Nine-year fight for cover: Family claim acne drug gave teen severe OCD

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Nine years ago, Harry was a typical teenager who played the piano, excelled at school and was, by his father's reckoning, 'everything he could hope for in a son'.

But, he also had acne and started on a course of Isotretinoin to get rid of it. It was a decision that his family claims has drastically and perhaps irreversibly altered his life forever.

Jeremy Wilkinson talks to Harry's father, who believes the medication caused his son to develop OCD and is now locked in a legal battle with ACC.

Photo: Supplied

John's water bill costs him roughly $400 every month because his son regularly takes five-hour showers every single day.

He will often get stuck in the water, trapped there by the fear of removing himself from a clean environment and stepping into a world filled with bacteria teeming on every surface.

In his mind, every door handle, every towel, every tap and tabletop is festering with germs. Showering or washing his hands until they're red and raw are only some of the ways he copes.

The soap dispenser must be pumped a certain number of times as part of a handwashing ritual that has him go through a litre of soap a day.

He also has a full load of washing to do every day because every few hours he needs to change his clothes for fear they've become unclean in the time he's been wearing them.

But the real toll on Harry (not his real name) and his family can't be measured in litres of soap or water.

"I haven't been able even to touch my son in nine years," his father, John, tells NZME.

"No hugs, not an arm around the shoulder, not even a handshake."

Every night since his son was little, John would go into his room and wiggle his son's big toe as a kind of goodnight ritual.

"It's a small thing, but it's the small things like that I miss the most," he says.

He tries not to even hug his daughter in front of her brother because of the distress it causes him, knowing it's something he can't do anymore.

John said his son has to be careful about what he touches.

"We can't touch something that he's just touched. For example, if he sits on a particular seat, we can't use it."

Photo: Jason Dorday / NZME

His behaviours are hallmarks of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a crippling mental illness that is made worse for Harry and his family because he wasn't always like this.

Nine years ago, he was a typical 14-year-old boy excelling at almost everything he tried his hand at, from piano to fencing to academics. As his father put it, he was "everything a family could wish for in their child".

Like many teenage boys, Harry had acne and began taking a prescription-only acne medication called Isotretinoin, w