Hello,
Here's an idea about PTSD. I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice, and a doctor should be consulted for any PTSD care. These are just some observations for consideration.

Stress, especially over long periods, causes the body to burn more adrenalyn and other hormones than normal. The body's stock of these (as well as the constituent materials the body uses to make these) gets depleted, and health, including mental health, eventually suffers. No amount of medicine will make up for the deficit.

The constituent materials may include minerals, trace minerals, vitamins, fats, and other nutrients: everything your body needs to go along with your genetic blueprint, to replace cells, tissues, hormones, etc., and keep your body and mind going. Keep in mind, too, that because every is unique, some people succumb to stress-induced trace mineral and other deficiencies before other people do.

Besides psychological trauma and bad memories, the lack of these constituent materials should theoretically be a major cause of PTSD.

If you think you will get these nutrients just by eating a well balanced diet you may be right, but you could also be wrong. Agriculture does not fertilize for all the 92 naturally occurring elements, or even for most trace elements. Hybrid varieties of crop and vegetable plants may have accidentally had bred out of them the ability to pull trace minerals out of the soil, as crop breeders sought other goals (research has shown this in corn). These kinds of things don't get researched much by universities funded by industry and government agencies under the political thumb of Congress. If it did agriculture would be different and we wouldn't be spending one-seventh of our GNP on healthcare.

A PTSD sufferer should consider the facts that:
1) no amount of medicine is going to replace burnt out hormones and the trace mineral catalysts and other basic nutrients the body needs to replace them
2) no pharmaceutical company is going to spend a billion bucks researching nutrition for you so it can make no profit selling no 'prescription drugs'
3) your doctor probably never had a single course in nutrition in his/her entire education, just search the Internet for medical school curricula that include nutrition course requirements
4) there really is something to organically grown foods, too, the microbiological balance of plant nutrients and growth promoting substances in compost produces higher quality in terms of flavor, mineral content, insect resistance, etc..

The human body has a genetic code of instructions for formation, operation, and maintenance. Nutrition is the building block supply. Without addressing nutrition, how can PTSD, which undoubtedly affects the body's supply of building blocks by accelerating their use under stress, without addressing nutrition, what kind of chance does medicine alone have to solve a problem?

Again, I am not a doctor. But, if I had PTSD, I would be researching nutrition first thing, and boosting it.

Sincerely,
Johnn

Hi John,

Love your advice mate... well said, and welcome to the forum. My own diet actually consists mainly of certified organic ingredients, all of which most definately make me feel better than I have before, being as you said, most of the goodness is gone from fruit and vegetables with pesticides, chemicals and so forth, before it hits the shopping market shelf. It costs us more, but we eat much better, much tastier food, all of which is much higher in nutrional value to us all.

I will say though, that it is not the solution to PTSD, as PTSD stems far past just stress, as PTSD itself is a chemical imbalance within the brain, and learning how to rebalance your right and left hemispheres is just as equally important.

Something discussed on this forum about this exact thing, is teaching yourself to become ambidextrous, as that in itself medically demonstrates a higher chemical balance of the brain than a person who is only one sided capable, vs. both sides capable equally.

I think there is much to be researched about the natural alternatives to many illnesses, as prescription medication definately causes more problems than its worth IMHO.

Anthony, I whole heartedly agree with your posts about if the doc cares they will work to get you off the meds. My pill happy shrink is not addressing the issues. She knows them all and her way to fix it is dope me up. She is working me down now because of hissy fits from me. She gets updates from me on how well my CBT guy does helping me (hence you are not lady) My CBT guy works with me through the issues and how to cope and handle making it possible to come off. He cut his fee because he cares. He is not on a sliding scale, he just cares and wants me in there! He wants to see me well and see me handle things again with out living in a constant state of panic which I was in even on the higher doses of meds. Still on the same meds but 1/3 of the dose than when he met me. And I am coping so much better. I cut to 3 mg xanax tonight. I have been doing so well with threapy I can! I was not scheduled to be at the 3mg mark until sometime in September! I can't wait to see her in September and be functioning on a much lower dose than she had me goaled for! 9-10 mg to 3mg makes me feel like I am getting somewhere. 3mg used to be a single dose, and now it is going to be my whole daily intake, woo hoo!

