[Guest]

I was diagnosed 2 months ago as OCD with mild depression and anxiety.
I am taking 1mg of Xanax each day which helps the anxiety and even the depression (placebo effect?) I have tried Paxil and Celexa for OCD symptoms. I could only stay on each of them for a week each due to the side-effects. The thing that scares me is that the physical side-effects were mild. The mental side-effects caused me to quite the drugs. The SSRI's increased my intrusive thoughts 10 fold and my anxiety went way up (even with the Xanax). My doctor wants me to try yet another SSRI, but is it worth it? If I just had to deal with usual SSRI induced headaches and nausea it would be ok, but the way these SSRI's made me THINK is unbearable. I have never been in a psychotic state, so I am not sure what it is like. But, I truly felt like I was going to lose my mind while on the SSRI's. The symptoms would come and go, worse in the A.M. No hallucinations, just intrusive,, intense thoughts which were worse than I have ever had. My psychologist said that the drugs did not make me psychotic. He said that I would not have been able to rationalize what was going on, like I did, if I was psychotic. He did say that my reaction to those SSRI's was extreme and rare, but I should try Zoloft.
My question is:
Does my poor (and strange) reaction to the SSRI's mean that I may have been mis-diagnosed? By the way, I tolerate Xanax very well.

[Guest]

Some people do initially get anxious when placed on the SSRIs. We usually use very low doses and very slow titration to get around this. The usual treatment of OCD is SSRIs. I am not convinced that all patients intrusive thoughts are an offshoot of OCD as intrusive thoughts may not be accompanied by either an obsession or a compulsion. I have had good luck with some nonSSRI medications. I wish I could be more helpful. You could always ask for a second opinion as well as more formalized psychological testing (many insurances balk at paying for these services but some do).
[quote] I was diagnosed 2 months ago as OCD with mild depression and anxiety.
I am taking 1mg of Xanax each day which helps the anxiety and even the depression (placebo effect... [/quote]