New guy wondering about therapies... preferably ones that work

I'm sure there's already a number of threads on here dedicated to PTSD therapies, but honestly I don't feel too inclined to rummaging through thousands of posts when I can just bring those thousands of posts to myself... well, maybe not thousands, but 10 or so. Yeah, ten would be good.

Alright, I've tried to write this out a couple of times, but I always seem to end up writing about 5 pages of drivel when I try to relay my story, so I'm just going to stick to the facts for the time being: I've had PTSD for 4 1/2 years now, which has been complicated significantly by the presence of a remarkably persistent brain injury that came to exist at the same moment the PTSD did. I've done the medication thing (didn't do me any good), I've done the talk therapy thing (helped, but only so much, and not nearly enough), I've done some light therapy (syntonics, which was actually quite helpful), and some physical therapy (cranio sacral work, which has been the most helpful thus far), and I'm currently doing hypnosis (significant gains from this as well, but I'm still getting consistently triggered by my triggers).

I'm roughly 400% better now than I was 2 years ago, but I'm still not in a place that I see a great deal of value in preserving, if that makes any sense. I guess a simpler way to put it would be "I've come a long way, but not even close to far enough". I have chronic pain from here to ya-ya (once again, significantly diminished, but still constantly apparent), and my episodes following being triggered are absolutely insufferable, so I now avoid my triggers at all costs. Unfortunately, my triggers are things like "going to see my friends", "going to bars and/or restaurants", and "driving a car on a friday night", so I'm living a life now that's about as much fun as a bag of dead ferrets. Simply put, I'm not willing to live like this... from reading on here I can see that a lot of very strong people have found purpose enough to live their life with PTSD-controlled limitations, but I am not going to become one of these people, I'm afraid. I'm taking a "I will beat this or this will beat me" stance, as it's the only thing I'm comfortable with (and honestly, to me, it's the only thing that feels right).

So as of now I'm looking for new therapies to unravel my PTSD, as I truly feel that it's the crux of this whole conundrum. If this hypnosis that I'm doing now doesn't end up doing the trick entirely, I'm planning to try EMDR, and if that doesn't work then I'm considering doing some new therapy called Brain State Technologies, but I wanted to see if there's anything out there that I haven't tried yet/heard about, preferably something that's soliciting great results from the people that have used it.

So does anyone have any stories about things I should try? Hell, does anyone have any stories about things I should definitely not try? I'm open to anything at this point, one of the few things that I see as being good in my life is gaining more information, so lay that stuff on me.

Hi PTSD Sanchez! This is a great place to ask for opinions, advice and opinions. You will definitely find a ton of support here.

Regarding the PTSD therapies offered, I really can't offer anything new or different. I was going to post about EMDR, but it seems you are already aware of that. My PTSD has been life long, and I have dealt best with medication and individual weekly therapy.

I hope you find some answers here!

Take care and

Dee

Hi!

I have done EMDR and had very good success with it. Just make sure you go to someone who is trained in level 2 at least. I know a T who does the cranial , how did that work for PTSD, what do they actually do?

Sanchez, I have done EMDR and it helped me immensely with past trauma. My practitioner is my therapist, who is level 2. Good luck. I hope you find a therapy that will help you.

happyflowergirl:

Cranial work (or body work, on a larger scale) is most effective when there is a physical trauma associated with your psychological trauma. In my case, I fell on my head, which produced both a physical (concussion) and psychological (PTSD) fallout. When type of situation arises, it seems that the physical and psychological kind of wrap around each other and create a doubley problematic trauma, in which neither the physical body or the psyche recover properly (for instance if you broke your leg in a traumatic car accident the leg sometimes won't heal like it's supposed to).

While this is a total pain in the *** from a patient's stand point, it can be somewhat helpful in the way that since the two elements of a person's trauma (physical and psychological) are tied to one another, healing one element automatically has an effect on the other, and vice versa. In this way, a talk therapy breakthrough can alleviate chronic physical pain, and good physical therapy can cause psychological trauma to leak out as well. That's how cranio work can help treat PTSD.

