Offering Hope and Recovery to Chronic Pain Sufferers

Opiate Therapy for Attention Deficit (ADD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

A young man who had been injured with the fracture to his right ankle and later to his hand continued to be chronically painful.

A diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD) had been made a few years previously at a mental health clinic, and he had been treated with the stimulant, Adderall (which is amphetamine). This drug is quite appropriate for attention deficiency, less so for obsessive compulsive disorder (although it often works very well). He got some benefit but is was incomplete. After a few months of this therapy he moved out of state to a new job, it was there that his chronic pain from his previously fractured right ankle became severe. He ended up at a pain clinic where he was given Oxycodone. His doctors were, however, reluctant to give him Adderall with the Oxycodone. He found this worked extraordinarily well for him, both in regard to his pain, and his ADD and OCD. After a while he returned to his home, he was unable to find physicians who would provide the Oxycodone (just as his physicians out of state had been unwilling to prescribe his Adderall).

I prescribed the Oxycodone, and anticipated that I would later add Adderall. It wasn't necessary. When he got to proper doses of the Oxycodone, he found that his pain, his ADD, and OCD were all abated. There was no need to add Adderall or any other stimulant. Remarkable, his many symptoms were controlled by a single drug, the opiate Oxycodone.

I think the take-home lesson is that those who suffer the bipolar spectrum, and that includes ADD and OCD are different, clinically and phamacologically, and it is they who will respond so well to opiates and /or stimulants. One or the other and, sometimes both.

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robertcochran Posts: 1

Re: Opiate Therapy for Attention Deficit (ADD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Reply #2 on : Thu February 02, 2012, 11:45:25

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Typical story (see other comments on my blogs)Best I can offer is that some docs around the country are beginning to see the benefits od opiate therapy for diseases like OCD. I wonder if a pain doc or clinic might be receptive. Treat the pain. Cure the OCD. Good luck, Bob Cochran

Matt Florence Posts: 2

Ocd/Opiate therapy
Reply #1 on : Thu February 02, 2012, 04:08:25

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I was just curious how this is. How it is that there are doctors like you out there. I suffer from diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder and bi-polar. I dropped out of college due to this doubting disease and struggle with it on a daily basis. I am a 23 year old male with a beautiful daughter and girlfriend and I have been off and on hydrocodone for the last 4 years. Off because there are no doctors whom would ever prescribe it to me for my illness. Instead I'm viewed as the badguy in pain clinics looking for painkillers.. I'm just another "addict" if you will. I'm just curious if there are any other doctors like this or if you have information for me that would be useful to achieving a friendly doctor/patient relationship. I want to quit running around and having to hide the fact that I DO need this for help. Vicodin helps block out the crazy impulses I get through the day to obsses and even the ritualistic behavior I perform to get rid of the anxiety. It puts me in a mood that could seem no more normal or less than how I felt as a child before this disease disrupted my life. It helps me enjoy my girlfriend, child, work and activities outside of my worklife. Please if you know anything, I would greatly appreciate it.

Matt-F