosed two days ago, the doctor

prescribed him 10mg of Prozac, with an appointment in a month to

assess his progress. The doctor wants me to just do home CBT

(cognitive-behavioral therapy) since I am familiar with it, and I

have been able to already work on some of his behaviors to lessen

them. He doesn't want us to relieve him completely of his OCD as the

symptoms he has can help him be successful in the future, but we need

to reduce them so they don't consume his whole day.

My son's thoughts revolve around death and harm to his family. I'm

pregnant with our third child and he is continually asking me if the

baby is okay and if he is going to die (I've never had a miscarriage

and we haven't experienced any loss in our family that he is aware

of). His compulsions include hoarding and collecting " lucky objects "

and he cannot go anywhere without them or something bad will happen

to his family or he will have a bad day. He has a lot of " magical

thinking, " although I'm not sure how much of that is his age as

well. He is also a perfectionist in every sense of the word and has

to have things extremely symmetrical. He does have bouts of

obsessive hand washing, but he says it isn't because of germs. He is

also a picker, he tears and bites at his cuticles (so do I).

Anyway, sorry for such a long introduction. I guess the only

question I have for now is how do those who have young children give

the medication? We have the Prozac capsules so I can pour the

medication into something, but is it okay to put it in his milk in

the morning with his breakfast? The pharmacist said she couldn't

find anything that said it couldn't be mixed with liquid.

I'm looking forward to learning more about how I can help my son and

the rest of our family. And many of the posts I have read have

already been extremely helpful.