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Poll Does Prescription Medication Help Your PTSD?

What Has Prescription Medication Done For You With Your PTSD?

  • Made you worse than without it?

    Votes: 49 16.6%
  • Made you better in some areas, worse in others?

    Votes: 113 38.2%
  • Made you no better or worse?

    Votes: 32 10.8%
  • Made improvements across your treated range of symptoms?

    Votes: 102 34.5%

  • Total voters
    296
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Warning!!! I feel it's only fair to warn people of what we are just beginning to learn after years of prescribing it. I real alot of Zanex is still being used. My counselor warned me to never take it, as even short term use will change your whole personality and it will not go back after discontinuation of the drug.

When my mom-in-law started taking it, her whole personality did change. All of her conscience or moral code was gone. She openly talked about having sex with a stranger at a truck stop as if she wanted to see me react because she could feel nothing in regard to her behavior and risk-taking. She lost the ability to care about what she or other people think about things. While I doubt most people would experience such total decay based on one type of medication used, (she took other things also) I feel it only fair to warn others to be wary.

I understand that for some people the situation is dramatic and calls for major interventions for life to continue as normal as possible. But my stance is to be very cautious because Dr.'s really don't seem to care about the future of your brain. They seem to care about short-term and about what they can do in it.

My 2 cents is that PTSD is the kind of thing that takes time, effort, counseling, stability, life experience and a host of positive things to heal. I have never understood why the "quick fix" is being sold in pill bottles. I have heard the theory that it will support and speed recovery in conjunction with talk therapy.

But how can you know if what is coming up in therapy is good stuff if you are dissociated while going to counseling and just struggling as you try to manage the multiple side effects of relatively new and untested medication?

Why not try counseling along with a holisitic approach to support the wellbeing of the person (like avoiding violent or dark images and media and adding positive, calming, and inspiring stories and media) and wait to see what results can be gotten before resorting to drugs?
 
Hence why this place exists, to cut the bullshit and get people better, because the very people we rely upon to do that job, have simply failed to do so anymore for nothing more than often personal greed
I love this. AWESOME
Meds are good for some, I'm not one of the some. Me and my meds. GP is pushing me on them, Naturopath says not those, these..T is saying get something, get sleep. Me in the middle. I lisitened to the GP for awhile and tried a few, Celexa, and others, the list is long..I am in absolute shock at the suttle changes that came in and became me. Depression, rage, anger, and list went on and deep and dark. Finally had enough, really had enough and almost drove into the atlantic. Got a bunch of blood tests done and the results are interesting, paid 300. for it, my GP thinks its hokey. My naturopath didn't push, but I'm glad he pointed. It was a lot of money and I don't have any so it took awhile to save for it, my serotonin levels are normal but this is up and this is down..yikes. I am not taking the Celexa or any others, it took a good year or more for those dark layers to be lifted, I am on something called Tryptan and have added Tyrosine to help with dopamine. Some are prescription that I am very fortunate are covered by my medical, and some aren't and are very expensive. I wish I could take the others, I wouldn't have to pay so much and I'd be all better by now right? How do I know what I'm using is currently working, well one is denial, I'm so broke I have to hope it's working...no kidding, really kidding (not about the broke). That's how I know!! And I'm here, I would never have reached out while I was on that other crap, only crap for me. I am dealing with loads of medical issues,autoimune, low throid this week, chemical sensitivies (worked for a lot of scum bags) server arthritis and mucho pain. 24/7
And that's what I have gone thru for my head meds, my pain meds well, that's another journey. Glad this resurfaced. Thanks Muse for that and thanks Anthony for the poll.
 
I really don't know what I would have done without the Celexa, seriously.
Benzos did nothing pretty much until I found Celexa, after that it does help with anxiety. I have since gotten off Ativan and other benzos but it is nice to know they are there if I have an attack that seems out of control, that alone gives me peace of mind.
 
Drugs were a freaking nightmare. Immediately formulated a suicide plan on Paxil. Evil med. There were others, useless. Some natural ones helped, like SAM--e
 
I personally think they have me on to many different types of pills. I know it's meant to cover the whole lot but it doesn't really work that way. I'm on 2x100mg sertraline every morning, olanzapine 1 x 2.5mg every night and 3x 2mg diazepan. i take 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening.
 
The current meds allow me to sleep - that's it. Sooner or later that will probably backfire.

Other meds I tried just built up a tolerance very quickly, and when I couldn't take any more, I would have severe withdrawal that was just another trauma in itself. So terrifying. Seems like my baseline anxiety was permanently increased with each med attempt.

