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Can't stop repetitive sexual, intrusive thoughts

Hi Friends, I am suffering from REPETITIVE certain sexual phrases and sexual intrusive thoughts whole the day. Has ANY one has this type of undesirable intolerable pain? Which drugs will be excellent for this? What will help?
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Avatar universal
Consider a discussion of Luvox with a qualified psychiatrist. Not a nurse practitioner. If you’re lucky enough to be in one of the few states where psychologists now can prescribe, seek out CBT THERAPY and medication together from a qualified provider who can do both. Best of luck to you. Highly treatable.
Helpful - 1
2 Comments
Uh, are you selling Luvox?  Seems unlikely as I'm not sure it ever applied for patent protection in the US and if it did it's certainly generic now, but Luvox is a very difficult med to take and to stop taking.  Of all the antidepressants it might leave the body the fastest, which is associated with really bad withdrawal problems, and it has a ton of contraindications due to conflicts with other meds, especially benzos which many of those who need antidepressants use and which are also used when we get surgery.  This is one of those save for last drugs along with Paxil and Effexor, not the one you'd want to start off with.  I'm guessing you mention this drug because it did get approval for treating OCD, but only because it was the first to ask.  All antidepressants are equally effective or ineffective with OCD whether or not they got specific indications to use it for that.  This is also why so many prescribe clomipramine even though few can tolerate the side effects, as it got specific approval to be used for OCD but there's actually no proof it works any better than any other tricyclic or other antidepressant.
I agree with you, VCM999.  Have you taken that medication successfully? It is one of the ones that got the OCD indication early on. There are others in that class used effectively too.  Medication an help, I agree, when we have that intrusive voice in our head. And also agree with CBT/DBT therapy. These are the things that have basically saved my son's life as his intrusive thought for over a year was to kill himself.
15242955 tn?1534438461
I suffer from intrusive thoughts too.   Lets just say they aren't violent or physically hurtful.  That said I try not to think of them by counting various things in different categtories.  I do this in bed at night.  So far I've remembered 142 SNL hosts.
Helpful - 1
4 Comments
Valuable advice. That is a technique to change thought patterns and am glad that this works for you.  142 hosts!  I do like your choice of counting items in various categories!  
Pleased you like my technique.  Some of my categories are members who became hosts. Hosts not invited back.  Controversial hosts.   Hosts who hosted multiple times,  sports,  other.
Oh, I love that too artemesia2.  My son has intrusive thoughts at night and they are such a pain.  He's 'trying' to keep them in perspective as part of the illness.  But they keep him up.  I'm trying to come up with something he can use as suggested by his doctor to counter the thoughts and you give a great example.  He likes movies. He could list and group movies into categories.  I'm going to suggest that for tonight.
One warning about this -- thinking about stimulating things like movies or SNL episodes might keep a person up as well.  I try counting backwards from 1000, as that doesn't involve the potential of triggering any other thoughts.  I also sometimes just get up, go to the bathroom, and start over.  I use homeopathic sleep remedies which sometimes help.  My problem is severe, as it was caused by medication, so nothing really works all that well, my brain doesn't work anymore, but sometimes this does work.  Can't use the SNL example, though, stopped watching it decades ago.  Peace.
973741 tn?1342342773
Intrusive thoughts are such a bear.  My son suffers these as well. They could be from obsessive compulsive disorder such as with my son. Have you ever been diagnosed with that? I would suggest seeing a psychiatrist. My son has been undergoing treatment with an SSRI as well as psychotherapy using CBT and DBT and has had success in minimizing intrusive thoughts.  He reports this himself.  This comes as a welcome relief as his thoughts were such that he said his purpose in life was to die.  gulp.  So, quieting your mind is something I understand.

The human brain can only hold one thought at a time.  So my son also has success with changing what is being said. He has some go to phrases or images or things that he can immerse his thoughts into that then drown out the intrusive thought. He also has learned that distraction is OKAY and helpful. He has some activities that when he engages in, he's thinking less. We encourage him to jump to those activities.  And the more you do the pleasurable activities, there is improvement in how you feel.  

Since your thoughts are of a sexual nature and they are bothering you, I do wonder if talking through things would be of benefit. Don't answer here, but where do these thoughts stem from?

For dangerous intrusive thoughts, some doctors will prescribe a low dose of lithium. You can read about this.  This has a high success rate.  We didn't go that route as the intrusive thoughts are a symptom of the mental disorder for my son so we are fully treating the mental disorder.  My son takes an SSRI with success. All parameters of his mental health are improving. He also is engaged in the different types of talk therapy he is doing and he does things related to that on his own at home (has work books and such).  

