We suspect our son may be affected by this, and are in process of finding professional help. I would like to hear from other parents who have faced this problem.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), January 09, 2002

Answers

I am a 71 year old Georgia pharmacist, and have been involved in the OCD therapy of a family's son, some years back. Medication AND counselling are my suggestion from a SPECIALIST in your area. If your loved one is repeatedly doing tasks over and over, get him started, soon. Feel free to write to me direct.

-- Buddy (Buddybud@csranet.com), January 09, 2002.

Shannon, If I'm right OCD is where people wash their hands over and over again or organize the cupboards and all kinds of other things like that. I believe I may have had this problem. I had to have the house clean,clean,clean. Everything had a place and it had to be perfect. When company came over I watched their every move, if they moved something I would get up and put it exactly back where it was. I finally noticing people moving things to see how many seconds it would take me to notice it and move it back to where it was. I never let anyone down. If I went to work and remembered that something was not where it should be I was tough to deal with and could not keep my mind on my job, the thought of what was not in the right place at home haunted me all day. I finally got a wake up call when I ask my brother from Florida to visit and he said "George no one feels comfortable at your house because of what a neat freak you are." He then told me things I didn't realize that I did like watch people eat so as soon as they finished eating I could take their plate and wash it. The things I did were unbelievable. I finally started leaving a couple of things out of place on purpose and wow did it bother me but I kept going letting more and more things get out of order. You should see this house now what a mess but I am more relaxed and it does get a good cleaning if I know company is coming but I know longer clean every moment that I am inside and I now have dust and dirt on the floor and I can go to work with out my bed being made and the magazines can be out of order on the coffee table and the pictures can hang a little lop sided on the wall and the blankets don't have to hang at equal lenghts on both sides of the be and if I see dust falling in front of a window I no longer try to catch it. I guess you get the point. Get your son help if you believe you need to, he'll be better off. Good Luck!

-- george (bngcrview@aol.com), January 09, 2002.

I have had some foster kids in my house with this problem and the county had them medicated. I do not agree with that philosophy in all cases and one of the kids asked to stop taking his pills. I let him stop 2 years ago, kept him in my house for a year and just saw him a few weeks ago...he has learned how to compensate and is a much happier kid then he was when he was all drugged up when I first got him.

The social worker on the case chewed me out for stopping the drugs without a doctor's okay.

Does a drunk ask a bartender if he should stop drinking??? I have a problem with the medical folks being willing to medicate the heck out of kids who are too young to know the difference and don't wake up until they are 18..next stop prison....

-- Gary from MN (hpysheep@midwestinfo.com), January 09, 2002.

Shannon - I would suggest you check out the www.ldonline.org site and do a search. I use this site a lot for info on my son's learning disability problems. OCD info can also be found by doing a general web search - I use Dogpile search engine. Counseling and behavior modification techniques are usually pretty successful - this disorder has a lot more to it than just "compulsive" behavior such a repeated hand washing. Good luck and do your own research so you can "talk the talk" when you consult with specialists! The more you learn, the better you will be able to help you son.

-- Daisy (shaferd@msn.com), January 10, 2002.

A school shrink wanted to put my 7 year old kid on drugs for OCD because he was "obsessed" with dragons and would "compulsivly" steer all conversations to dragons. Quack.

I had a friend with OCD many years ago. He told me that he couldn't help counting things. He said that his OCD was mild. He said he had a brother-in-law with it that was much worse. And my friend accidentally made it worse by making the joke "you just never know how good you're sleeping unless something wakes you up in the middle of the night." Now his b-i-l sets his alarms to go off in an hour, he wakes up, resets the alarm for the next hour and goes back to sleep.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), January 10, 2002.

I saw on a news show a while back (few years, it was I think on 20/20-- one of those type news shows, anyway, might try to see if they have it in their archives) and a doctor was having success with retraining the thought patterns to break them of the habit. If you're thinking you HAVE to do this, do that instead seemed to be the message. No drugs. Hope this helps.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 10, 2002.

Did he have strep throat a lot as a kid? They say that there are some illnesses (Staph and strep) can trigger OCD when the kid has reoccuring bouts of the sickness. Had lots when I was younger and definately showed signs of OCD. Still do, although mild enough that I can control it if I'm not too stressed out. I tend to obsessively pick at wounds, and am obsessed with symmetry. I can spend way too long trying to draw my lipline in exactly straight (if I'm putting on my work face) and so on, but I figure that it's easier to just let it ride on things that don't negatively affect my quality of life than to suppress something harmless and have it balloon out somewhere else more destructive. You could try something like that with your son. See if he can focus his energies on something harmless. If he can, than he may be able to just contol it that way. Even if it is disturbing enough to treat, if he's focussed on someting harmless, than there's less to worry about while you attempt different treatments.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Shannon-I was diagnosed with OCD 3 years ago, and have been on meds since...they help some, but not a lot, and my doctor has switched my meds 3 times! I am better than I was, but am also looking for some way to get off the meds runaround, and put this behind me! Not to mention, the meds have lots of side-effects, some of them are rather bad at times. Please look into other things besides just medicating him...you might be glad you did! I'm not a child, mind you, but they say this condition is something you have on and off your entire life.