In my case, this process was a bit messy. My trauma came at about 2am on my 21st birthday, so as these physical traumas in my skull were unlocking in the days following my cranio sacral appointments, I would get these psychological hiccups where all of a sudden I'd feel like ripping my shirt off and run around my house screaming "WOOOOO!!!!!" (this sounds like a lot more fun than it actually was, the whole process was egregiously uncomfortable to be perfectly honest, but it was still preferable to nothing happening at all... that persistent static-ey disconnection from reality was far worse). I was able to control myself and let these urges release without going hog wild like that, but it was just interesting how the body stores all of these sensations like that, and as they release you reexperience all of them, good or bad.

Wow...that sounds really complicated! I have been diagnosed with ptsd and chronic anxiety. I have had various medications but am not on any at the moment. I have been having weekly therapy for 2 years. Although it has been helpful in some ways, sometimes it has felt unbearable and overwhelming "reliving " my childhood traumas. Recently I have learnt "mindfulness meditatation", which has been helpful. If you google it, you can learn more about it. Its really just about being present in the "moment". Good luck. Talking here on this site, has also been helpful as its just good to communicate with others who understand. Take care K

Wow, a lot of the cranial work sound intense but it makes so much sense. I know the body remembers trauma. That is why sometimes people who have a past of child abuse or other injuries, when they get a massage, a lot of memories can surfaced due to the body being touched.
My brother has brain damage due to the child abuse and I have some neck issues due to it.
Thanks for reminding me of this. j ;-)

Hi PTSD_Sanches and welcome to PC.

I know you mentioned that medication didn't work for you. Were you taking it for depression, anxiety or both? (Please don't feel you need to answer if you'd rather not.)

I have struggled with PTSD for over thirty years now. It is a beast to tame. Just recently my psychiatrist added a beta-blocker to my daily "cocktail" and I must admit, it is helping with the pounding heart and the spikes of my anxiety symptoms have calmed down.

I have no side effects whatsoever and it doesn't make me a zombie or anything because it is not a psyche drug. It blocks adreniline.

Here's some links and an article that you might find interesting reading,or not. But if nothing else, it's nice to know they are aware of the difficulties of PTSD and are working towards finding some relief.

Click here for link...

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/21/memory_drug

'Trauma Pill' Could Make Memories Less Painful
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

Researchers say the pill would reduce the effect of stress hormones that etch unpleasant events into memory.

(Jan. 14) - Suppose you could erase bad memories from your mind. Suppose, as in a recent movie, your brain could be wiped clean of sad and traumatic thoughts.

That is science fiction. But real-world scientists are working on the next best thing. They have been testing a pill that, when given after a traumatic event like rape, may make the resulting memories less painful and intense.

Will it work? It is too soon to say. Still, it is not far-fetched to think that this drug someday might be passed out along with blankets and food at emergency shelters after disasters like the tsunami or Hurricane Katrina.

Psychiatrist Hilary Klein could have offered it to the man she treated at a St. Louis shelter over the Labor Day weekend. He had fled New Orleans and was so distraught over not knowing where his sisters were that others had to tell Klein his story.

"This man could not even give his name, he was in such distress. All he could do was cry," she said.

Such people often develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a problem first recognized in Vietnam War veterans. Only 14 percent to 24 percent of trauma victims experience long-term PTSD, but sufferers have flashbacks and physical symptoms that make them feel as if they are reliving the trauma years after it occurred.

Scientists think it happens because the brain goes haywire during and right after a strongly emotional event, pouring out stress hormones that help store these memories in a different way than normal ones are preserved.

Taking a drug to tamp down these chemicals might blunt memory formation and prevent PTSD, they theorize.

Some doctors have an even more ambitious goal: trying to cure PTSD. They are deliberately triggering very old bad memories and then giving the pill to deep-six them.

The first study to test this approach on 19 longtime PTSD sufferers has provided early encouraging results, Canadian and Harvard University researchers report.

