OCD Medications - Don't Be Quick to Pop Happy Pills!

OCD medications consist mostly of antidepressants. These drugs are said to work by delaying the release of certain brain chemicals (neurotransmitters). But the popularity of OCD medications may have more to do with advertising than how common the disorder has become.

OCD Medications - Marketing Not Medicine
Due to the successful marketing efforts by the US drug industry, many OCD and other anxiety disorder sufferers have become somewhat familiar with neurotransmitters like serotonin. Hence, the popular drug called SSRIs or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

However, these same marketing efforts have also led to a contemporary American population that not only has a nodding acquaintance with these medical catchphrases but also tend to self diagnose and self prescribe.

OCD Medications - Condition Branding
The advertising industry even has a term for this pharmaceutical marketing phenomenon. It's called condition branding. This is where ads focus on labeling certain conditions before they push the drug that supposedly cures it.

For instance, what used to be known as shyness is now marketed as social anxiety disorder. This is the reason why statistics show that 1 in 8 Americans has social anxiety disorder, because 1 in 8 consider themselves shy.

But condition branding has an even more harmful effect.

OCD Medications - Easy to Get
Did you know that most of us could easily visit a doctor, say we have OCD or some other anxiety disorder, and walk away with a prescription for anxiety or OCD medications? Recent studies have shown as much.

You can even name the specific drug you want! It's as easy as walking into a doctor's office and asking, "Please give me a prescription for Prozac," or Zoloft, or Paxil, or whatever drug you happened to see advertised on television.

OCD Medications - Truth in Advertising
When OCD medications are advertised as having no side effects, should you believe it? Some of these advertising efforts do include research, but here's something you must know: the drug company that releases the findings more often than not is the very sponsor of the clinical study.

So the "no side effects" claim may be true to a certain extent. But many independent studies as well as actual therapy using OCD medications have shown that drugs only have a short term effect. Majority of patients taking OCD medications (around 85%) relapse within a couple of months after they stop taking the drugs.

What's more, even if physical side effects are not noticeable when OCD medications are discontinued, there could be some emotional frustration when realizing one is right back where one started.