Have PTSD And Have Hyper Vigilance, Lack Of Sleep And Anxiety. Suggest Medicine?

Posted on Fri, 18 Oct 2013

Question: Hello, I have PTSD and have had a recent event that has triggered the severe symptoms that I had worked through for two years. I haven't taken any medication for two years, but the hyper-vigilance, lack of sleep, and anxiety to become intolerable. Where is the best place to seek help for this, ER, urgent care, or online? I have a therapist, but she can't prescribe any medications.
I am applying for Medical Cannabis Program here in NM as it is the lesser evil to the prescription medications, but that is up to a month away. I am a full time student in the Laboratory Sciences at UNM and the symptoms from the recent traumatic event is making life difficult. Any help/advice would be very much appreciated.

Answered by Dr. Seikhoo Bishnoi (39 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Hello

Detailed Answer:
Welcome to XXXXXXX

I have read your question and also the attached report and I can understand your problem. You are a 42 year old female with history of PTSD with various anxiety symptoms and currently there is no close relationship. You underwent a serious trauma in 2004 and has been suffering from symptoms like anxiety, night mares, night terrors, insomnia and also flashbacks. The diagnosis of PTSD was made and you have taken multiple group of drugs with no improvement with most of drugs like SSRIs, Trazodon, duloxetine, venlafexine etc. You are currently consulting a therapist. You are off medicines for about 2 years now and a lot of symptoms like hyper-vigilance, insomnia and anxiety are still present.

See, most of medicines you have taken resulted in no improvement or partial improvement only, still I would again advise you to consult a Psychiatrist again for any medicinal treatment. As anxiety is also there please learn relaxation methods like Progressive Muscle Relaxation Techniques, Breathing Exercises, Yoga etc. Although these dont affect the psychotic process of PTSD but they can help to decrease the symptoms of anxiety.

In the report there has been a mention about catastrophiazation, maximization etc distortions. I would advise you to consult a Psychologist for Cognitive Therapy. The therapy helps to correct any cognitive distortions and any abnormal thought processes.

You have also applied for medical cannabis program. The treatment modality is new and had shown great results in various studies. It helps in imProving hyper vigilance. Wait for the program to start and until then try to learn relaxation methods.

Other medicines like Mirtazepine are good antidepressant drugs and help in a good sleep also.

So best is to wait for the program to begin, for good results and you will be fine one day.

Hope it helps you, if you have more questions you can ask again.

Thanks

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar