Management

So after all of that, you may be wondering how exactly people with OCD deal with it. It's certainly not easy to treat OCD, and with no "cure-all," sufferers are often left to trial-and-error. More extreme cases of OCD are dealt with in extreme manners, but most sufferers need not resort to such extremes.

OCD Therapies

• Behavioral therapy (BT): Exposure ritual/response prevention (ERP), is when a sufferer slowly learns to tolerate the anxiety from not acting out compulsions
• ERP has a strong evidence base and is usually considered the most effective treatment for OCD
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Associative splitting is when a sufferer sprouts new associations to diminish the strength of existing ones
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): Seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for a therapeutic effect
• Though it's found effective in severe cases of OCD, it bares a significant risk of memory loss and does not usually have a long-lasting benefit alone

Other Treatments

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs): "Antidepressants" help regulate anxiety and obsessive thoughts by preventing excess serotonin from going back into the original neuron that released it and binds it to nearby receptors to send chemical signals
• Proper nutrition and vitamins: Studies show nutrition deficiencies can contribute to OCD and other mental disorders
• Psychosurgery: Considered an absolute last resort, psychosurgery is when a surgical lesion is made in an area of the brain
• It should be noted that the final treatment listed here will not be performed in the US or UK unless the patient has failed all other treatments