PTSD/ASD And Wikipedia

[anthony]

Nicolette told me about this thread earlier today, so I have read the thread, read briefly through the wikipedia chat and determined this...

Nothing has changed IMO. The wikipedia chat cites no sources that a cure has been found to the physiological chemical change between the right and left brain hemispheres which define PTSD.

A persons opinion is their opinion, and nobody can tell another what to believe, instead they get to choose what they believe. There is opinion and there are facts. This forum works on facts and respects opinions. The fact is that there is no medical cure for PTSD. This is to date factual and cannot be disputed by opinion, however; PTSD is medically treatable and a person can recover to a point and live quite a normal life under some circumstances. Every single sufferer can, if they really want to, retrain their brain and relearn social skills and life aspects to function better with their PTSD. If a person has actual PTSD though, not ASD, then they 99.99% chance cannot be cured, they can only be treated. This is current medical fact cited from authoritative mental health publications, such as The International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (http://www.istss.org) and other mental health journals. When such a time comes, and I do hope it does, that they find a cure for PTSD, then I will be the first to jump onboard with it. Saying that... I will not allow opinion to overrule fact here upon this forum.

Honestly, I am becoming a little tired of seeing this raised again lately, because it is a mute point until such time as a medical journal provides medical and scientific evidence, that a cure exists for the 99.99% of sufferers for PTSD. If they could cure even more than 50%, you could near call it a cure, but they cannot to date.

There are plenty of cited, factual scientific studies concluding that PTSD is being over-diagnosed, it is being given to those who really have ASD (Post-Traumatic Stress) not PTSD, and a recent one was performed from over a period of more than a decade and exceeding 100,000 soldiers. It is now conclusive, it is being over-diagnosed and misdiagnosed. It is not however conclusive whether a cure exists or not. It is conclusive, factually, that PTSD can be treated with pharmacological and psychological affluent means. If a person really has PTSD, then to date, no medical cure exists, and this is fact.

Again, opinion is opinion, not fact. There are plenty of members on this forum who go one way or the other on this topic, some sit on the fence, but no person to date can state a cure exists, because it doesn't.

Someone recently argued this point with me, where I cited the sacking of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in 2007 because he spoke out his opinion over medical fact, that "this is a curable mental phenomenon."

Treatment and recovery is one thing, curing a complete different story.

PTSD comes in many severities, some more than others. This forum is not here as a board to misinform the public or members, it is here to voice the truth. I personally encourage every single person to work their arse off and learn everything PTSD, go through trauma therapy combined with exposure therapy, and to get back into life. It can be done... each person will be different. Some will work, some will never work again, some will get back into quite a normal routine, some will be medicated for life, some will choose not to medicate, some will drink or smoke to help themselves, some will be workaholics, each to their own. How you cope is completely up to you, being a healthy or unhealthy means.

None of this should be taken though that a cure exists from something that is medically and scientifically to date, incurable.

 

[loqu]

anthony, do you have an authoritative reference (from ISTSS or the like) which concludes that PTSD is incurable, or makes the correct delineation between ASD and PTSD? I'm with you on this, but unfortunately the situation over at Wikipedia is that even though we who argue for the correct interpretation of DSM-IV and whom are refuting the unproven claim of a cure are the ones asked to carry the burden of proof. This is quite ridiculous since whoever is claiming an existant fact should be the one to prove it (it's more difficult to prove something doesn't exist than that it does). But I want to try and get this right over there.

 

[anthony]

You would have to become a member of ISTSS or other journal to obtain the hard copy of the journal. I was a member for a few years of several, though it became repetitive and most of what was released, anything of importance ended up in Google news instantly. You would have to do a search through the scholarly repository to find exact references now. I had many things referenced in the information section here, but even that can be difficult to find things at the best of times now.

[DLMURL]http://www.ptsdforum.org/showpost.php?p=127236&postcount=16[/DLMURL] is a recent one, so easily found, referencing the VA matter above.

Many of the cited journals will refer to PTSD as "treatable" or "manageable", though when you ask those physicians and scholars who write them, their answer will always outright be, no cure exists... treatable or manageable.