"We figure we need to test about 10 more people until we've got solid evidence." said Alain Brunet, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal who is leading the study.

It can't come too soon.

The need for better treatment grows daily as American troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with wounded minds as well as bodies. One government survey found almost 1 in 6 showing symptoms of mental stress, including many with post-traumatic stress disorder. Disability payments related to the illness cost the government more than $4 billion a year.

The need is even greater in countries ravaged by many years of violence.

"I don't think there's yet in our country a sense of urgency about post-traumatic stress disorder" but there should be, said James McGaugh, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California at Irvine.

He and a colleague, Larry Cahill, did experiments that changed how scientists view memory formation and suggested new ways to modify it.

Memories, painful or sweet, don't form instantly after an event but congeal over time. Like slowly hardening cement, there is a window of opportunity when they are shapable.

During stress, the body pours out adrenaline and other "fight or flight" hormones that help write memories into the "hard drive" of the brain, McGaugh and Cahill showed.

Propranolol can blunt this. It is in a class of drugs called beta blockers and is the one most able to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where stress hormones are wreaking havoc. It already is widely used to treat high blood pressure and is being tested for stage fright.

Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard University psychiatrist, did a pilot study to see whether it could prevent symptoms of PTSD. He gave 10 days of either the drug or dummy pills to accident and rape victims who came to the Massachusetts General Hospital emergency room.

In follow-up visits three months later, the patients listened to tapes describing their traumatic events as researchers measured their heart rates, palm sweating and forehead muscle tension.

The eight who had taken propranolol had fewer stress symptoms than the 14 who received dummy pills, but the differences in the frequency of symptoms were so small they might have occurred by chance - a problem with such tiny experiments.

Still, "this was the first study to show that PTSD could be prevented," McGaugh said, and enough to convince the federal government to fund a larger one that Pitman is doing now.

Meanwhile, another study on assault and accident victims in France confirmed that propranolol might prevent PTSD symptoms.

One of those researchers, Brunet, now has teamed with Pitman on the boldest experiment yet - trying to cure longtime PTSD sufferers.

"We are trying to reopen the window of opportunity to modulate the traumatic memory," Pitman said.

The experiments are being done in Montreal and involve people traumatized as long as 20 or 30 years ago by child abuse, sexual assault or a serious accident.

"It's amazing how a traumatic memory can remain very much alive. It doesn't behave like a regular memory. The memory doesn't decay," Brunet said.

To try to make it decay, researchers ask people to describe the trauma as vividly as they can, bringing on physical symptoms like racing hearts, then give them propranolol to blunt "restorage" of the memory. As much as three months later, the single dose appears to be preventing PTSD symptoms, Brunet said.

Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscience professor at New York University, is enrolling 20 to 30 people in a similar experiment and believes in the approach.

"Each time you retrieve a memory it must be restored," he said. "When you activate a memory in the presence of a drug that prevents the restorage of the memory, the next day the memory is not as accessible."

Not all share his enthusiasm, as McGaugh found when he was asked to brief the President's Council on Bioethics a few years ago.

"They didn't say anything at the time but later they went ballistic on it," he said.

Chairman Leon Kass contended that painful memories serve a purpose and are part of the human experience.

McGaugh says that's preposterous when it comes to trauma like war. If a soldier is physically injured, "you do everything you can to make him whole," but if he says he is upset "they say, 'suck it up - that's the normal thing,"' he complained.

Propranolol couldn't be given to soldiers in battle because it would curb survival instincts.

"They need to be able to run and to fight," Pitman said. "But if you could take them behind the lines for a couple of days, then you could give it to them after a traumatic event," or before they're sent home, he said.

Some critics suggest that rape victims would be less able to testify against attackers if their memories were blunted, or at least that defense attorneys would argue that.

"Medical concerns trump legal concerns. I wouldn't withhold an effective treatment from somebody because of the possibility they may have to go to court a year later and their testimony be challenged. We wouldn't do that in any other area of medicine," Pitman said. "The important thing to know about this drug is it doesn't put a hole in their memory. It doesn't create amnesia."

