Hi,

My husband is an Iraq Veteran that has been diagnosed with severe PTSD and is considered disabled through the military due to his condition. Since his diagnosis in late 2006 and his treatment through the Veterans Administration my family has noticed his condition is not getting better, only worse especially with the medications he is on.

I am desperate to find answers as to if he is being over medicated and not getting the proper treatment. He is on 3 medications for depression, aniexity and sleeping and I suspect he is both abusing his medications and I know he is not taking them many times because he forgets. He is always sleepy, sleeping, acting drunk but does not drink alcohol, thinks irrationally, likes feeling numb and nothing, and has even wet the bed and slept walked while on these medications. His anger is out of control and I am concerned for his health, our families safety and he refuses to see what we are. I have even found medication that he was not prescribed hidden in his allergy medicine bottle recently, Lortab.

Is there anything I can do as his wife to address what I think is the VA using medication as the main form of treatment and is there anyway to see if switching him to something else might work better? I appreciate any thoughts!

I think the best method is to get him in here and start a trauma diary. Also, get him to start talking about his issues. There is a lot of information for both of you to read in here on this illness.

There is a carer's section for you to read since you don't have PTSD and you can learn a lot in that area.

As far as the medications go I have little advise. You can go to the doc with your husband and tell the doc what you see is going on, and then the doctor can address this with your husband.

If he is taking a strong addictive narcotic in addition to his prescriptions he could be having alergic reactions or could overdose. The doctor needs to know these things. If your husband won't let you meet with the doctor, then call his/her office and speak to the doc yourself, or his nurse.

Good luck!
Tammy

Next time you go for a visit to his physician tell him/her exactly what you want; less medication and more therapy, if your husband is open to that. You always have a choice as far as treatments go so make sure you find out about all the options and ask the doctor about the ones you like.

Some anti-anxiety drugs are addictive. Some anti-depressants are practically addictive. Some sleep aids are addictive. With all of these drugs, even if they were effective at one point in time, they can lose their effectiveness over time. The friends I know who are on anti-depressants seem to need to tweak them or change them completely about every two years, it seems.

I agree with those above who suggest you talk to the doctor and report what is going on at home. The psychiatrist is not hearing this from your DH, and won't.

Also, is he in therapy? Or is he just getting drug "treatment"? From everything I've read, I don't think that drug treatment alone will help someone with PTSD. Many years ago, my DH received drug treatment without any accompanying therapy. It nearly killed him.

Cowgirl

Drugs are the main cure for most problems. I have had 3 pharmacists tell me you just have to keep trying them all, and pick the ones you can work with and do well. I agree-I have benzos for that reason ,everything else just makes me extremely sick-drunk acting, slurring, forgetting, public "accidents" necessitating my wearing boxer briefs, high bg's, everything. I would recommend trying new ones-he may be doing the same ones in the obstinate hopw they will work. You can try more than one. Also, it's hard after a while to imagine what life was like before the med, so you can get trapped, mentally, in them.

Ask for different meds. A word of advice too-I had much better treatment when I brought others along to reinforce and reflect what I said-the Dr could then see I was telling the truth and not just whining. It was a group effort most of the time.

Well speaking with his doctors is out of the question even though I have called in the past...See he has gotten so bad that in April he assulted me and tried to strangle me during an argument. He is not allowed at the home anymore till July and until I know he is safe to be around me and our children.

The bad thing is he has shut down alot since a court hearing for domestic assult and blames me for everything anymore. Before the court hearing we we given permission by the courts to see each other for marriage couseling which he seemed like he was 100% committed then, that was April until the 15th of May. We were dating and seeing our own individual counselors because I have secondary PTSD , depression as well as PMDD that I am being treated with Zoloft for and counseling.

Anyway, suddenly he seems to be shutting me and the kids off, hardly ever calls our children, does not want to be intimate with me anymore and has been saying he loves me in his head but not in his heart and just a little. I feel like I am on a roller coaster as to our marriage. One day he seems like he wants to be with me, the next he says he does not know what he wants. He goes to work, then to a friends home to read books, watch TV and sleep...that is his life anymore. He does not want to even discuss our finaces or anything concerning the kids or home anymore.....

Is this all part of his PTSD or does he not love us anymore???

I am so sad, yes I am getting better with my treatment, but he seems to be getting worse and shutting himself away more and more...I am not sure what to do anymore or if I should just give up loving him because he does not or is not able to love me back anymore...

Thanks for listening...

My husband does not have PTSD (I'm the one with it) but he does struggle with severe depression issues. Once before we were married his depression was getting really bad and I was concerned for his safety and not sure that he was being able to really describe to the doctor the depth of what was going on for him. I wasn't able to go with him to his appointment because of scheduling issues so I called the doctor's officea couple of days prior to his appointment and asked if I sent a FAX outlining my specific concerns would the doctor please be sure to read it before their appointment. She agreed so I typed out about a page and a half without emotion of factual observations. This seemed to really help at the time because a lot of what I wrote my (now)husband had not explained to her but when she asked him about it he admitted that the things in it were accurate. She was able to better help him at the time with the additional insight but did not have to breach any kind of confidentiality because I did not ask her to speak to me, just read what I felt was important for her to know.

Another option, but only works if your husband is agreeable and cooperative, is to seek a second opinion. A couple of years ago my husband's depression again began to get out of control. I went to a couple of doctor (different doctor than he'd had the last time there was a problem) appointments with him to let the doctor know that things were really getting bad and he needed to take a different approach. I didn't feel the doctor was taking the situation seriously enough and didn't seem to be following the situation closely enough. I also felt like he was over medicating my husband. (he'd up his meds some more and say come back in a couple months). I convinced my husband to let me take him to a different doctor to see what he might say. That doctor immediately thought my husband was highly over medicated and started to help get things turned around for him. My husband was highly pessimistic and hopeless about the idea of a different doctor making that much of a difference but agreed to try it and as things started to turn around was hugely grateful that I stayed so involved and insisted on a second opinion.

Again, my husband does not have PTSD so I realize it's not exactly the same situation but similar enough that I thought it might be helpful. Also, since my husband is not a veteran we don't have to worry about working within that system (have no idea what that's like). I did, however, have to take him out of his insurance network for that second opinion and we paid completely out-of-pocket for the second psychiatrist. Very expensive but it made the difference between my husband existing but wanting to die and my husband actually beginning to live again (so much so that we still pay for that out-of-network psychiatrist completely out of our own pockets almost two years later. It's a real financial burden a lot of the time but worth it to us.)