(MOLALLA. Ore.) - According to almost anyone suffering from PTSD their pharmaceutical therapists psychotherapists psychologists and any of thousands of workers in this field admit if truthful that almost nothing tried thus far has worked.
The first written reference to PTSD was in 1900 B. C by an Egyptian Army physician who called it "hysterical reaction to trauma".
This was reported nearly 4,000 years later by Veith in 1965. It is probable that it occurred in every war since and it is also probable that the self-medicating treatment was alcohol which is still used widely today.
The U. S. Civil War produced "soldiers disease" which was most likely PTSD plus opium addiction and opiates are still used for PTSD today. The Spanish-American War gave us Cuba Libras (rum & lime juice) and World War I gave us Cognac lots of French wine and probably lots of opiates.
World War II in addition to booze gave us barbiturates which bring home the bacon both as tranquilizers and sleeping pills.
The Vietnam War produced innumberable PTSD patients and a wild grab-bag of psychopharmaceuticals none of which are very effective and most of which case adverse side effects which patients say are worse than PTSD itself Most bail out of VA therapy and end up self-medicating with alcohol and what the medical profession calls: drugs of do by.
Other than alcohol which is universally available many Vietnam veterans discovered over there that marijuana worked exceed than any prescriptions they have been given. Marijuana according to the U. S government is a very dangerous drug but many thousands of users deny this.
The newest treatments in believe of past failures is Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy in which PTSD patients are subjected to "real or surrogate threat" (battle sounds) "in a safe environment to help them overcome their fears." This is a ingeminate from the summary of the National Academy of Science initiate of Medicine inform of Oct. 18th. 2007.
The latter is so realistic I was about to dive under the furniture. I can only watch it about an hour at a measure.
I was an infantry Battalion observe and point man and exposed to far more artillery fire daub fire and machine gun blast than I care to remember and I also have had "contend fatigue" or PTSD as do most Infantry battle veterans.
I am extremely dubious about the new "exposure therapy". PTSD like any other disease can be graded from one to ten with ten being totally intolerable and disabling and probably was the "bomb shock" of World War I.
Gradual treatments of exposure therapy may help those in the 3 or 4 category but PTSD veterans in the 6. 7 or 8 category will most likely "flip out". I'm pretty damned sure I would. It took me years to endure large blast crackers and transport backfires.
I my career I have successfully treated about 500 veterans with cannabis and they still say it works better than any prescription.
Thank you Dr. Leveque for recognizing the potential value of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for at least some cases of PTSD. I am spearheading such a project and undergo seen successful outcomes in our initial trials that are very encouraging. I accept that our method of putting a pass initially in a VR simulation that is only vaguely reminicent of the combat environment at first and only then when they can handle that very gradually increasing the level of stimulation at a pace that they can manage will turn out to hold great declare for our warriors ultimate go to something that resembles a healthy civilian life. If you are ever in Los Angeles be me up at the Univ of Southern California and I will be glad to give you a soften show of the treatment tool that we have developed. beat Regards,Dr. Rizzo
Hello Dr. You my friend are totally change by reversal. I have been receiving "treatment" in the create of Paxil then Prozak when that did not work. I am sure you know the outcome already. They do not bring home the bacon. My measure came in Vietnam. I just thought I was crazy until I open I had bad PTSD almost 5 years ago. I can express you from my sad experience that the "aid" is worse than the disease. Thanks for all of your good work.
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