Practical matters may limit propranolol's usefulness. It must be given within a day or two of trauma to prevent PTSD.

How long any benefits from the drug will last is another issue. McGaugh said some animal research suggests that memory eventually recovers after being squelched for a while by the drug.

Overtreatment also is a concern. Because more than three-quarters of trauma victims don't have long-term problems, most don't need medication.

But LeDoux sees little risk in propranolol.

"It's a pretty harmless drug," he said. "If you could give them one or two pills that could prevent PTSD, that would be a pretty good thing."

Klein, the Saint Louis University psychiatrist, said it would be great to have something besides sleep aids, antidepressants and counseling to offer traumatized people, but she remains skeptical about how much long-term good propranolol can do.

"If there were a pill to reduce the intensity of symptoms, that would be a relief," she said. "But that's a far step from being able to prevent the development of PTSD."

Only more study will tell whether that is truly possible.

Well actually they are doing research about giving the pill to soldiers before they encounter combat to prevent them from getting PTSD. But there are ethical concerns with that.

Plus one studys showed if you can give it to a women who had a volation done to her, ASAP, like in the emergency room, it may prevent the PTSD from happening. Because usually it doesn't show up right away. I think this is soo promissing but the ethincal concerns would be if she wanted to charge the abuser, she may need to know the stuff in the memories.. And for it to work on memories that are old, wonderful! sign me up

sorry your article said all of that, didn't mean to repeat it!

Petunia:

I was taking medication for an outright nervous breakdown that came 2 years after my initial trauma, so I guess you could say "anxiety", as that's what most doctors deemed it. I'm not a big fan of most doctors now, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I was on lexapro and a low dosage of xanax, and while they were somewhat effective in getting me to stop actively exploding, they didn't make me feel good in the slightest (I don't construe "less horrific" as being "good"). After a while, I saw these drugs as being an impediment to my exorcising this demon of my past, as their purpose in my system was to stifle some of the pain in my body before it reached the surface, and that's why I went off of them. Honestly, I didn't feel any better or worse emotionally when I dropped the drugs, I just felt less like my brain was stuck inside a ziploc bag, which was a positive change in my mind.

Regardless, thanks for the information on beta blockers. I actually saw that 60 minutes report when it aired, and it definitely made me furious as hell (not that this research was being done, but that the government was shutting it down). These "ethical concerns" seem absolutely preposterous in my mind, I mean, it's not like the drug is intended to suck your memories out of your brain, it's just intended to take away the memory's kick. So it's docile, like a photograph.

I think I'm going to try EMDR before I try anything else, as my body doesn't respond well to chemicals (the physical trail of my trauma primarily resides in my brain and liver, so most anything other than water and oatmeal get my system up at arms), but if that doesn't work I'll probably try to get some beta blocker stuff going. Just by nature of my trauma, what triggers me, and what the fallout after I'm triggered acts like, I really have no choice but to seek out eradication of my PTSD, instead of learning to compromise it and live around it, so whatever could possibly provide that is exactly what I'm interested in.

I've found that gentle yoga (*not* the pumped-up athletic kind) helps, but you have to stick with it (consistency and long-term commitment are necessary).

Same deal with mindfulness (not exactly the same as meditation, but very close) (i.e. it's a "practice" not a one-time "cure", although of course if you're doing it properly and consistently and you feel you're not getting any significant benefit that needs to be addressed.)

Also minimize caffeine, sugar, alcohol, etc.

Sometimes you have to adapt your life around it to maximize your chances of succeeding, and not be *too* impatient for results.

Can you explain EMDR to me?

I was diagnosed 5 years ago and didn't want to deal. I was just recently diagnosed again by a different doctor and now am searching for answers. I think the first time I was diagnosed and just didn't want the label is because I knew I wouldn't have any family support anyway and I was right but the second time around I was in so much pain I had to face it.

QQMe