It’s Basically the Same.
Still on the hunt for medication for Shane, we realized that he was doing way better.
During the weeks I spent trying to find the right doctor for Shane, some of life’s stressors had changed. Dylan had gone to college – and we’d all survived it.
And Shane was improving. He was following his prescribed course of treatment – basically, going against whatever the OCD said and “proving” that the OCD was full of crap.
For example, if the OCD said he was going to get sick because he ate an expired salad dressing, Shane would eat another salad with that same expired dressing. And the treatment was working.
But none of us forgot how awful it was, when the OCD was terrorizing Shane and he didn’t know how to handle it. So we decided to continue to pursue the medication idea, just in case he needed it again.
A friend recommended a group of psychiatrists who – surprise! – were also “in network” and took our insurance! It wasn’t nearby, but it would be worth it if we could – preferably quickly – get a prescription for anti-anxiety medication.
While we waited for our appointment day, I scoured the internet. I learned that there are four types of medication available to adolescent OCD patients. Then I did some additional scouring to learn the side effects. Of the four, I thought Prozac seemed the least harmful.
There were no appointments available with a “real” psychiatrist for months – of course – but a nurse practitioner saw us. We signed into a very generic, rather crowded waiting room, an hour from home, and waited.
The nurse practitioner was a man with a permanently furrowed brow. He spoke with a very heavy accent, and we had to ask him to repeat most of his questions. But Shane did the best he could to answer them. They were the same questions he’d answered a million times – mostly, “What thoughts do you have?” and “What do you do when you have those thoughts?”
The nurse practitioner looked very, very concerned for the entire fifteen-minute session. He typed and typed and typed on his laptop.
Then he looked up, folded his hands, and suggested Zoloft. I thought it had too many side effects, and suggested Prozac instead.
“It’s basically the same,” he said. And he called our local pharmacy and ordered a 30-day supply of Prozac.
Then he stood up and shook my hand. “You won’t know if it is working for about six to eight weeks,” he said. “I will see you in three weeks to make sure it is going well.”
Shane was surprised when I didn’t stop at the window and make another appointment. But I felt like a complete stranger had just ordered poison for my son.
Even though I’d been hunting it down, it felt wrong somehow to force him to take a pill every day for six to eight weeks – just to see if it’s working.
I’d done enough research to know that only about half of the people with OCD actually get relief from medication. And I also knew enough about the side effects to think the benefits might not be worth the risk.
I remembered the years of medication we gave to Dylan, only to end up with him in agony, and finally giving up and trying supplements.
Plus, Shane really is getting better with therapy alone.
The prescription for Prozac is still at the pharmacy.