Is OCD treatment effective?

Hi, I am a 21-year-old. All my friends are beauty conscious. I am the only one in my gang who is less bothered about my appearance. I care about clothing but I give less priority to my facial appearance. I have a tendency of picking skin from my face and from the side of the nails. But one day my boyfriend noticed it and warned me not to do it again. But I am not able to stop that activity. If I didn't pluck the skin I feel like something is imperfect there. So I keep on plucking the skin. I want to stop this habit because I am loosing friends. I discussed this matter with my friend. One of them suggested that it may be because I am suffering from a kind of OCD. So I searched about OCD treatments and found an OCD treatment center in Toronto. I have scheduled an appointment with the clinic. Will this be an expensive treatment? Should I take the medicines for this or just psychotherapy will do? Is the medication sedative? How long will be the treatment? Please give me genuine replies as soon as possible.

 

OCD is TMS--are you familiar with what TMS is all about? Have you read a TMS book by Dr. Sarno? One of the notables that Dr. Sarno cured of TMS is Howard Stern--the "king of all media"--Howard acknowledges him in his autobiography. Dr. Sarno also "cured" Mrs. Robinson, of "The Graduate", Anne Bancroft of her TMS symptoms.

 

Calm down first. You are on the right track here and hey, you even made an appointment to do something about it. There is no need to decide right away to follow their treatment. It is not that you will die from OCD if you give yourself some time first to contemplate things.
I say, go read a TMS book first as suggested by Tom and Jan.

Once you know the basics of TMS, here are my personal answers:
Therapy is probably expensive, yes, but why don't you ask them? If they want to fix it with drugs, I suggest you think twice about following their treatment. I read they apply CBT (cognitive behavior therapy). Maybe that alone can do the trick for you, don't know honestly but I have my doubts. OCD is TMS according to our believes. It involves emotions, becoming aware and accepting them as the cause for your symptoms. So I feel emotional awareness and acceptance should be a significant part of their treatment plan.
(Psycho)therapy is always preferred over medicine, because you won't become dependent on drugs and therapy can give the same or better long-lasting improvement on many fronts. People tend to prefer quick pills over having to face their own thoughts and emotions, which is a shame really. Sometimes medicine is necessary depending on the severity of the problems, but I feel they are often prescribed too easily without contemplating some kind of therapy first.
Medication will probably have a host of common and less common side-effects. I suggest you do some reading about them. Often anti-depressants are prescribed for OCD and I can tell you from my own experience that they can be pretty bad. I felt like a zombie, gained 30lb, sweated a lot... I didn't like it as you can imagine.
Treatment is different for every person. There is no way to say how long it will take, whatever route you take.

 

you loosing your friends because you plucking your skin? It that were me, I don't need those friends.