Hi Floridamom -
Just wanted to say it's great that you are looking into ways to help your son with his anxiety and OCD behaviors. While I think you are on the right track looking for possible medication to help with these issues, I would say that you are wise to be a little cautious. Some people do not react to meds in the expected ways. Sometimes this means they need more or less of the medication than "usual" and sometimes it means they react in ways that suggest a different diagnosis.
As a parent with lots of experience dealing with mental health issues with more than one kid, I would suggest that you start a log of your son's behaviors and meds, assuming he starts some. Doesn't have to be complicated but it will be very helpful to you in the long run. Tracking changes in problem behaviors and meds can sometimes provide information and insights you would not otherwise have discovered.
Here's the things I would consider tracking if I were you:
1)any special/unusual problems or events that day (for example - attended bday party, big melt down, sick w/cold),
2) assign a number to the level of problematic OCD behaviors you saw that day (doesn't matter what scale as long as it's flexible enough to accommodate extremes of behaviors and easy to use - for example maybe 1=few problems 2= moderate problems 3= many problems 4=off the charts)
3)assign a number to his apparent anxiety if you think it would be helpful to track that separately (hint - use the same scale for all the things you're tracking with a number)
4)assign a number for his highest and lowest mood states of the day (this may be important as SSRI's can affect moods in unexpected ways - you want to be aware of possible depression and/or up/agitated/manic type behaviors or language)
5)what meds he had that day including anything unusual like cold meds or antibiotics,
6)anything else you think might be helpful to track (like how long it took to get him to bed that night) that would give you concrete evidence that the meds were or were not helping.
If you're tech savvy, you can set it up as a spreadsheet and enter your data directly into the spreadsheet. Then you can make lovely charts of the scores to help look for patterns over time.
His doctors will love you and you will get a lot of information that may be very helpful as you figure out how best to help your son.
Best wishes