Veiled, that is exceptional news. I have just vented some of my frustration with these idiot doctors who solve everything with drugs, and no time or inkling of care for their patients. They piss me right off, to say the least. I am not anti-medication, and not pro-natural, but I do sit on the fence and view both sides, because both sides do have things to offer.

I personally was on one medication for about 10 - 12 months I think, at which point I told my doctor I was getting off them, as whilst it tamed my anger and allowed me to learn, it certainly did me no favours with the increased suicidal thought and increased depression that I had to fight each day with good exercise. It sucked to say the least.

I remember Kerrie-Ann getting very grumpy with me when I took myself off the meds, telling me to go take them again, because I was so grumpy and miserable, hence my bodies withdrawal to the drugs, but after a month or so, suddenly I just got better, anger and hostility went away again, and I no longer had the severe depression or suicidal thoughts.

Here I was feeling so much better, and still educating myself on everything PTSD and symptom related, just as I still do today. Nugget is feeling better for it, you are feeling better for it, I am definately better for getting rid of them, and offcourse with logical steps, not just cold turkey, because that would create madness, no doubt.

I think once you begin to really hit that trauma, the rest of the symptoms slowly dissipate to a more bearable level, so the medications can be ridden, and then the residual effects and symptoms dealt with, all feeling much better with less issues.

Prescription drugs are terrible long term, and certainly nothing I would recommend to anyone to remain on past the initial trauma therapy. If people get on drugs and think they can remain on them with no self help and pushing themselves to rid the trauma, they are in for a rude shock.

I am now in the process of finding many naturopaths to contact in one hit, to alert them to this forum, and how their expertise may help others, and I don't care if they promote themselves a bit for people within that area of the world, because it is better than having people jumping on and off stringy meds that do more harm than good when addicted.

There are natural alternatives to even help get one through withdrawal from prescription meds, which actually near diminish the withdrawal effects completely, thus you just stop taking the natural medication a month or two after ceasing the prescription crap, and you walk away free as a bird.

