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OCD and Sertraline

NAS81402

Hello all

My son is 17 and struggling really badly with OCD.
He has been on Sertraline for a few weeks and two days ago the dosage was upped from 50mg to 100mg. 

His anxiety and hand washing seems to have increased.

Does anyone have experience of this? Not sure whether to drop the dose or carry on and see if things improve.

thank you so much in advance for your help and support.

  • Some one else asked about this anxiety today. 

    Reposting a thread from a little while ago on the difference between anxiety and depression and why it won’t help to give anti-depressants for anxiety:

     https://community.autism.org.uk/f/health-and-wellbeing/26018/anxiety-stress-vs-depression

    Since then I've found a new medical paper which basically proves the Autistic brain, with it's higher percent of Gamma Waves (higher oscillations of brain waves responsible for making connexions, a flow-state / eureka state) will induce physical anxiety far more often than non-autistic peers. A thought is these oscillations can become out of control. But it accounts for full-brain reasoning. 

    Personally, I've experienced I need to shut anxiety down with a medical aid. I use it on a rare occasion. so while they stop the out of control beach all in my head, they don’t problem solve. It important to fix youre environment as best you can and resolve issues to any degree which might be causing stress. 

    while unresolved matters can be a trigger for OCD, being diligent and vigilant can be mistaken for OCD. There are a ton of other possibilities around it but I’d suggest to work out one thing at a time. I typically need help shutting the out of control chaos in my head with something designed to help anxiety (not depression) so that I can then reason through a problem with clarity. The emotional surge one gets in a heightened state of stress can prevent that.

  • Hi, 

    I'm sorry your son is struggling. Sertraline works well for some but not so well for others. I think it might be a good idea to call the GP and ask for their advice, maybe they can lower the dose or suggest a different medication that might work better for him.

    I was on Sertraline for a bit after my sister was killed, my anxiety spiked and I felt even more depressed and had very unpleasant side effects. I called my GP and she suggested a different medication which I had and it worked a lot better for me.

    Oh and it's also worth remembering it can take a few weeks before they start to work and side effects can take the same time to settle down.