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My son is apprehensive about taking medication.


Guest sadmum

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My 20 year old son has been prescribed Fluoxetine - 20mg a day, by a pyschiatrist who works for our community mental health team. He is, however, scared of taking it due to the list of possible side effects. Our GP was also reluctant to prescbribe SSRI's as she said that they tend to make things worse before they get better and that they can make young men more angry. This is a concern, as when my son has difficulty in completing his rituals he does get very angry and says that he doesn't want to live. He says that this anger is in response to the extreme anxiety he feels at the time and when the ritual is complete he seems fine again.

From the reading I've been doing, it does seem that this is the best medication for him, but he will have to persevere with it and I think this may be hard if he does have any side effects. I am also worried that he will expect to feel worse, which will make him more anxious. and hence make things worse.

I would be really greatful to hear other peoples' experience of SSRI's, in particular what side effects were experienced, how soon they came on after starting medication, and how long it was before any benefit is felt.

Looking forward to your replies.

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Hi

As with any medication everyone's experiences are different, but my son's I consider to be only beneficial.

He is 23 and on fluoxetine. He was on 20mg, but is now on 40. My son was terrified of taking medication as he considered his thoughts were already so far out of control, medication would make matters worse and he would lose control completely. Everyone told him it was his decision and he came to the conclusion he had to try.

All possible side effects were explained to him and to be honest sounded terrible, but he actually suffered from almost none of them. I think the worst he had was an upset stomach for a while and they couldnt even confirm this was actually caused by the medication.

My son usually says the medication doesnt make any difference, but I can certainly tell the difference when he isnt on it. He took a break for a while and immediately became much more irritable.

Unless you are extremely lucky your gp wont be a OCD expert and Im sure your son's psychiatrist will have taken everything into account when recommending it to him.

Good luck with the decision!

Carol

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Hi Carol

Thanks for replying. It's reassuring to know that your son didn't have any serious side effects. Like your son, I think my son's worst fear is being out of control. I think we have to push the positive side to him and as you said the pyschiatrist would have much more experience and knowledge of treating OCD than the GP.

I'll let you know how we get on.

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Hi there

Just to say that my son 19yrs is on 60mg Fluoxetine a day plus 1mg resperidone. He is certainly better on the medication, but we find if he has had any beer/alcohol this interferes with the meds and he is worst the next day. Just tell him to be wise and not have any or much alcohol! Also I have been concerned at what time he takes them, he tends to take them at night before going to bed which is not a regular time, could even be 1am ish, so any thoughts on when the best time to take them would be good. I know fluoxetine lifts the mood generally and make him feel less stressed about everything. The resperidone is to help unload him of intrusive OCD thoughts.

What concerns me, is whether coming off the meds will work successfully, it has to be a gradual process, but when that happens I don't know as my son is still suffering quite badly with his OCD especially at stressful times in his day.

Remember Fluoxetine takes about 4-6 wks to start working properly and you should not stop it suddenly without the doctors approval and then only gradually reduce it over a period of about 3wks.

Good luck!

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Hello

Thanks for replying. It's good to know that medication has helped your son. We had quite a rough time yesterday evening and I was dreading this morning, but luckily he was able to get off to work in good time. My son started the medication today - he's been told to take it in the morning - so we'll see how we go. I worry that he may imagine side effects which may stop him taking it, but he does know that it will be a few weeks before he feels any benefit, so hopefully he will persevere.

How's your son doing? I have read your posts about his job and hope that he will now have time to recover. I know that my son is absolutely exhausted, but it is important to him to keep working. He hasn't told his employers although he is often late, but so far this doesn't seem to have ben too much of a problem. I hope that your son finds something to focus on as this does seem vital to maintaining some sort of 'normal' life.

My son has not touched alcohol for a few months as he didn't like the way it affected his OCD. He said that it helped at the time, but made things worse the next day. Does your son have CBT?. My son has been told that this would help, but our NHS team has only one psychologist and he is not taking any referrals at the moment!!!! We're pushing for this and will try and get funding for private treatment if necessary.

My thoughts are with you and your family.

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Hi Sadmum,

My son is still only a child (12) but has been taking Sertraline for about 6 (ish) years now. When we had to make the choice of medication for the treatment of his OCD I remember how apprehensive we all were about it.

Obviously as your son is an adult the situation is hugely different but I just wanted to let you know how successful medication has been for us. I would have preferred not to have him take it obviously but it really helped and was the right decision for us and for him. The effects of the OCD were far worse that any side effects of the medication although the response to medication is bound to be different for each individual.

For my son he was quite "hyper" for a while and had a bit of stomach upset but the anxiety caused this also so it would be unfair just to blame the medication.

Only once did we try to reduce the medication but the OCD returned very quickly. HOWEVER I do feel his doctors reduced the dosage far to quick and didn't offer him any support through the process so I couldn't honestly say whether the meds reduction caused the sudden increase of OCD or the anxiety caused from stopping his meds caused the OCD. We had hoped that the setraline would be a tempory treatment and would be stopped before he went to high school but I accept now that he will be taking it untill he is old enough to make his own choice about it unless the doctor has other ideas.

When he went back on the medication it took double the dosage to get back to the stage he was at before the medication was stopped but OCD remains well under control most of the time thankfully.

Anyhow, just wanted to say good luck to you & your son.

All the very best to you both! :original:

Deb

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