New treatment making life easier for OCD patients
Taking a pill to help get rid of fear? For many people with OCD and other anxiety disorders it sounds too good to be true. Now an antibiotic once used to treat tuberculosis, could change the way doctors treat fear disorders.
Eric Storch, PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, University Of South Florida has been working to see if the tuberculosis medication D-Cycloserine, can be combined with cognitive behavioral therapy to reduce OCD symptoms in kids and help them face their fears. The pill is taken one hour before therapy. It’s thought to affect receptors in the brain that are associated with how people learn to become afraid of something or not.
Storch believes that the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy can be enhanced with a very safe antibiotic.