I want to stop all meds except for my ADHD meds. I'm hoping to do this by facing my pain and learning to live with it. I'm going to try to deal with this - for real - what do I have to lose at this point?
 
I've been able to wean off of some medicine for both my physical and mental health. After the death of my mom last year, I started needing more meds for physical ailments. I'm sure the stress complicated things. We are hopeful that that will get better, like before she died. I was on Cymbalta for a number of years and felt fine. However, this year, after another close death, I sunk into a black hole and became suicidal. They decided the cymbalta stopped working. We are trying other meds, but it has been a lot of up and down as they try to tweak everything.

I'm hoping to get down to as few pills as I had before my mom died. I realize I will never be pill free, for either the physical or mental health, but I know I can get back down to only a few. I hate taking meds. If it wasn't for my husband keeping me on schedule, I would probably never take them. This despite feeling better on them.
 
I do not know if my medication works on me or not. Hence I wish to decrease the dosage and I am going to ask my GP. I have been on efexor for a few years now i take 2 x 150g tablets a day.

I have just been prescribed by the psychiatrist Epilim EC500g tablets a mood stabilizer (whoopie!!!) 2 a day i have no idea even if this is going to work in helping me with my moods, I suspect that this is to stop me getting so low and the dangers of this. I will see what happen and I am also not sure if I am stupid for letting them even trying this out on me. Hopefully this drug is easier to get off from than the efexor as I have heard that that one is a process and a half.
 
I decided to answer before I read others' answers, lest my thoughts be slanted one way or the other.

First off, I have both physical and mental conditions, the PTSD being one of the major ones though, because of early and later life traumas both. I also suffer from Bipolar. On the physical side, I suffer from Lyme Disease (bacterial infection gotten from tick bites which went undiagnosed until I almost died from it in 1990, because it attacked my heart). I also am dealing with Adid reflux.

Now for the news about meds. I take a whopping 13 of them!!! I hate just having to swallow them, not to mention what they do and don't do for me and to me. I also go to one on one therapy (CBT, and other types) as well as group therapy (DBT).

About half of my meds are for the physical things, half for the psych things. Some of the side effects are things like dizziness, weight gain over 6 months of huge proportion, for which it took me 6 years of serious dieting and exersize plus Overeaters Annonymous to lose the weight and deal with it and I still am gaining again (no OA here, sigh...!). These side effects are all from the psych meds.

I refused all meds at first, thinking therapy might help. As time went on, drs and a therapist convinced me that I needed meds too, after a serious suicide attempt, though I did take one psych med before the attempt. That one med was supposed to help with the bipolar, but frankly as I look back on it, it did contribute to the suicide attempt BIG TIME. I planned it for 4 months and told no one. When I went to get my next 4 month supply of the meds, I took them ALL AT ONCE. I was unconcious for almost 2 weeks. At the time, I was homeless, in an abusive relationship (date raped for a yr and a half, as well as abused) and I saw no way out or any hope. He made sure of that. So life itself in a major way contributed too!

I do sleep better now in some ways, though I often wake up several times during the night. At least I am sleeping, first for a 4 hour stint, then on and off after that. I think the anti-anxiety med does help. I take it right before bedtime. (Clonazepam).

I'd name the other meds, but I'd be here half an hour doing so! So....

One major thing that helped me was to move away from the city where all this happened, where I was homeless in the streets for 3 years, where the rapes occurred, where other major awful things had happened too, like losing a motel I owned and having to place hubby (who suffered from dementia) in a nursing home... he eventually died in 2005.

I live way out in the mountains of NC now, town of 2600 folks. For the most part it is quiet, uneventful and pleasant here. I need this, it is medicine for me too.
 
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I have been placed on two different anti-deppressants for anxiety in the last year; both times I had rather bad reactions.

The first one they put me on (prozac) made me so "hyper" the third day that I felt manic, I was anxious and freaking out really badly. Then a few weeks ago they tried me on zoloft which had almost the opposite effect on me, and actually made self-harming thoughts stronger. Needless to say I am not taking either of those medications ever again.

I still take my ADHD medication, when I remember to take it.
 
So, I can not relate nor answer the poll question for this post. I am of the same thinking as Sheila.

Morals and traditions have taught me that medications and therapies are for those who are weak or are not following God's path/teachings/values. I am not a believer of that anymore. It's a change in thinking. I am reconsidering my options and thinking of what is true for me. There are not many who know or understand us. I recognize my state of being and how it has affected those around me. Help is for those who recognize their true being...
 
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