Added: http://scholar.google.com

 

[loqu]

The Nicholson link is down, I'm trying to find a mirror, particularly a source that confirms his inaccurate assertion of curability was part of his reason for dismissal.

 

[NarcSis]

Just adding my opinion to the pot,

I agree with Anthony (nice how I've come round in this topic since the outset - "cure" vs. "recovery" seems to be a matter of semantics in this issue). I agree that it is a 'recoverable' pyschological injury, we seek treatment to function, once we are funtioning, some may consider themselves 'cured' rather than 'recovered' but the permanent damage is there and like any injury it can be re-aggravated at a later date...or it may not, kinda like lightning striking the same place twice. Our threshold for 'stress resistance' will be reduced to a new level in our recovered state, it is a sad reality and although it may not appear, we will always struggle somewhat with this issue.

As for Wikipedia - my college professors told my class and I quote, "If anyone else submits a reference to Wikipedia in the reference section of their submitted papers, I will begin to DEDUCT points from the paper. Wikipedia is not a ' reliable scholastic' reference."

:) Keep the mind open.

 

[anthony]

The VA watchdog site must only be down for a brief period, as I had just accessed it last night when I posted the above. You can also use the Internet Archive or Google cache to see the page before the site is returned if you need.

1. http://web.archive.org/web/20080326203112/http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfSEP07/nf091607-11.htm
2. http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:hBwNolyfgj0J:www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfSEP07/nf091607-11.htm+http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfSEP07/nf091607-11.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-a

 

[anthony]

[youtube]WkPXT9FOIgc[/youtube]

Exactly what was said here was partially accurate, in that the majority of soldiers (70%) who return and display symptoms of PostTraumatic Stress, if treated will reduce such symptoms to zero. This is quite accurate in statement, he just screwed up by adding "disorder" the phrase "PostTraumatic Stress". It is exactly accurate and factual from many Defence departments around the world that the majority of soldiers upon return do display symptoms. This is exactly what is already known to many, in that the majority will return with ASD. It is near impossible to go into a war zone and not display some fallout after the event. He stated that 70% recover after initial treatment, which would be absolutely correct. But they just never had PTSD to begin with, they have ASD, which is the normal posttraumatic stress any human should endure after traumatic events.

 

[NarcSis]

Funny, I wanted to correct my therapist last week who told me that I was far different from most of her other clients. The majority of my therapists "PTSD" clients suffer after motor vehicle accidents and often are 'functioning' again within about 4 months, often never requiring follow-up. Correct me if I am wrong, but this sounds like ASD to me.
It was pointed out that I differ from them in that I seem to have been more "profoundly" affected by my trauma, it seems to have had more of a deep impact....hmmmmm, ASD vs. PTSD.....

Jury do you have the verdict?

 

[Jagged Angel]

I hoped and I prayed that C-PTSD was curable. I'd been living with it for 20 years before I was diagnosed, and I couldn't keep on keeping on. Despite this, when I was told that the best I could do is manage the symptoms, I felt... actually I'm not sure what I felt at the time. I think it was relief of some form. Why relief? Because at least there was something I could do. I was concerned that there was nothing at all I could do to relieve the pain. I fought with the idea that I could not be cured. I rallied against it, and tried to find other people to tell me that I could be cured. I even looked at snake-oil pedlars.... until I recognised that what I was doing was DABDA... the 5 stages of grief. I have reached acceptance. This is not an act of giving up, or submission to it, it is accepting the limitations.

It has been hard work, it has been hell on wheels, and there are large chunks of my life that have disappeared into the ether of the fugue I was in. The fugue is still somewhat there, but it is becoming manageable. Manageable.... I have come to love that word, and yet hate it at the same time.

I have no idea if onebravegirl has actually been cured, or if it is a case of manageability of symptoms. It is not for me to judge, and I have heard (right here on this forum) about a case of a person being cured, and it was medically proven that he'd been cured. What I do know is that for the majority of us who do actually have PTSD (and not ASD, or a number of other things that can be mistaken for PTSD), this thing is for life.

I do take offence at the idea that some of us are wallowing happily in our misery, and/or we don't want to do the hard yards. I know that there are people out there like this, and there have been in the past people like that here on the forum, but I rarely come across those people in life and in virtuality.

