If you have been struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) for a while now, you may be thinking that it could be the right time for you to actually go see a mental health professional, get diagnosed, and then get the help you need. After all, living with it can be quite difficult, especially if it has really gotten serious, and if you’re unable to perform those day-to-day activities normally, without these kinds of thoughts and compulsions making things problematic. Understand OCD better with the help of this useful source.
Anyway, if you’ve started thinking about getting help, then you have also most likely started researching the type of help you can actually get. And, among other things, you have come across the idea of taking SSRIs for OCD. Perhaps someone has shared their experience with these medications, or perhaps you have come across this particular idea while doing some online research. Whatever the case, you’ve certainly become curious.
To cut right to the chase, you have started wondering whether getting SSRIs for OCD is actually a realistic option, as well as whether it is a good idea. In other words, you want to know if you can get prescribed these drugs when you go see a psychiatrist, and you want to understand if they will really be effective for this particular condition. And, there is certainly no doubt that those are both rather important questions, which is why we are going to answer them for you below, hoping to shed light on what you need to know here.
Can You Get SSRIs for OCD?
Let us begin with the very basics here. You know that SSRIs are actually antidepressants, so it is completely normal for you to wonder if you can get them for OCD. Since we are, after all, not talking about depression. Well, the first thing to understand is that these drugs are not used only for the treatment of depression, and they are approved and given for different types of mental health conditions, including anxiety, PTSD, and, yes, OCD.
So, to cut right to the chase, the answer to the above question is yes. Yes, you can definitely get prescribed SSRIs for OCD, as these medications are approved, and commonly used, for helping treat this particular condition. Of course, your psychiatrist will be the judge of whether you actually need them or not, so it’s not like you can go and ask for these. After all, that’s not how any kind of treatment works, including this one.
Another thing to know here is that higher doses of SSRIs are usually required for OCD than they would be for, say, anxiety and depression. This is because this particular disorder responds differently to these drugs. And, of course, since we are all different, your psychiatrist will evaluate your symptoms and determine whether SSRIs are right for you if you are struggling with OCD, as well as keep evaluating your response to them, so as to make some adjustments if necessary.
As you probably know already, there are various SSRIs out there that are approved and prescribed for various kinds of conditions. When it comes to OCD, Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil and Luvox are FDA-approved. But, some other ones can be used off-label as well, which often happens if the patient isn’t responding to the approved medications. So, citalopram and escitalopram can often be used off-label for this particular condition as well.
Now, why is it that these particular medications are used for this particular disorder? For one thing, they help normalize signaling in certain circuits in our brains, primarily increasing the levels of serotonin. But, they do more than that quite often, meaning they can strengthen cognitive ability, reduce the urge to perform a compulsion, decrease the intensity of the intrusive thoughts, as well as generally improve emotional regulation and alleviate anxiety.
How Effective Are They?
Okay, you get that these medications can often be prescribed for this particular disorder. But, you are probably wondering if your SSRI Prescription for OCD will be effective at all, and how effective it can be in the first place. And that is, without a doubt, a rather important question, and a completely normal thing to wonder here. So, let’s cut to the chase and make things clear.
What the clinical trials are showing is that SSRIs can lead to symptom reduction in 40% to 60& of patients struggling with OCD, which is definitely a huge percentage. Of course, the symptom relief tends to be temporary, and not permanent, which goes to show that combining the drugs with psychotherapy is actually the right way to go about treating this particular condition. And then, what you should also know is that higher dosages are required, as well as that it may take longer for these medications to work for OCD than they would for, say, anxiety or depression. In short, thus, they can be effective, but it may take some time, and psychotherapy should be another form of help to get here.
