Posted by PatJ. on January 29, 2001, at 10:29:05
In reply to Double dose with the combo? » PatJ., posted by Rzip on January 28, 2001, at 1:14:03
> > It has also been established that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and medicine for OCD (not limited to SSRI) works for OCD. I personally know of many who have benefitted this way opposed to one or the other.
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> I believe the point of the article is that CBT works as effectively as medicine. Either form effectively decrease the cerebral glucose metabolic rate of the right caudate nucleus. The question then becomes whether the combo is significantly more effective. Not necessarily so, since brain change is brain change however you look at it. Personally, I think the therapy should work faster just because an effective treatment requires the client to work at it. There is no faster route to recovery than a client's will to get better. I mean think of the somatic circumstances. Many miracles have occurred due to a patient's will to live. Since the mind and the body is interlocked, the same principle should be applied to psychiatric illnesses.
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> In this particular study (1996, which is historical by academic psychiatry standard), changes were observed via PET (positron emission tomographic) scan within 10 weeks. So the question then becomes, do the people afflicated with OCD experience systematic changes within 5 weeks or something (double dose success rate).
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> - RzipDear Rzip,
Often people who have OCD are so disturbed about it that they seek medicine for faster relief even if the meds. take awhile. CBT or BMT often take a long time for people with OCD and does not work to relieve it completely for everyone, sorry to say, but I am one of them and know others. The CBT and BMT techniques must be used continually and sometimes people give up on it for awhile, too. For me it did not take it away completely but a technique I use decreases it and I have to practice it daily. The medicine has slowed it down enough to deal with it-I was frantic about my symptoms and I couldn't even deal with going to a counselor befores taking the meds and slowing it down. If someone can befefit from CBT or BMT without psychotropic drugs I think that is great and I am sure there are many who can and do but I just wanted to say that there are also many like me who had it so bad and were so tormented so bad by it that I needed the medicine to slow it down to make it manageable. That is not said to underestimate how much anyone is disturbed by OCD but it is known to be very hard to treat. I tried therapy without medicine, too, and for me it did not work alone but together with it. There are also times for me when the techniques don't work and the meds. don't work and I just have to sit tight and wait for them to work again. Such is life. I didn't mean to imply that BMT or CBT cannot work alone for anyone-I think it's great when it does and wish it had been that way for me but am satified now anyways.
poster:PatJ.
thread:52523
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010122/msgs/52870.html