Aspergers and OCD?

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Hi, I just received a diagnosis for my 12 year old daughter. I've suspected for years that she has aspergers. The Dr informed me that she also has OCD, as you can't have AS without OCD. She doesn't have OCD in the way I understood it to be, as in repeating actions. It's an anxiety thing where she over focuses on one thing. Has anyone else experienced this or heard of it? The Dr prescribed her Prozac for the OCD and said it will help for all aspects of her aspergers. I'm at the end of my rope and hope this helps. She started her on 1/4 pill, then increase in 1/4 pill increments over the next month or so till she gets a full 10 mg dose. Has anyone done this? I have always been leery of meds but at this point I will try anything!

Look up Pure-O (Purely Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).

It's actually called Pure-O in short hand.

It means OCD without rituals, but rather intrusive, repetitive thoughts that are difficult to not think about.

I was diagnosed with AS when I was 10ish.

Went on Prozac, it helped a lot. Very few side effects for me. From my experience it does take a bit of time to start working (gradually over 1 month). But it definitely helped me a ton.

I would say go for it!

You can definitely have AS without OCD and the other way around, but they are common co-morbids. Autistic rigidity can often be expressed in a way that's very similar to OCD.

However, meds alone are probably not sufficient to help your daughter (and there is no medication that helps any condition on the autism spectrum, although they can be used to help many of the co-morbid conditions of which there are many) First of all, I'd recommend having her see a developmental pediatrician or a pediatric neurologist who specializes in autism, to see if there are any underlying conditions that need treatment (common ones with autism or AS are sensory integration problems, pragmatic speech deficits, and a social skills deficit.)

Second, I've had good success with the book "What to do when your brain gets stuck" to help with my son's OCD-like symptoms. It does focus on fairly traditional OCD, but we went through the book and were able to tell him which parts applied to him and which didn't. It gave us a common language to talk about it, and a way for him to re-frame what his brain was doing so he could find ways to work around it. http://www.amazon.com/What-When-Brain-S ... 1591478057

Does she have supports at school? We found that my son's OCD like symptoms nearly disappeared when he started learning about his diagnosis, and getting pragmatic speech therapy and social skills classes at school: his anxiety at not understanding the social world around him was the driver of the symptoms.

There was recently a good thread on the differences/similarities between ASD and OCD
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4776315.html&highlight=#4776315
I personally think the doc may be off base but I am not a medical professional. Read the above thread, I think it might give you some more info.
Have you tried any other interventions before putting her on medication? Obviously meds are very useful for some people but I think its a little scary putting young people on them before they are developed.

I do realize that one can have OCD and not have AS. I hadn't realized that my daughter was focusing on, for example the way her clothes feel, and thought that was just what happens with the sensory part of AS. Now I'm seeing that if she can get the, over focusing on things under control, it will help all other aspects of AS. She had a melt down over how hideous she thinks her eyebrows are. Now I can see that she, as the Dr put it, has tunnel vision when it come to things like that. Sigh, I am so dreading school starting. Still hate to put her on Prozac, but at this point I'm desperate.
I want to thank everyone for your comments. It is such a relief to talk to others who understand.

my son age 14yrs started prozac for ocd dr said it was to do with AS and not your standard OCD. The prozac has made a huge difference no more disturbing taught's but he still way to anxious in new situation and settings.

It has made his daily life less stressful general and he can preform better when he/we forgets to take them I can tell immediately repetitive behaviors start and hand shakes he wants to do constantly.

Thanks Annamarie, yours and other comments about Prozac are making me more at ease with giving it to my daughter.

My 11 y/o son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS and anxiety - It was explained to me that the anxiety was like OCD, but did not really meet the diagnosis for OCD as my son does not have compulsions. However, his brain does get "stuck." It got much worse with the increased stress of intermediate school in 5th grade (it has multiple classes/teacher, changing classes, lockers... etc. like middle school). He was crying in meltdowns every day and many days for most of the day. He would get upset over something like. "I won't have time to finish this work." and could not stop that thought... or "Everybody is looking at me" then he would sit in a ball on the floor with his head tucked down and his arms over his head. Or "The cafeteria will run out of food before I get through the line." He is taking Luvox, which is in the same class of drugs as Prozac (SSRI), and has seemed to help reduce the anxiety. Just a warning though. When we got to the full dose of the medication, my son became violent. He threatened a neighborhood child with a pocket knife (because the kid was being a bully), threatened the mom of a neighborhood kid to "kill her" (after she had gone inside - it was heard over the security camera) because she made her son come in for dinner, began throwing chairs in the classroom, and knocking over desks. We dropped back down to a 1/2 dose, which seemed to work well at curbing the anxiety without the side effect of aggression. He still has some anxiety, but it is more manageable using lots of techniques (CBT therapy and a program from www.myanxiouschild.com ) he worked on all year with the therapist and at home with the family. Those techniques weren't working before the medication. If it weren't for the fact that my son was crying almost all day every day, unable to be in the classroom and was placed in a classroom for kids with an Emotional Disturbance, and was becoming extremely depressed and miserable about it all, I would not have chosen medication. I am glad with the results of the balance between medication and coping techniques. He still struggles. Just the other day, he was grounded from all technology for 3 days, and he was upset almost all day. He explained that he knew it was only 3 days, but it felt like he would not get to play Minecraft for the rest of the summer, then he would go to school and never get to play again. We were able to get through that first day with a lot of support and he coped well with the rest of the 2 days left of grounding.