Hello, I was recently diagnosed HIV+ (DEC 2006). I also suffer from clinical OCD which I've had very successfully controlled via medications for three years now (300mg Wellbutrin XL, 20mg Prozac).

With this recent news my "obsessive" nature has kicked into overdrive. So far the net outcome of this has been good: fixating on educating myself, fixating on increasing my general health, fixating on contingency planning.

These fixations have effected my work to some degree, as I procrastinate things I need to do for my "don't necessarily 'need' to do" fixations, but I've balanced it pretty successfully so far.

My question is: it's been six months, are these obsessions and compulsions "to be expected" with my history, or are they starting to lean more towards "clinical" (i.e. brain chemistry that would suggest a tweak in medication is in order)?

I'm in counseling, and I just started HIV treatment which I wanted to give a solid three months to settle before I did any kind of tweaks with my current OCD regimen; so is Nine Months enough time to have "reasonably adjusted", before looking at tweaking the OCD meds, or should I give myself a full year or longer?

THANKS SO MUCH!

The main thing to ask yourself is whether your OCD symptoms affect your ability to do the things you need to do. Certainly if your work is suffering, then you should consider doing something about these obsessions.