OCD

Did your child’s obsessive behaviour start soon after they had a strep throat infection? Has your child been checked for neurotransmitter imbalances, or were they given a prescription medicine that has side-effects. Dr. Clack knows to check these factors before recommending medicines to help your child feel better.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in childhood and adolescence is an impairing condition, associated with a specific set of distressing symptoms incorporating repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and distressing, time-consuming rituals (compulsions). It is often a chronic condition that impacts a child’s quality of life, and that of their family. The disorder can also expand into rages, aggressive behaviour, religious rituals, and eating obsessions in eating disorders. Conventional treatment include CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and SSRI (Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) medications. SSRI’s can have harmful side-effects in children.

New medical guidelines indicate that OCD can come from several causes: learned behaviours, neurological causes, infections (Streptococcus, Bacteroides and/or disturbances of the gut microbiome), as well as genetic and epigenetic factors. Typical assessments of children or teens presenting with OCD symptoms and behaviours may not be tested for all of these factors. Sudden onset of OCD should be assessed using PANS (Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) or PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neurlogical Disorder Associated with Streptococcal infection) criteria. Family history of OCD brings a 2-fold likelihood of OCD developing in children. Epigenetic abnormalities in Serotonin receptors are being discovered in research in recent years.

Dr. Clack has successfully treated several children with OCD using therapeutic diets, nutritional supplements (eg. Inositol, N-Acetylcysteine), and herbal and homeopathic medicines. NAET (Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques) has been an essential treatment in most of those cases. In 2016 a review paper written by Dr. Clack, “Treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Naturopathic/Biomedical Approach” was published on ACN Latitudes, a website for OCD. His article followed a submission by one of his patients about the year long treatment of their son’s OCD with Dr. Clack’s approach.

Dr. Clack is accepting new patients. For more information, arrange for a consultation with Dr. Clack at Meridian Naturopathic Clinic or Touchstone Naturopathic Centre.