just try and relax..... they're not gonna waterboard yeh
this thing with sub-threshold events triggering on form or another of PTSD, does make me suspicious...... I'm becoming of the opinion that rapid and easy-onset severe PTSD, following an threshold or moderate scare, is actually a symptom of a deeper problem or inbalance somewhere.
This is why I think docs shouldn't stop at just the diagnosis of simple PTSD.... if something as simple as a single drug dose can set it off in some people, there should definitely be research directed in that direction..... because if often if a drug has an harmful property, there are usually ways to isolate and eliminate or them in the lab for lawful usages.
Which is unfotunately hard to do legitimately, due to the amount of these chems that are subject abuse to before being throughly vetted.
When you say drugs, are you talking about psychedelics such as LSD? I've actually never stopped to consider that something like that could trigger flashbacks, but it makes perfect sense. If people who don't have any prior history of PTSD can have flashbacks while on LSD, I assume people who have PTSD would be more susceptible to it, whether they've already dealt with that aspect of it or not. I haven't tried any sort of psychedelic since I've been out though, so I wouldn't know first hand. Just out of curiosity, what symptoms do you have? Do you ever have any that make absolutely no sense and don't quite relate to the event in question?
This is another reason why I don't feel PTSD can be treated with medication, the only exception being benzo's maybe since a lot of the symptoms associated with PTSD are very similar to panic attacks and stem from the central nervous system. Other than that, no... I think PTSD is too complicated to pin down. PTSD affects everyone so differently- some people don't get it at all, others get it and it ranges from mild to horribly severe. It can even vary within the same individual. For example, I have PTSD from several events... five to be exact... but each one manifests itself in a different way and I can even differentiate between them... some are severe, others are hardly noticeable. At the same time, I had another traumatic event happen to me that should have caused PTSD, but didn't. It was a bad car accident, and the only way that affects my life today is that I get a little scared when someone else is driving and they're being reckless and I feel out of control... but I never had dreams about it, flashbacks, no strange paranoid symptoms, I'm not afraid of being in a car, etc. So that's not PTSD, just a normal reaction to what happened... even though it probably should have created some form of mild PTSD, knowing how susceptible I am to it. Another thing is that for some things, the PTSD took a while to creep in, sometimes years... but other times, it's onset was rapid. I'm talking a few hours for it to hit. All in all, it's just too complicated and diverse and too hard to pin down to be treated with medication. That's just my opinion though, not trying to pass it off as a fact. I already tried the whole self-medication route, when I realized that the Vicodin I was being prescribed for a wisdom tooth surgery was numbing my emotions as well as my face... except it only worked for a short while, and in the long run all that got me was an opiate addiction. As far as medication for PTSD goes, they don't actually fix the problem... all they do is cover it up.
artofwar- Everyone deals with PTSD differently, and everyone heals from it differently as well... what works for one person might not work for another. Don't give up just because you've been to a bunch of psychiatrists and it didn't help! If my theory is true, and medications are useless as far as getting PTSD (whether that's just in general or it ranges from person to person), that could be the problem. Perhaps you could try seeing a psychologist instead? Sometimes simply getting it all out of your head and laying it out on the table is immensely helpful, as long as you're 100% honest about it. If not, you could also try behavioral cognitive therapy... it works wonders for PTSD! There are other things you could try too, such as meditation, acupuncture, certain herbal supplements, and other homeopathic and alternative remedies. There's so many things out there you could try, you WILL beat your PTSD eventually... or at least make it significantly better and easier to live with... just keep fighting the good fight and don't give up.
