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Hi and welcome - Kathy R. already wrote a wonderful response to your post,

but I wanted to chime in with some of my own comments.

> My daughter just turned 8. She has always been a handfull. A few

> years ago we really started having problems with compulsive issues.

> We went to a therapist who basically made it seem like all of our

> issues were because I am a working parent and my husband and I

> didn't know how to properly discipline.

Our psychologists were not quite this bad, they just said our ds was

" terrified " and needed to come see them about 2-4 times a week for many

months to resolve this fear of unknown origin. Can you say $$$$? (and

useless!)

> Many of her issues revolved around the bathroom. She refused to learn how

to wipe herself......Other times

> she would go to the bathroom every 5 minutes to pee.

We had exactly these two issues at various times between ages 3-6. The

having to pee compulsion then changed into " is my underwear clean? " , with

5-10 underwear changes per day.

My ds doesn't really qualify for PANDAS, as far as we can tell, since even

as an infant he had " issues " with socks on/off....but he still has had the

classic PANDAS pee compulsion. Maybe he just had strep as a very young

child?

> Things seemed to get better for awhile. Then it got bad again.

This is one of the most frustrating things, imo. Makes it so difficult to

diagnose. And it makes it difficult to write an IEP, too :-/

> She was having terrible tantrums. She also said she wished she was dead.

Yep, been there, seen that. Not what you expect in an 8 year old.

> At first she diagnosed my daughter with OCD. We even went on Prosac but

stayed at a very low dose.

What dose? My ds had no relief at all until we hit 15 mg per day. He's on

20 mg now, and I'm not sure it is working as well as it did.

> But now the doctor isn't sure she has OCD because she can't determine the

reason my daughter believes she does what she does. The doctor says usually

if the child obsesses on something there is a reason they believe they have

to do something or something bad will happen.

This is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Obviously this dr. knows little to nothing

about OCD if she is looking for a " reason " for specific obsessions.

> Sorry to make this so long but I am hoping someone out there has

experienced some of the same issues. We don't know if we are dealing with

OCD or Oppositional Defiance Disorder (everything is a struggle) or a little

of both.

You may get a better idea if ODD is an issue if you can get the OCD under

control. I think a lot of cases of ODD turn out to be undiagnosed problems

like Tourette's/ADHD/OCD.

take care, Sandy D. from Michigan (and hello to the new Sandy here - I'm

glad things are looking up for you, I meant to message the other day but got

too overwhelmed here)

Finally, one last note to those considering fish oil supplements - I know

some people have found that it made them hyper or a bit manic - or it made

OCD worse. There is a lot about it on the TS boards on BrainTalk.com, if

you want to research it a bit more. We did try it before we went on regular

meds., with little effect. I have to say, though, that the fish oil

capsules are disgusting. You can taste it when you swallow it and you may

get frequent " fish burps " hours later. :-O After the first one, we

couldn't force it down my son....but he did take the Coromega without

complaint. We found it fairly cheap online (huge variation in prices, just

like with inositol).