Night time can be particularly hard for intrusive thoughts. My son did use a medication given to help him sleep temporarily.  That's always an option. But again, his intrusive thoughts were dangerous and of self harm. So, it was necessary to quiet them for his own safety at night.  He no longer takes the medication that made him sleep.  But sleeps and is able to control the thoughts since we are treating the depression and anxiety and ocd.
Helpful - 1
3 Comments
Uh, lithium?  You mean the drug for psychosis?  Have any idea how hard it is to take that drug?  Seriously, this person is reporting a problem with one thing, not a broad spectrum mental illness.  What might be happening to me or someone I know has nothing to do with what might be going on with somebody else.  Before we start sending people out to do what we're doing in our own lives, let's see what's actually going on in their lives.  I'm going to keep saying this, but all thoughts are intrusive.  We have no idea where any of them come from, but they are always there.  I have often had more than one thought at a time, so also have no idea where that comes from, sounds more like a meme.  I stand by my position that if someone hasn't told us a lot about what's actually going on, it's not the time to jump to worst case scenarios.  We can't generalize from the particular.  That's what psychologists do, they talk to us, tell us what they think is going on, come up with a diagnosis, and if we decide from there we need medication we then go to a psychiatrist unless we're suicidal or in crisis.  I'm just saying, when our thoughts start bothering us, it isn't because we're thinking, we were always thinking.  Something happened that caused us to be made to feel bad about our thinking and to obsess over it over time.  It's not pleasant to be obsessed by uncomfortable thoughts, something everyone with mental illness suffers from.  But this poster might not be having all that bad of a time, he didn't tell us enough yet to know.  Patience, everyone.  Peace.
You seem to have out of date information.  Lithium is given for suicidal ideation and intrusive thought at a low dose.  Read about it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6380616/
I think you misunderstood my point.  I wasn't saying it wasn't used for it.  Everything available is used for everything.  Anti-seizure meds are used for anxiety.  pain meds are used for anxiety.  ADHD meds are used for depression.  My point was, those who have had to take lithium and other meds for psychoses have found them very very hard to take and often stop taking them at great risk because of that.  Some drugs are just too problematic for too many people to use for relatively minor problems.  Keep in mind, I don't think intrusive thoughts is a thing.  I think it was made up like so much of the last few diagnostic manuals by the pharmaceutical companies and hack psychiatrists that write them.  They've put virtually everything the brain does and labeled it as a disease if the person is unhappy.  This has made these last few manuals extremely controversial within the community of psych0logists and psychiatrist, and it's a good bet a large majority doesn't agree with them anymore.  My point was directed to this particular post, not to anyone else's problem, and I was warning that the poster didn't include enough info or state a problem that is so bad at this point to plant suggestions in his mind that he might need such strong meds with such potent side effects.  If the poster comes back and says his problem is severe and his life is unliveable and he's tried relaxation exercises or therapy or whatever and nothing has worked and he's suicidal, yeah, then you look at a lot of things you might use, but even then, lithium wouldn't be the first thing to go to.  It might be if other things didn't work.  I'm often counseling caution because you know, someone on here has to.  These drugs are no picnic.  Peace.
20898904 tn?1625046177
You may have Touret's Syndrome.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
If you think you're going to take a serious medication that will alter your brain and have it be problem free and also solve this problem, probably not so much.  It's great to have meds when we need them, but if this is your only problem, I wouldn't think about magic pills to solve it.  I have no idea what thoughts you're talking about, or what age you are, or where you are in your sexual life, so it's hard to say what's going on, and you also don't say how long this has been going on.  You also don't say why this would cause intolerable pain, as sexual thoughts are usually pleasant, so are these thoughts about unpleasant sexual experiences?  Basically, if you're thinking things obsessively you don't want to be thinking about, you have to stop thinking them by either by relaxing so whatever stress is causing it eases up, figuring out why you're thinking these thoughts (such as, something happened to cause this, some guilt you are carrying around about something that happened, something you saw affected you so much this occurred, etc.), or just stop thinking about this and think about something else.  Not so easy to do, but it is what will fix the problem.  Meds won't fix the problem, even if they make you feel better temporarily.  If this is truly this bad and you can't stop the obsessive thinking, therapy is the place to go so you can get help figuring it out and learn some relaxation exercises and cognitive behavioral exercises to help you move past this.  Peace.
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