“For me, it’s like someone else has control of your brain. Like you’re being forced to do an endless number of completely random, pointless tasks you don’t want to do. It’s so exhausting and emotionally draining — like your brain needs an off switch!” — Clarissa Chay
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is much more than being very organized or liking things to be neat and tidy. OCD is a serious psychiatric disorder that causes people to have repetitive, intrusive thoughts, fears, and urges that cause anxiety and distress. People with OCD may compulsively engage in certain behaviors to alleviate the anxiety and distress caused by their obsessive thoughts. OCD causes significant impairment in the ability to function in school, at work, or in relationships. Severe OCD can be so debilitating that people sometimes have difficulty even leaving their home.
If you have OCD, you are not alone. An estimated 2.3% of people will develop OCD at some point in their lives. The actual percentage may be higher, because many people with OCD never get diagnosed or treated. About half of people with OCD have severe impairment in function, and OCD is one of the top 10 causes of disability. Fortunately, with effective treatment, people with OCD can manage their symptoms and greatly improve their function and quality of life.
At Owl & Eagle Health and Wellness, our team of board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychotherapists bring expertise and compassion to treatment of OCD. They design an individualized holistic treatment plan combining the most up-to-date psychiatric interventions with specialized psychotherapy and evidence based integrative care. This approach to treatment can be highly effective for OCD, including cases that don’t respond to standard treatment. Our holistic and integrative care for OCD can effectively manage your symptoms, while helping you improve your overall health and well-being.
If you would like to learn more about holistic treatment for OCD at Owl & Eagle Health and Wellness in Golden or Greenwood Village, Colorado, Contact Us with questions or Book Now to schedule an in-person or telehealth intake appointment today.
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Q &A
What causes OCD?
OCD has multiple risk factors:
1) Genetics. If someone in your family has OCD, you are more likely to have it yourself.
2) Psychological trauma and stressors. Adverse experiences such as abuse, neglect, and bullying increase risk for OCD.
3) Traumatic Brain Injury. People who sustain a head injury with loss of consciousness or confusion are twice as likely to develop OCD.
4) Bacterial and Viral Infections. OCD that develops in children after a Group A streptococcal infection is called Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal Infection Syndrome [PANDAS]. OCD can also develop acutely after other bacterial and viral infections, including Mycoplasma pneumoniae, varicella (chickenpox), toxoplasmosis, and encephalitis.
What are the symptoms of OCD?
OCD causes two main groups of symptoms:
- Obsessive thoughts: Repeated, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that cause distress, anxiety, or disgust. Common obsessive thoughts include fear of contamination, fears that something terrible will happen to them or their loved ones, fear of or urges to destroy things, aggressive urges, fears of saying the wrong thing or not saying the right thing, or the need for things to be perfectly arranged, in a specific order, or symmetrical.
- Compulsive behaviors: Repetitive behaviors or mental rituals that the individual feels they must or need to do to relieve the distress caused by obsessive thoughts. Common compulsive behaviors include cleaning or washing hands over and over, repetitive checking, counting, ordering or arranging things, needing to confess, asking for reassurance, and touching or tapping.
People with OCD typically know that their obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational, but they still can’t stop them from happening. They will have obsessive thoughts, such as thoughts that a surface is covered with germs and touching it will cause illness, which will cause anxiety and distress. Then they will think that if they do a particular action, such as repeatedly cleaning the surface, it will help with the distress or prevent the feared outcome. They will then have the obsessive thoughts and complete the compulsive behaviors over and over. People with OCD typically spend hours of the day on obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
How is OCD treated?
At Owl & Eagle Health and Wellness, our team of board certified psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychotherapists treat OCD with a holistic approach combining medications, psychotherapy, and evidence based integrative treatments including dietary changes, vitamins, supplements, stress management, sleep hygiene, exercise, yoga, meditation, and breathwork. We provide specialized types of psychotherapy for OCD including Somatimotor Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Exposure Therapy. Medications that are frequently used to treat OCD include antidepressants and anxiolytics. Most medications for OCD have very manageable side effects, which typically resolve in the first weeks of treatment. Genetic testing can help identify which medications are more or less likely to be effective and well tolerated for you. For cases of OCD that don’t resolve with these treatments, antipsychotics, ketamine assisted therapy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be added to the treatment plan. These augmenting strategies can be highly effective for treatment resistant OCD. The type of TMS that we use, Brainsway Deep TMS, is the only type of TMS that has been shown in peer-reviewed clinical trials to be highly effective for treatment of OCD. The majority of patients we treat for OCD are able to effectively manage their symptoms and improve their function, mental and physical health, and quality of life.
If you are interested in holistic and integrative treatment for OCD at Owl & Eagle Health and Wellness in Golden or Greenwood Village, Colorado, Contact Us with questions or Book Now to schedule an in-person or telehealth appointment today.
Sources
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/mental-health-myths-facts
https://mhanational.org/mentalhealthfacts
https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/384/bmj-2023-077564.full.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.31887/DCNS.2010.12.2/dmurphy
https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Mental-Health-Conditions/Obsessive-compulsive-Disorder