Treating Anxiety Like a Poison: An ER Doctor's Approach to OCD
Scott Antoine and I have been telling each other for years that we are brother and sister from another mother, because when it comes to anxiety and OCD in our children we tend to see the same thing. What he brought to the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs this year was a framework I had not heard put quite this way. He trained in toxicology. In the emergency department, a poisoning gets three responses: get the patient away from the substance, support while it clears, and where one exists, give the antidote. He applies all three to anxiety, and adds a fourth, which is preventing the next exposure. Most of this conversation is about reframing, which is not the same as talking a child out of a feeling. Scott is not trying to remove anxiety. He is changing what it means. There is the woman who could not tolerate a mask and reworked it into a scuba regulator. There is the eighth grader whose bullying registered as more damaging than a later assault, because, as he puts it, the brain decides for us what counts. And there is the moment he tells a child with OCD that neither three washes nor a thousand is the right answer, so the child gets to choose. Scott had OCD himself at sixteen, and he says the thing every child in that room needs to hear: your brain is not broken. Then it gets personal for both of us. He goes to the basement when it rains to check for mold. I spent four sleepless nights running through infections when my son told me something was not right, and it turned out to be a girl. We name it as what it is, and we talk about the work of not putting our own fear onto our children. If you are in a support group that has told you every sniffle means the wall is coming down, that has not been our experience. It is treatable. It does exist. And it takes a village. This conversation is for education only and is not medical advice. Any supplement, device or technique discussed should be reviewed with your child's own clinician before you try it. - - - - - About the Guest: Dr. Scott Antoine, DO, FACEP, ABOIM, IFMCP, is triple board certified in emergency medicine, integrative holistic medicine, and metabolic nutritional medicine. He trained in toxicology during his emergency medicine residency and spent years in the emergency department before moving into integrative practice. He now practices at the Center for Fully Functional Health in Carmel, Indiana, and is one half of The PANDAS Docs. He is the author of The Comprehensive Physicians' Guide to the Management of PANS and PANDAS and co-created an online course for parents who cannot get to him in person. He is also a PANS/PANDAS parent himself. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: thepandasdocs.com Instagram: @thepandasdocs - - - - - Nancy O’Hara, MD, MPH, FAAP, FMAPS Website: https://www.drohara.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drnancyohara/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nhoharamd/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-o-hara-md-mph-faap-390781258/ - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by [DrTalks.com](http://drtalks.com/) https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/