KNOWN CAUSES OF OCD



OCD most likely is triggered by genetic and secondary medical causes. By secondary medical causes i mean as a result of a medical condition that directly involves the brain. A large portion of OCD sufferers report either a serious head injury, brain seizure or major brain operation directly prior to the onset of their first symptoms. Between the ages of 2-7, I was hospitalized 4 or 5 times for epileptic brain seizures brought on by high fevers. My last seizure at age 7 is what I am sure triggered my OCD. A few days after I was released from the hospital because of my last seizure, I immediately began to experience the compulsion to perform rituals in response to strong obsessional thoughts that would not subside. I first remember getting yelled at by my step mother because i got up in the middle of the night to check the clock a total of 22 times. She thought I was playing games. My brother began to make fun of me for my bizarre behavior and shortly after that, I began to learn how to hide my OCD symptoms from others so that I would no longer be teased for my strange behaviors and movements. By the age of 8 , I had developed a fear of germs. I would never drink out of anyone else's glass and I would always use plastic knifes and forks as often as I could. At aged 9, while watching the news with my brother, there was a report about some diseased cattle. I remember my brother joking and playfully taunting me about the gross diseased meat from dead cows. The next day I chose to give up meat for the rest of my life. I only briefly ate meat in my teens because I did not like too many vegetables and meat was my only way to stay alive and healthy. But I often drowned it in ketchup or swallowed it fast as if I was taking a pill. The reason I had to force myself to eat meat in my teen years was because I was hospitalized at aged 11 for malnutrition. When I had turned 22, that's when I knew that I could stay healthy without ever eating meat again. I have not eaten any meat products now for 22 years. I have also gave up eating milk products 12 years ago. The reason I gave up milk was because I found out milk and cheese are made from bacteria cultures. I also carefully read the ingredients of all the can food that I buy to make sure it contains no meat or milk products. I am what you can call borderline anorexic at times. I go through periods where my weight will go down to 116-120 pounds and I'm 5 feet 9 inches tall. I do eat very healthy vegetarian foods now, and during those rare periods when my weight will drop drastically, I make sure that I drink fruit and vegetable juices, and I also take a variety of vitamin supplements. I also used to take on a ton of complicated projects, and get so overwhelmed that I would not succeed in any of them. I've since learned how to resist taking on too much, and now I only take on a few complicated projects and seem to be doing a lot better at them. And least I forget, from the age of 15 to 29 I was heavy drinker. I drank nearly a fifth a day of hard alcohol. So due to anxiety and other pressures, I was a prime candidate for alcoholism. Sounds complicated, huh. I really feel fine now. Considering my constant OCD symptoms. It's great when you can be honest with yourself and understand it all. It makes coping a lot easier. I have never had therapy to reduce my OCD symptoms but I found out that when I take the SSRI drug Luvox, my symptoms were reduced by 70-80%.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES ("my other brain")
My thoughts on my OCD were always a feeling as if I had two brains, and I often wondered about this description of mine until I read the story of a four year old girl who had been hospitalized with a severe brain injury. She had undergone a long brain operation and went home about a week after her initial injury. A couple of days after this little girl came home she immediately noticed that she was constantly obsessed by these thoughts of numbers in her head. These thoughts had so persisted that she went up to her mother and said "mommy mommy, i always have all of these numbers in my head. would you please tell my other brain to stop putting these numbers in my head).Now it is well known about the honesty at which children describe situations, and I was just shocked when I saw that her description of her OCD was exactly as the way I thought it felt. Out of the mouths of babes, a true honest description of OCD.




OCD IS ALSO CAUSED BY A STREP INFECTION
A strep infection has been proven to trigger an auto immune response that directly attacks an area of the brain called the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia is the section of the brain that malfunctions and seems to be short circuited in those with OCD. The link from strep throat to OCD was first discovered around 1995 by a Dr. Swedo. Dr. Swedo had observed, and interviewed fifty children with a sudden onset of OCD or tic disorders who had recently (within the past several months) been diagnosed with a group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal (GABHS) infection. Swedo found that the children had classic patterns of OCD and tic symptoms. She tested the presence of antistreptococcal antibodies in their blood and found that symptom exacerbations were twice as likely to occur with the presence of antistreptococcal antibodies.

The triggers and causes for OCD seem to be isolated to 3 or 4 main causes. Again they are most often caused by physical brain damage from injury, epileptic seizures, inherited abnormalities and also an autoimmune response triggered from a strep infection which damages the basal ganglia portion of the brain.


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