Is There an OCD Cure?

The bad news is that an OCD cure doesn't exist. The good news is that there are effective OCD treatments in both medications and therapy, and sometimes a combination of the two.

OCD is an anxiety disorder that manifests itself in thoughts that cause the person to feel anxious or distressed. Behavioral responses, usually rituals, alleviate those feelings. Most treatments focus on calming the individual or understanding the underlying fears to remove the cause of the obsessive behavior.

OCD and other mental health disorders can be likened to diabetes and hypertension; successful treatment of these conditions treats the conditions but doesn't eliminate, or cure, the underlying disorder. But just as people with diabetes and hypertension shouldn't shrink from treatment simply because there is no cure, neither should persons with OCD be disheartened because there's no total cure.

Which Treatment Holds the Best Success Rates?
"Behavior therapy is considered the most effective modality for treating OCD, " according to Linda Seligman's 1998 book, Selecting Effective Treatments. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the usual treatment for children and teenagers with OCD, and cognitive-behavioral therapy or drug therapy are the most common treatments for adults. Experts in the field of OCD treatment differ in their opinions as to the efficacy of using behavioral/cognitive treatment alone, medication alone or a combination of therapy and medication in the successful treatment of OCD.

Behavioral therapy works to break the link between the anxiety and the OCD ritual as a source of relief. Patients are taught other methods of coping with their anxieties to find comfort, eliminating the need for rituals.

Cognitive therapy tracks down the sources of anxiety, which may be irrational fears or an exaggerated sense of self importance. In some cases, understanding the underlying cause of anxieties, such as the death of a friend or a childhood trauma, enables the patient to overcome the anxiety and eliminate the need for comforting rituals. If a clear mental cause cannot be found, thought-stopping may be successful in preventing the repetitive thought processes that trigger obsessive anxieties.

Some drug therapy uses medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Low levels of seratonin in the brain have been linked to increased anxiety. These drugs make more seratonin available in the hope that anxiety will decrease. Around half of the patients who take SSRIs see an improvement in symptoms, but the change doesn't happen overnight. It can take two to three months for the effects of these drugs to be noticable.

In cases where SSRIs prove ineffective, other anti-anxiety drugs may be prescribed, including BuSpar and Klonopin. These drugs help patients reduce overall anxiety levels, which may keep obsessive thoughts from taking over.

With drug treatments, it's important to note that OCD symptoms may return if medication is stopped or if the dosage is lowered.

In rare cases, neurosurgery may be used if severe OCD has not responded to behavioral, cognitive or drug therapies. This surgery involves changing pathways in the brain and comes with very high risks. Only patients with debilitating OCD should seek this option, as no clinical trials have proven its effectiveness and no hard rules exist for carrying out the procedure.