- What is and what is not OCD?
- Is OCD curable?
- At what age does OCD begin?
- Is there a trigger for OCD? Can it be prevented?
- Are there differences in the symptoms of OCD experienced by boys and girls?
- How long do symptoms have to last for an OCD diagnosis?
- What is the treatment for OCD?
- What is the approximate time it takes for a person with OCD to experience a reduction in their symptoms during therapy?
- If you take medication and it works, do you need to take it for life?
- Do yoga, meditation, or other therapies work for OCD?
- Is OCD dangerous for the person who has it?
- How can we differentiate OCD from the symptoms of ASD?
- If a child with ASD has OCD, should we leave it alone or try to reduce or eliminate it?
- Is OCD associated with ADHD or bipolar disorder?
- How can I tell if my son or daughter has OCD?
- My daughter's hair is constantly breaking, which weakens it. She's even gone into the house up to 10 times to check that the gas was off. What can we do to stop her?
- How can we help our daughter with OCD to gain more self-confidence and reduce her anxiety?
- Why does a person with OCD generally have thoughts related to magic and religion?
- What should mothers do if they detect exaggerated symptoms in their children that cause suffering?
- Can people with pathological jealousy be treated with strategies similar to those used for people with OCD?
- I have an 11-year-old daughter who does a lot of things that seem like OCD. Is a diagnosis necessary? I'm afraid the label will overshadow the disorder itself, and that any behavior will be excused because she has OCD.
- I was diagnosed with OCD 20 years ago, I can't stop talking to myself (silently or in a low voice) and I get very distracted. Why might this be and what can I do?
- What can we, as a family, do if our adult daughter refuses help and has no interest in getting better?
- When my OCD drives the people around me crazy, what should they do?
- What is the difference between having tics and doing compulsions?
Is OCD curable?
We currently have very effective treatments, both psychological and pharmacological, for OCD, which can reduce symptoms and even eliminate them completely, allowing those affected to lead perfectly normal lives . This positive prognosis is especially clear in childhood-onset forms of OCD.
More than half of the children who are diagnosed with OCD in childhood will no longer exhibit obsessive symptoms when they reach adulthood.
These childhood forms of OCD, which have a particularly good prognosis, are often accompanied by other neurodevelopmental disorders such as tics or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
A key aspect of maximizing the chances of a successful response to treatment for OCD is to start it as soon as possible; hence the importance of early diagnosis . This is often not easy because people tend to hide their symptoms out of shame, because they believe they should be able to control them on their own, or even because they are unaware that their symptoms constitute a disorder. Some studies describe that, in many cases, between 5 and 10 years pass from the onset of obsessions and rituals until an OCD diagnosis is made.
Performing rituals continuously for many years leads to the development of distorted ideas that worsen the disorder (the person believes, for example, that nothing bad has happened to their loved ones because they have carried out their rituals, or that they have not caught a disease because they have washed their hands repeatedly, when in reality in both cases, nothing terrible has happened because the obsessions do not represent real risks but imagined threats).
For this reason, it is important to begin cognitive-behavioral therapy as soon as possible when OCD appears. This approach helps the person, on the one hand, to interrupt the rituals (what we know as exposure and response prevention), thus avoiding the false confirmations of obsessive fears, and, on the other hand, to detect and modify the distorted beliefs that often accompany OCD. These include thought-action fusion (the belief that simply thinking about something increases the likelihood of it happening), overestimation of risk and intolerance of uncertainty (if I am not certain of safety, it means there is danger), and perfectionism (there is only one perfect and desirable way to do things).