Can PTSD Be Cured Without Medication?
As stated earlier, therapies like EMDR can help people reduce PTSD symptoms without medication. PTSD treatment medication comes under conditional treatment for PTSD.
This means that the psychotherapies and medications that come under conditional treatment may show favorable results. However, there isn’t enough strong proof for their success in reducing PTSD symptoms as the highly recommended methods like EMDR, CBT, etc.
Further, these medications also come with side effects and they aren’t able to maintain the balance between benefits offered and adverse effects.
Apart from the highly recommended psychotherapies, people are able to deal with PTSD symptoms with other treatments. These include neurofeedback, vagus nerve stimulation, gratitude journal, and others.
You may experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) if you have been through a trauma. Trauma includes dangerous events that you have been through which may include combat, assault, physical or sexual abuse, natural disasters, or serious accidents. If your reaction to these shocking events does not fade away with time, chances are you have PTSD. As per the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), more than 8 million Americans between the ages of 18 years and above suffer from PTSD. Since the impact of the traumatic event may leave you anxious for years, it gets complicated in some cases. That is why you may have questions like ‘Why is PTSD hard to treat?’ or ‘How is PTSD usually treated?’
Now, it is common for people to go through traumatic events and have intrusive memories of the event for years. And the trauma survivors who suffer from PTSD face issues like difficulty in trusting others, problems in communication, and problem-solving. These issues impact theory relationships with family and friends.
Further, women are two times more likely to suffer from PTSD than men. Likewise, children, too, are at the risk of experiencing PTSD post a traumatic event.
In this article, we will discuss what is PTSD, is PTSD a mental illness or disorder, PTSD symptoms, and treatment.
What is PTSD?
PTSD is a mental disorder that you may suffer after going through a traumatic or life-threatening event. These events could include combat, assault, physical and sexual abuse, a natural disaster, or a car accident. It is marked by emotional reactions to such life-threatening events that do not go away with time. The emotional reactions may include fear, hopelessness, and horror.
As a result, you may have intrusive memories of the traumatic event or flashbacks. Or lose interest in things that earlier used to give you pleasure. Similarly, you would find yourself feeling detached from your mind and body or you may feel the world around as unreal.
Complex PTSD Treatment
Complex PTSD is a mental condition closely associated with PTSD. It is a mental disorder that occurs as a result of traumatic events being faced repeatedly over days or months. This is unlike PTSD which results from a single traumatic event being faced by an individual.
The common symptoms of PTSD include:
- patient not being able to control his feelings
- negative view about self
- finding difficulty in managing relationships
- thinking about the abuser and having feelings of revenge
- dissociating with one’s emotions or forgetting the traumatic event
- losing faith in things you once believed and having a negative view of the world
Accordingly, complex PTSD is treated using a mix of psychotherapy and medications. CBT and EMDR are the commonly used psychotherapies to treat PTSD.
Similarly, commonly used SSRIs or antidepressants for treating PTSD include sertraline, paroxetine, and fluoxetine.
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