This is where I need some help I think. I've been on meds for little over a year now. I was shocked at the number of side effects that my first prescription (low dosage of Lexapro) caused me; my doc told me this was the choice for lowest side effects. By the time the stuff was supposed to kick in, I just didn't want to deal with the nausia and other sh*t that got added to my problem list. I was eventually put on Effexor XR at a 35mg dose and knew to expect and accept side-effects. Then it went to 75mg, then to 150mg, then had Welbutrin added in at 100mg (because of my total impotence now), then bumped it up to 150mg, then both meds maxed out to 300mg for a total of 600mg/day (Welbutrin never helped my impotence, I guess because I lost interest in sex not long after coming back). I stopped taking the stuff once for 3 days straight and went out-of-my-mind crazy. I was looking to attack and kill people who seemed to me to be undesireable, I became extremely paranoid of everyone, I had severe headaches, and everytime I turned my head in one direction or another I heard this 'swooosh' noise in my head (as if something was shooting past me). That's when I found out I have to take this sh*t or else. I can tell you that I believe the only 'good' this stuff did was give me somewhat of a positive outlook and keep me from getting so angry at just any little thing... it mellowed me out a lot. It helped my mind accept religion. It mellowed me out so much though, that I eventually stopped caring for myself (hygiene). After I came back from Iraq I had a problem with hygiene, maybe because of the primitiveness at the time... I don't know. It was just normal to me to go without a shower for several days at a time after I came home... I also think that this may be linked to the depression I was dealing with then as well. (My family ought to be happy that I didn't find it normal to be piss'n or sh*t'n wherever outside as well.) On the full dosage of this medicine, I would go several weeks to a month without a shower. I had developed skin sores, originating from the 'athlete's foot' I brought back from Iraq, that spread all over my feet, arms and legs. My mother (she is a nurse), at some point later, stayed with us a while, and she told me that my meds are making me extremely apathetic and that I should keep seeing a psychiatrist until I get the right meds. I'm sick of psychiatrists and their trial-and-error ways with me. I told her this and she cried because she said I won't be around long deteriorating like this. The meds helped with my depression a little and disabled me from being so aggressive, but it probably worsened or heightened damn near every other symptom of my PTSD and depression. Basically, this medication kept me from doing things that might get me thrown in jail. It kept me feeling very vulnerable to other humans that may want to hurt me (my paranoia), as I would not be able to fight back. I can't fight back now, anyway, due to my heart now. I become light-headed anytime I exert myself longer than a minute or so... this might be from those meds! The docs want to give me medicine for my heart now... more medicine, NO!! I am so sick of the medicine!!!! I am the type that hates having to depend on medicine, in the first place. Maybe all my problems I had with the medicines were because I was so inconsistent with taking them until my wife started giving them to me. That didn't last long because of me and the side-effects. I also hate whenever my wife and I argue, she throws the "Did you take your medicine today??" line at me. In any event I have reduced my medicine down to just the Effexor XR 75mg every two-three days. Once I cut my Welbutrin out (cold turkey), I immeddiately stopped being so apathetic although I still have a problem with hygiene (in my opinion), it is no longer to the extent it became after going on all these meds. Taking a shower does nothing to make me feel better because it reminds me again (as I stand naked), how far gone my body and health have become. I slowly, scaled down to the lowest dosage of Effexor I have now. I don't go no more than 4 days with out taking it because I start getting bad headaches and that 'swooshing' noise comes back; as if it's the lunch bell reminder...take your medicine (I wonder if the developers of this sh*t designed these drugs to be like that). I will eventually talk to a doc and try to get a 35mg dose of Effexor XR and maybe stick with it for a while until I can finally stop taking the sh*t all together.

Got-damnit anyhow!! If I didn't just get finished ranting, bitching and moaning about got-damn medicine... I get diagnosed with diabetes last night at the VA, and guess what... more medicine. Ahh, fu** it.

Let me guess - is it one of those where they warn you to 'avoid stress?' I'm really sorry to hear that, mac.

I've posted elsewhere about my nightmare years on drugs - I can't add much to what's already been posted. Except to say

:drugs: !!

Mac, you have done a sensational job mate at getting your dosage down, and as you now know, fu*kin doctors think the solution for everything is medication. I won't start on this, because it is a real big bug in my arse. All I will say, is that yes, the arsewipe companies who make the shit do make it so you are addicted too it, hence you continue buying it, your body craves it, they continue getting fatter and richer at everyone elses poor diminishing health.

My advice... go and see a naturopath / homeopath and get natural treatments for your symptoms. Continue educating yourself and learning coping techniques, then you can just kick all the medication out of your life. Start a fitness campaign and good eating. Start walking 100 meters each day (as your health is poor), after one week, increase it to 200 meters, and continue like that each week. Advice, go see a personal trainer and ever cardiologist, get them to structure a routine for you to get back into exercise. Give yourself a good year mate, don't be hard on yourself, at which point you will develop routine and fitness back again, thus getting rid of the diabetes hopefully (if type 2), regain your body under control so you are more happy with your looks, this will fix your depressive state then so no medication would be required for that, and the list goes on.

Active choice mate, only you can make it and stick with it. Say fu*kit, go down hill... Say this shit isn't taking you down, get active, get healthy, many of the issues will go away over the next year or two for a remainder healthy and quality lifestyle.

Anthony, thanks a lot for the advice. I will give it an effort to follow it.