I’m planning to talk to my therapist more about medication during our next session but I was wondering if anyone felt comfortable answering what medication has helped you with? Or talk about your experience with medication and if it has helped you deal with physical symptoms, rumination, etc. I have been in therapy a little over 2 months and have been able to manage my thoughts better I think but I still have very strong reactions to them and it’s almost like I feel like I’m dealing with something new everyday. I admit I can practice doing exposures more. I’m interested in hearing about people’s experiences. Thanks in advance!

Hi there I have tried many medications such as zoloft, luvox, paxil, clomipramine (anafranil), and prozac. The prozac seemed to help for a while a little bit. The others not so much. Hope this helps some.

Hi there! I tried many different medications before going through therapy. To be honest I had very bad experiences with all of them.. I know I’m very sensitive to medications so this felt normal for me. Everyone’s body chemistry is different though - so the least you can do is try. I now take something called Hydroxyzine - this is not a daily medication, it is as needed. Essentially it’s an antihistamine that helps calm your mind overall. It works really well for me. It also helps you sleep at night.

as a general rule typically meds will help about 25 to 50 percent. for years I relied solely on meds and had therapy for other non OCD stuff but kept relapsing with OCD crashes and would change the med. what I didn't realize was that I needed ERP. im in it now and hoping it works

No that is perfectly fine. I've been diagnosed with OCD for about 23 years now. And most of this time I have been in therapy and taken meds together. But have never had a therapist that specialized in OCD.

@hcs. if I could do a do over (this goes all the way back to 1996) I would do ERP before meds to see if I could overcome it. already after 6 sessions of ERP im finally seeing progress. I don't know of ERP was around then and I was in the Air Force so my options were limited. I say this because of med side effects. I've had to learn to live with them but would have preferred to avoid them because it impacts the quality of my life.