Is “take as needed” anxiety pills a thing that can work for OCD? I know it’s not possible now with covid still happening but my friend and I have been talking forever about traveling to Japan one day and spending a week or 2 there, flying from the US. My biggest concern is my OCD and anxiety flaring up. Last April I went on a trip across the country and had a horrible anxiety episode which resulted in me flying back home early (this has never happened before and I’ve traveled many times before). The next trip I took, like a week before the trip, I had another anxiety episode which also started my OCD onset of suicidal OCD (trip was HORRIBLE for me mentally and physically, but I managed). I obviously don’t want to have OCD run and ruin my life, especially with a once loved passion of traveling. I’m not on any medication now and I’m worried to get on an SSRI or antidepressant or whatever because of risk of side effects and potentially making it worse and whatnot. I’m doing fine I suppose and doing ERP/working with a therapist now and I’m seeing progress, but I would absolutely hate to have a strong episode hit me while I’m across the world and having to cut such an amazing trip short. So that leads me to wondering if a take as needed anxiety medication would help or even exists, so I could just take it while on the trip and be fine off of it when I came back Thanks!

I used to take buspar which is take as needed but I was also told to keep taking it even if I felt fine? That medication worked wonders for me, with anxiety and intrusive thoughts basically dropping to 0, but I was told to stop because it was causing me pretty strong lightheadedness for about 30 min after taking it. Sometimes I wonder if that side effect is a risk willing to take to have the freedom that medication offered, but I have no idea

That’s awesome to hear someone with the same theme taking meds and it working! How long have you been on them and when did they start working for you? Do you experience any other side effects? When did you decide that you needed/wanted to go on meds?

@Evelyn4416 i’ve been on them about a month - i hit a dark spot where i woke up at 2am terrified of myself and what i could do so we kind of figured i should look into them but they started to work pretty quick for me - maybe a few days? you shouldn’t expect it that quick and it could have been that i came of my birth control or a placebo but it was pretty quick. my anxiety got worse for the first two weeks? like this restless vibrating that i’m used to but worse but at the same time my intrusive thoughts felt less like knives and more like pointy sticks? i’d be more than willing to answer any more questions you have x

@cwllms Ah okay! Have you tried any other medication before what you’re on now? Are you also doing therapy along side it or just medication? How long have you had suicidal ocd?

@Evelyn4416 looking back on it now - i’ve had ocd tendencies in different themes for a really long time but my suicidal ocd kicked into gear in november last year? we thought i was just anxious and depressed for a while but my mum took me to the doctors where they prescribed birth control (due to the timing) and referred me to my cities CBT service so i had 8 weeks of it. i then came off my birth control bc it was definitely making me worse and had that bad night and then we called the doctors againt he next day. the CBT definitley helped me figure out what was going on but it was over messaging and that wasn’t great. anyway i’m on a waitlist for more therapy which i’ll do in conjunction with my fluoxetine

@cwllms Hi, so you think the antidepressants were worth it? Im glad to hear the antidepressants have helped you. You said that the first two weeks anxiety got worse? Did they get to bad where you were going to quit? Thats what scares me the first few weeks? Have you ever tried xanax? Thanks

@kls323 i haven’t tried xanax and honestly i was used to that level of anxiety before it was just very constant. i knew that it would pass but it was very tiring although i never thought i would quit. i’m still not very far into the antidepressants but so far i’d say they’re worth it even if it’s just as a backstop for me so that i know i have a safety net if you get me?

@cwllms I know exactly what you mean. Thanks. I'm glad you are doing better.

Thank you for all the information! My suicidal ocd started around the end of August last year, disappeared for a little, then came back and stayed in since November as well. I thought it was anxiety too but figured it was weird because I kept having constant intrusive thoughts on the subject that I didn’t want, thought later on hey maybe this is OCD? I ended up getting diagnosed this past March and have been in therapy and doing ERP since. I’ve been back and forth on medication because some days I feel better but other days it’s a lot, also because I deal with existential ocd so it ties into it.

@Evelyn4416 ah fair enough, i hope my therapy in august will involve ERP but i haven’t had a lot of info tbh. i also thought my ocd was just anxiety because i have that too but then i had like three days a month where i was scared shitless so we kinda thought okay, not that. anyway i’m glad i could be of help!

@cwllms Definitely make sure ERP is involved! It’s the golden standard to combating OCD. Good luck!