Our outreach worker came today. She said that my son had been on the wrong meds for BDD for a long time. It was just unfortunate that not many people knew how to treat it. We all know that is true!
With this new regime of Prozac and Lyrica, we would expect to see improvements in the next month but it might take three more months to really make a difference. The therapeutic dose for Prozac being 60mg to 80mg. We have only been on 60mg for a bit over a week. The ultimate goal was to get my son back to work a couple of days a week by the end of the year.
She was able to narrow the focus of concerns back to his functional level and address the bedroom rescue. The den of doom is where he lies all day. She made up a timetable he was to follow. I was present at the table while all this was decided and felt quite helpless that I wasn’t able to achieve this myself over all these months. The woman recognized how I was feeling and mentioned that she had never met a mother able to redirect a behavioural problem like this.
It is hard to understand how it started and why he has never really tried to stop it. Perhaps it is depression and all that has happened to him with his relationship on top of his BDD. It just became an overload.
So this woman is connected to the professor. She feeds back to him and can tell him of my son’s functional level and how medications are truly going. She repeated that the condition was biological. My son was too unwell to work on BDD until his depression had lifted and the medications had had time to have an effect. By then, the intrusive thoughts will expect to have lessened in intensity making it possible to challenge them. Until then there was no point in doing much BDD work. It would just be too hard and liable to easily relapse.
So now the new day starts. Get up at 8.30, Have a shower and dress. Then don’t go back to bed. A bedtime of 8.30 has been set as well.
I can report one and two got done. But he is back in bed again. He was at least calm until just after 9am. FUD arrived. He had touched and the story kicked in with a panic session. It only went for a few seconds on the surface. He tells me now he hasn’t promised anything for today. So great to hear his resolve is so strong!!!!!!!! I want to slap him. Got to go TLC shopping ASAP.
It is now 11 am and he is not up. Still dozing. Looks like the outreach worker really doesn’t have any more sway with him than I do. I don’t really know what anyone can do for him.
The professor’s office rang. The doc wants our MRI brought forward. First available slot in the MRI machine is June 5th. I think they do need to see what my son’s brain really looks like before the meds kick in to change the picture.
We are at a research establishment so they do all the heavy stuff like deep brain stimulation for OCD. They implant electrodes to knock out the OC circuit. The intrusive thought gets fired back on itself so the ritual can’t be completed. This procedure is for people trapped in their home by ritual OCDs for 15 years. So I have got to realize it can be worse. Marg.