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Leavin'ya Bowlegged
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PTSD Therapy: Fantasy, Fiction & Fact
(Salem-News.com) - As many of my readers know, I have PTSD myself some 64 years after battle exposure in WWII. I am also a retired Medical School Professor of Physiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Both backgrounds give me an avid interest in effective PTSD Therapy. I have also successfully treated maybe as many as 1000 PTSD Victim Veterans.
I was somewhat surprised when Vietnam Vets in my care told me that they found marijuana to be very effective against battle terrors and PTSD. Most were Infantry Veterans and they went through Hell before they got sent home.
I knew that very many of my WWII Vets had become alcoholics and many died of this. Back then it was considered sissified to complain about “battle fatigue” but it was OK to get drunk and pass out every night. The only Vets who had VA care were those in VA Psychiatric Hospitals and they were over medicated with barbiturates and powerful tranquilizers. Both turned them into mindless vegetables.
The Nam Vets seem to be the first to get presumed real PTSD treatment in large numbers. The powerful Chlorpromazines such as Thorazine were soon found to be unsatisfactory but the Valium-like anti-anxiety Benzodiazapine drugs were tried. They calmed and put patients to sleep but caused bad addictions.
This called for some new type of therapy. Some PTSD patients exhibit severe depression but this didn’t call for stimulating amphetamines which were also addictive. A new class of anti-depressants were presumed to work. The leading ones were Zoloft, Prozac, and Paxil followed by many others. I haven’t found or heard of anyone who felt they were satisfactory. The Tricyclics such as Elavil were tried. They also have bad adverse effects. Then came other newer anti-depressants and they were no better.
The anti-convulsants came next. Neurontin seems to be the most prominent. I took it myself for a few days. It was the WORST mind scrambling and stupefying event of my life.
Some thought anti-adrenaline drugs might work. They didn’t. Finally atypical anti-psychotics showed up. Who said PTSD victims were psychotic?
OA_show(1);
In the face of unsatisfactory pharmaceutical treatment several new therapies were dreamed up.
It seems that psychologists counseling and group therapy might work (not psychiatrists – they were too expensive). That didn’t work well either. PTSD Vets CANNOT talk about their demons. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seems to be an offshoot of the above. It doesn’t seem to work either. Then came Virtual Reality Therapy exposing PTSD Victims to battle sounds, artillery, mortars, and heavy machine gun noises. Most of us PTSD Vets CANNOT tolerate that. Then came Art Therapy, Sculpture Therapy, Ecstasy Drug Therapy and Horse Riding Therapy – there are probably more.
As I said in the beginning my Nam PTSD Vets told me that cannabis/marijuana worked better than any pharmaceutical they were given. I have been given several of these medications myself and while taking themm I would NOT be able to write articles like this.
The Marijuana Clinic where I worked now has 65 thousand clients. I’ll bet at least 6 thousand, or 10%, are PTSD Battle Vets. I believe this because about one thousand of my 4 thousand patients were PTSD Vets.
Comment worth posting along with article.
From the article: The drug problem in Herrick's company was so intense that when Herrick tried to treat wounded soldiers in the wake of a firefight, he frequently found himself short of morphine. "The junkies in my company would raid my morphine whenever they couldn't get their heroin," Herrick explained. "No matter where I put itin my aid bag or in the front pocket of my fatigues or even if I tried to bury it in the bottom of the rucksackit'd always end up gone." Without morphine, Herrick says, he turned to marijuana to medicate the wounded. About a month after he arrived in Vietnam, Herrick's company was patrolling a rubber plantation outside Tay Ninh when it took small-arms fire from what turned out to be a band of Viet Cong. As the crackle of gunfire sounded in the distance, a soldier who had been in-country for only four days fell to the ground, shot through the shoulder. "This kid was 18 years old and scared s***less," said Herrick. "He was sobbing like a banshee. I had no morphine. So I went over to a guy I knew who had just scored and grabbed two joints and gave them to the kid. He fired one up." Herrick moved on to treat the other more badly wounded. Five minutes later, he returned to the kid, "and he was lying against a tree, joking like it was no big thing." Herrick said the firefight at Tay Ninh convinced him of marijuana's value as a painkiller and anxiety-suppressantat least in post-combat situations in which morphine was not available. "I made it a habit from that point on to always dispense marijuana," Herrick said. "I bought it with my own money. Whenever someone got shot, came out of shock and started to feel the pain, he'd usually start screaming. I would hand him a joint. Usually, he'd smoke it. If you got shot and weren't a smoker, you either became one or just shined it and lived with the pain."
