trying a new med

[Guest guest]

My 11 yr old son has been using remeron, largely b/c it comes in

individual foil wraps so cannot get 'contaminated'. He has been out

of school most of the year b/c the OCD/BDD made it too difficult to

cope and he developed depression. The remeron seemed to help the

depression, but after a few months with no change in the OCD

symptoms, his psychiatrist has suggested trying luvox. So just

looking for experiences with luvox in children.

My son's OCD is both contamination and extreme self consciousness/BDD

type stuff. He does not want to work on his issues and is relatively

happy being home, doing minimal schoolwork (he cannot write at all

without erasing and barely speaks with his tutor). He likes to

research the many things that interest him on the computer, see his

friend across the street (who is also a homebound student!) and

interact with his siblings. He goes out for walks or errands with me.

He does not seem depressed anymore. Part of the depression was my

husband being intolerant of my son's refusal to sleep in a bed or cut

his hair, so these topics would come up every day until my son

started avoiding my husband as much as possible, hiding or leaving

the house. So my husband has given up on these things and just trys

to be nice to my son. Of course we feel badly about this too b/c it

is like we are not working on any of the OCD stuff. We are not

currently seeing my son's therapist(it kind of taperedd off while we

were working on his IEP asessments and school standardized testing

appointments) b/c he refuses to work up an anxiety hierarchy and

plan some exposures. He will only talk about things other than OCD.

So his life is somewhat comfortable this way- why should he want to

put himself through the anxiety of doing exposures and changing? If

we push him it turns into avoidance/depression. Feeling kind of

trapped b/c I much prefer to be with him when he is not depressed,

even with the OCD, but feel as if we are not working on the OCD much.

He does see the school psychologist weekly and they have some simple

goals, like taking his long hair off of his face when he speaks

(getting him to speak at all is difficult so also made progress

there). So far he will only uncover one eye-that is how bad his BDD

is, he thinks he is so ugly. He also thinks he smells and that his

voice sounds weird. But he likes to see the psychologist (who really

clicks with him-very low key style) and they play cards and do these

simple goals.

I'm just wondering if medciation (luvox?) will make any difference at

all for a kid who just wants to keep the comfortable status-quo.

nancy grace