Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group

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Meds are not the answer

ryverrat
ryverrat

I asked for a referal back to a program I have been in before.  What I like about it is the opprotunity for group therapy.  Group therapy seems to help me most when I start spiraling.  Thing that P's me off is the physician assistant there always wants to put you on more meds.  I already take 5 things to try to tame my PTSD.  I don't need more meds.  I swear she thinks everyone needs a mood stablizer.  F her mood stablizer.  If she really wanted to listen and help, she would give me trazodone again so I sleep through the night.  Like waking up from nightmares 5-6 times is going to leave anyone's mood stable.  Sleep would go a lot further for improving my mood stability than another med.  If another antidepressant or a mood stabilizer was going to work, why wouldn't she think my main psychaitrist would have given me one?  They are in the same network.  There are no FDA approved drugs for use to prevent PTSD nightmares.  So why am I taking another drug with some serious side effect (one is abnormal dreams- WTF) if it isn't going to do anything for my nightmares- the real problem?  I'm going to talk to one of my therapist Monday about this.  Before I go tell this ass-isstant what I think.

Community LeaderLeo
Leo
I'd lvoe to take fewer meds, not more, so I hear that.... How about we get back to that CBT and stuff so I can live life without the chemistry experriments? But.... Yeah. Luck and I hope you get good results from standing up for yourself.
arfie
arfie
The whole psych industry does seem to have been taken over by drug cartels. . . It has, indeed, seem to have gotten to where workshop facilitators monitor blood tests more than the human beings the blood came from. Walk-in medicine chests for all, greater profits for a few. But I do believe drugs have medicinal uses. Oh, for the love of balance. . .

Thanks for the opportunity to rant, Ryver. Always something, huh?

Gentle support and validation while you self-advocate.
Community Leadermujicaptsd
mujicaptsd
Yeah, ryverr, I couldn't take meds at all from 2012 to 2016 because of kidney disease. At times I missed the option of having an Ativan as needed available, but mostly I was glad to be taken off of Seroquel. It overdid it, as far as I was concerned.

My kidneys stabilized last year, so since I had constant nightmares for the 4 years off all meds (the reason for the Seroquel before then) my pdoc put me on the lowest dose of Prazosin. It was a blood pressure med that was found in 2014 to be effective for nightmares with veterans with PTSD. It's been working for me.

That's it for me, just that one med. I'm grateful I have the option, but the less meds and the more CBT therapy for me, the better. Exposure therapy REALLY worked for me, too. It was closely supervised by my therapist. It really made the biggest difference for me.
ryverrat
ryverrat
Muji- that's great to hear the prazosin worked for you. For the past 5 years I have been advocating it for the nightmares. It's not a psych drug, few interactions and little side effects. I learned about it from a former VA psych doctor. I'm still surprised at psych doctors that don't know about it. Exposure therapy might work for me. I do CBT and that is the prime reason to go back to this program.
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