• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

What Is Treatment Resistant?

Status
Not open for further replies.

desiderata310

MyPTSD Pro
I was reading another thread and someone mentioned "treatment resistant"

I know that I've had a TON of trouble. We've tried EMDR, and a few other things and we've sort of resorted to some sort of talk therapy. I honestly don't think I am making any progress. My therapist says he's not going to give up on me but I know that I struggle all the time with suicidal ideation and it gets worse when I don't sleep. My sleep is NOT under control even though I've tried tons of different things. IT will be for a while and then something will happen and it will go to shit.

I honestly worry I fall into that category and wonder if I am just spinning my wheels/if I am treatment resistant and just don't know it.
 
I think he just means that your treatments aren't as effective as they could have been. Like your condition is resistant to responding as hoped for. Not that you personally are resisting treatment.

I dont know if you've noticed me here, but I'm making posts until 4 am . Nothing, and I mean nothing, will help me sleep if Ive been triggered. It takes months to get a normal sleep pattern back.

Sometimes they get a little squirmy if they cant think of new ways to help you out, dont let it make you feel like its a personal failure of your own.
 
I've only ever heard it used in medical terms: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) or treatment-refractorydepression is a term used in clinical psychiatry to describe cases of major depressive disorder (MDD) that do not respond adequately to appropriate courses of at least two antidepressants.
 
I can't post a link, but the mayo clinic has more on it. Just google treatment resistant and a ton comes up.

It talks about depression, but I think PTSD is also very similar.
 
Me! I'm that. :)

@qwyoey is correct - treatment resistant or (treatment refractory) is an add-on to a major depressive disorder diagnosis.

It means that for whatever reason, anti-depressants aren't working on you the way they are generally supposed to work.

'Adequate response' is considered to be the response to the medication only, when all other factors are neutralled out.

So, if you are taking anti-depressants and they appear to work a little, but you are also living with severe situational contributors to the depression, and are also having trouble managing your social drinking...then they shouldn't really make a determination that the drug isn't working. But if you get all that stuff under control and still there's not an adequate clinical response...you need to try another drug.

Rinse, repeat, and you might turn out to be refractory

The genetic marker testing can help establish whether you are likely to be refractory. The most common reason is connected to how your body metabolizes the drugs.

I'm a rapid metabolizer, which means I don't maintain the correct, non-fluctuating levels of drug concentration. I don't actually have a fast metabolism - this has to do with different organs, not your basic metabolic rate.

It's commonly misunderstood as 'resistant to treatment', meaning, difficult to treat. But it's only a reference to a specific kind of metabolic issue for depressives.
 
I started therapy Monday with a new therapist who is a trauma specialist. She said that now major depressive disorder symptoms are included in the PTSD diagnosis, which makes a lot of sense to me, as I was earlier diagnosed with MDD as well as PTSD and I know depression is an enormous part of what I try to deal with. I also have been called "treatment resistant." Not because I personally resist treatment, but because everything I've tried over the last 10 years has not alleviated my symptoms sufficiently. I've gotten somewhat better, but I was a total basketcase before treatment.

Sleep is a huge problem for me, too. Most nights I cannot calm my mind enough to get to sleep. And I've tried every OTC med. Unisom works for me a bit if I don't take it every night. But I recently got some lavender oil and put a couple of drops on my pillow before bed and it does help calm my mind.
 
I was said to be treatment resistance after 15 years with no major improvement but I just hadn't found the modality that worked for me. Somatic Experiencing is what helped me to start making progress. Now I'm light years from where I was 6 years ago. Sleep still f*cks with my mind.
 
The only label he's given me is PTSD, then just recently C-PTSD. I argued with him about that one saying its not in the DSM. "Desi, that doesn't mean it SHOULDN'T be in the DSM and it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You still have it."

well that and HSP... lawd.... HSP to the max but that's not a DSM thing.

I'm not giving up. I'm just curious and wondering if he is likely to just trying to 'keep me stable' and that's as far as we are ever going to get.

*hangs head in shame* the stability stuff has been ... a bit of a thing. Of course, I kind of shoot him an email weekly that gives us a jumping off point- sort of a summary of the week which gives him a damn good snapshot of how I'm REALLY doing. If I didn't do that he'd probably not have as much insight into the day to day swings and struggles because I would probably go in and never mention them.

I'm totally WILLING to try shit. He asked me to buy a book, I bought it and read it and it became part of the conversation.
He asked me to do homework, I did it... maybe a bit too much because it triggered the bejeesus out of me and he decided to set it aside.
I'm WILLING. but I guess not all of me is.... which sounds retarded.
 
By HSP, do you mean highly sensitive person? If so, raises hand. My therapist picked that up about me quite soon into our first appt. Monday. Was the book by Elaine Aron? It's really helpful.

And none of this sounds retarded. This is hard stuff we're dealing with. Take care!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top