I also felt that the attitude is that if we are not cured, or well on the way to being fully cured, we are not working hard enough, or that we don't really want to be cured. I felt that there was an element of superiority attached to it.

 

[anthony]

This is the exact reason I do not like people attempting to use the word cured against themselves. Every physician on the planet would agree, PTSD is treatable, it is manageable, but only a slight few have the view that it is curable. The majority are therapists, who have no real idea or exacting knowledge of PTSD. I have read pretty much everything related to what a therapist reads for qualification, and let me just say, very little actually refers to PTSD or abnormal trauma... and I mean very little. Therapists are not heavily and precisely trained towards abnormal trauma or PTSD. This is where the majority of half cocked statements often originate.

It would be extremely rare to find an actual psychiatrist who uses the word "cured" in relation to PTSD. 99% of them use the words "treatable & manageable", but not cured. These are the experts, not psychologists or therapists.

You will however always have experts in all fields, therapy, psychology and psychiatry who are trauma experts and do little to nothing else except treat trauma. With these people also, it would be extremely rare to have them use the word "cured" in relation to PTSD, as they would know from experience (99% off atleast) that no such cure exists to date. Magic words once again, "treatable" and "manageable" are both vastly different from "cured."

 

[anthony]

Something I just thought about that this directly relates with, is cancer. There is no cure for cancer to date, however; it can be treated and for some types they can now pro-actively prevent it forming in the numbers, but still no cure. Cancer is for the most part a genetic anomaly and runs in families, though you do have those outside of that spectrum that get it from sun and surgery, no doubt other areas including anxiety. Again, for the most part cancer is a genetic anomaly and passed through families who often already are aware of it and constantly vigilant off.

If they treat cancer and the treatment works, they do not use the term, cured, instead they use the word, remission. There is a chance it will come back, there is a chance it may not.

Now this is not directly the same in terms to mental health, but pretty close in correlation to this subject of the word cure. Mental health has far more issues that are lagging the science than something like cancer research. Cancer is a totally physical aspect which can stem mental issues as a result, where PTSD is a mental issue which can stem some physical issues, like cancer. Complete opposites yet directly relevant to the term cured.

 

[onebravegirl]

You know I knew as soon as I typed the part about some people wanting to stay in a state of unwellness, that it could be taken the wrong way.
Here the way I see it. I had an opportunity to see many people in various stages of their disorder. In the hospital you see them at their rawest, hence the reason they are hospitalized. Many of these people that I have known have other issues like drug addiction or alcoholism and have been admitted against their will for safety reasons. Some of these people deliberately abuse the Hospital so as to have a place to stay and get free meals. Some of these people have PTSD. I was using this as an illustration that not everyone wants to be well. They are still stuck in a cycle of self abuse. They spend years and years acting out.They abuse other patients rights, as well as the Nurses and Doctors. As the case with any mental disorder there are those who choose not to be well. Why is this hard to agree with? It is a reality of life. These people help the notion that PTSD is beyond recovery. There are more who do not recover than those who do and that Is why I mentioned them. (As Anthony mentioned 99.99%)As a contrast. In NO WAY was I implying that it is a matter of not working hard enough. Its a personal choice to make as to how far they can go towards managing this Illness. I made it my absolute number one priority and I was just stating that it took that hard of an effort for me to make it.
I have NEVER used the word cure to describe what I have overcome. I have recovered from the events that caused my Professional Diagnosed Complex PTSD. I have a team of doctors and nurses in full agreement with me. I have been incident and medication free for two years. Without therapy of any kind. I have had several personal tragedies since my Graduation from Therapy, some even closely related to what gave me PTSD in the first place. I have not been triggered or spun into any of the old symptoms in any way. So here you go. I carry my sense of self. I carry Five years of full time Trauma therapy. I have the assurance from a well qualified Team of Doctors and Nurses who have told me that I have recovered. So you people now take the glory over me and tell me what I should believe. Suspect that I have been mis-diagnosed, accuse me of being superior, what ever. I am who I am and I am damn proud of the work I have done. I and my family know the truth. And as long as I am allowed on this site I will continue to offer Hope and support for others who want to hear what I have to share. Good grief, I am offering hope, not trying to take it away.
O