(Salem-News.com) - As many of my readers know, I have PTSD myself some 64 years after battle exposure in WWII. I am also a retired Medical School Professor of Physiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Both backgrounds give me an avid interest in effective PTSD Therapy. I have also successfully treated maybe as many as 1000 PTSD Victim Veterans.
I was somewhat surprised when Vietnam Vets in my care told me that they found marijuana to be very effective against battle terrors and PTSD. Most were Infantry Veterans and they went through Hell before they got sent home.
I knew that very many of my WWII Vets had become alcoholics and many died of this. Back then it was considered sissified to complain about “battle fatigue” but it was OK to get drunk and pass out every night. The only Vets who had VA care were those in VA Psychiatric Hospitals and they were over medicated with barbiturates and powerful tranquilizers. Both turned them into mindless vegetables.
The Nam Vets seem to be the first to get presumed real PTSD treatment in large numbers. The powerful Chlorpromazines such as Thorazine were soon found to be unsatisfactory but the Valium-like anti-anxiety Benzodiazapine drugs were tried. They calmed and put patients to sleep but caused bad addictions.
This called for some new type of therapy. Some PTSD patients exhibit severe depression but this didn’t call for stimulating amphetamines which were also addictive. A new class of anti-depressants were presumed to work. The leading ones were Zoloft, Prozac, and Paxil followed by many others. I haven’t found or heard of anyone who felt they were satisfactory. The Tricyclics such as Elavil were tried. They also have bad adverse effects. Then came other newer anti-depressants and they were no better.
The anti-convulsants came next. Neurontin seems to be the most prominent. I took it myself for a few days. It was the WORST mind scrambling and stupefying event of my life.
Some thought anti-adrenaline drugs might work. They didn’t. Finally atypical anti-psychotics showed up. Who said PTSD victims were psychotic?
OA_show(1);
In the face of unsatisfactory pharmaceutical treatment several new therapies were dreamed up.
It seems that psychologists counseling and group therapy might work (not psychiatrists – they were too expensive). That didn’t work well either. PTSD Vets CANNOT talk about their demons. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seems to be an offshoot of the above. It doesn’t seem to work either. Then came Virtual Reality Therapy exposing PTSD Victims to battle sounds, artillery, mortars, and heavy machine gun noises. Most of us PTSD Vets CANNOT tolerate that. Then came Art Therapy, Sculpture Therapy, Ecstasy Drug Therapy and Horse Riding Therapy – there are probably more.
As I said in the beginning my Nam PTSD Vets told me that cannabis/marijuana worked better than any pharmaceutical they were given. I have been given several of these medications myself and while taking themm I would NOT be able to write articles like this.
The Marijuana Clinic where I worked now has 65 thousand clients. I’ll bet at least 6 thousand, or 10%, are PTSD Battle Vets. I believe this because about one thousand of my 4 thousand patients were PTSD Vets.
Comment worth posting along with article.
From the article: The drug problem in Herrick's company was so intense that when Herrick tried to treat wounded soldiers in the wake of a firefight, he frequently found himself short of morphine. "The junkies in my company would raid my morphine whenever they couldn't get their heroin," Herrick explained. "No matter where I put itin my aid bag or in the front pocket of my fatigues or even if I tried to bury it in the bottom of the rucksackit'd always end up gone." Without morphine, Herrick says, he turned to marijuana to medicate the wounded. About a month after he arrived in Vietnam, Herrick's company was patrolling a rubber plantation outside Tay Ninh when it took small-arms fire from what turned out to be a band of Viet Cong. As the crackle of gunfire sounded in the distance, a soldier who had been in-country for only four days fell to the ground, shot through the shoulder. "This kid was 18 years old and scared s***less," said Herrick. "He was sobbing like a banshee. I had no morphine. So I went over to a guy I knew who had just scored and grabbed two joints and gave them to the kid. He fired one up." Herrick moved on to treat the other more badly wounded. Five minutes later, he returned to the kid, "and he was lying against a tree, joking like it was no big thing." Herrick said the firefight at Tay Ninh convinced him of marijuana's value as a painkiller and anxiety-suppressantat least in post-combat situations in which morphine was not available. "I made it a habit from that point on to always dispense marijuana," Herrick said. "I bought it with my own money. Whenever someone got shot, came out of shock and started to feel the pain, he'd usually start screaming. I would hand him a joint. Usually, he'd smoke it. If you got shot and weren't a smoker, you either became one or just shined it and lived with the pain."
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