-- Joe (threearrs@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Hi You may be able to find answers through Nathhan news magazine. They publish a magazine for special needs children and have a great forum. Their web site is http://www.NATHHAN.com You will probably find other parents with the same problem. Did you do vaccines? A lot of the behavior problems parents have today are a result of vaccine injury. You might want to contact National Vaccine Information Center in Va. Or you may want to contact the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Pa. They deal with a large assortment of problems including down syndrome and brain injury.

-- joan roberts (bookactivist@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

I too battle with a mild form of this disorder which I might add was never diagnosed in me as a child. Although I am not as compulsive as I was as a child I still do a few things that people notice.

My drink must be set exactly center of the coaster, the remote must be set center of the chair arm or a certain point from the end of the table, I check the front door over and over to make sure it is locked, I check the setting on the thermostat over and over to be sure I set it where I wanted. I check that the dogs gate is up, the clock is set, picture frames must be in the exact spot, silverware at my place setting is "just so", things like that.

But my cupboards are not arranged in a perfect order (at all!!!), I am not a compulsive cleaner and I do not arrange things others are using (such as a drink glass).

I used to find myself having to "touch" something as I passed it, each and every time I went by the object. If I had to tap it three times as I passed, then I tapped it three times EVERY time I passed it. I no longer feel that urge. I used to count spaces between words in sentences that I saw. Not so that it interfered with reading . . . . not at all. Just if something was written on the chalk board or bulletin board at school I would find myself counting spaces backwards and forwards on the sentence. I just thought it was ME and not something that was a disorder or had a "name", etc. Of course, . . . back then there weren't the "names" for disorders like there are now.

But I cannot say if in your case it would be serious enough to warrant a professional visit to get it looked into or not. I never did and I do just fine. In fact, no-one has ever commented on it . . . it is just a "personality quirk" I have that hubby and daughter and family have seen all my life and NEVER remarked upon it. EVER.

-- wolfie (wolfiequinn@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Aren't we all a little obsessive about certain things? I know that I can be, especially when under a lot of stress. What about thumbsucking and cigarette smoking? Where is the line between habit and routine behavior (always doing dishes after a meal, for example) turn into obsession?

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), January 10, 2002.

Just last year I was watching 20/20 (or some such show) and it was discussing OCD. I was only half listening until it described me when I was a child. I would continuously count off the letters in any and all words I saw by 3's. If the 3 didn't come out even, I was very irritated and would use 4s, 5s, etc. until it was even. Every sign, billboard, advertisement, etc. If it was too easy, I would use the more than one word and keep going. When it started interferring with my reading (and I did love to read!) I knew I had some kind of problem and worked myself out of it over the course of a year, but please believe it wasn't easy. I guess what I'm trying to say in this babbling is: Some cases are stronger than others and medication may be required, but try to find someone willing to treat the child without medications in the beginning, if feasible. I treated myself without even knowing there was a name for what I was doing, so even a child (I was about 12) can help himself through this with loving parents and doctors to guide him.

-- melody, AL (realworld3d@hotmail.com), January 11, 2002.

You have to be very careful about who you take him to. There are more quacks in the pychological profession than you could believe. My son has been diagnosed from ADHD to autism and their still not certain what's wrong with him. I have friends who are OCD and without their medicine, they are a mess! Seriously. I was very anti- medication up til 2001 when I started my son on Zoloft. It has been amazing the progress he's made since he started on this medication. He's doing things now like a normal kid, except he's got some "catching up" to do socially. He's actually playing with legos, and he has never "played" before in his life.

When he was little, they put him on Ritalin and it screwed him up good. For years I think, but the Dr.s say that's not true. They tell me he would have been that way anyway. Somehow I just don't believe them. He was on it for a year and a half and he turned from a happy hyper kid, into a little zombie and he stayed that way, even after stopping the medicine. My child was gone. I often wonder how he would be today if I had refused to medicate him. They tried 4 other drugs after the ritalin until I said enough! I refused medications after that. But, this past year, he just isn't better and he's 16! So, I agreed to medication again. Like I said, it's amazing how much better he is!

What you have to do is a lot of research, make sure you don't have a quack for a Dr., and have an open mind. If you do try medicine, watch him. You should see signs of improvement for OCD at least by 4 weeks. If not, try something else. There are several different ones. One that might be good for one person isn't always good for another one. If none of them seem to work, get him off of them. It's no good keeping him on something that doesn't help.

Also therapy is important, but you have to make sure it is a competent Dr. doing it. With or without medication he needs it. They say OCD is caused by low serotonin levels in the brain and some of these meds do help raise them. Zoloft is one. You have to decide what's best for your child. We started my son on 25mg(lowest dose) and raised him slowly to 100mg. He's just doing wonderfully. Good luck to you. It's a hard road I know, but hang in there!

-- Diana (rock_hunter83@hotmail.com), January 13, 2002.