The Cost of Freedom Foundation

Known Treatments For PTSD

PTSD is not a new phenomenon.  Incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder have been documented as far back as ancient Greece. The condition has had different labels throughout history.

In the American Civil War, it was called soldier's heart. In the First World War it was called "shell shock" and in the Second World War it was known as "battle fatigue". In the Vietnam War, the symptoms were described as "combat stress reaction".

Whatever the name put on it, treatment can literally make the difference between life and death.  The good news is that as the awareness of the high incidence of PTSD in our military has increased, so have efforts to find an effective, long term treatment.  The list of treatments offered is lengthy and until recently, no clear consensus has been reached within the medical community as to which are the most effective methods.  Millions of dollars are being poured into research annually in an effort to develop a treatment, though for those suffering today, research does little if anything to provide relief.  We have presented a few of the treatments offered now, including one which we believe holds great promise for permanently curing many who are now living with this disorder.

Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, the best of the researched methods, is effective 32% of the time though it takes four to nine months to be effective.  Given its low percentage effectiveness, better methods are clearly needed.

Viet 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 exhibited 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. Many reported this treatment was worse than the disorder.

Other methods include 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 there are probably more.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is one method that appears to be a significant advancement in treatment. 

Acupuncture is an ancient method for treating illness developed by the Chinese thousands of years ago.  In modern times, an offshoot was developed called acupressure that provides a similar relief without the use of needles.  One method for treating illnesses developed in the mid 1990's incorporates aspects of both NLP and of Acupressure.  This method, known as EFT, has been proven effective at reducing and sometimes eliminating symptoms associated with PTSD, and for maintaining the relief for an extended period of time without additional treatments.

To learn more about how you can receive confidential treatment with our help, please go to the Contact page.  Your information will always be treated in confidence in keeping with HIPAA regulations and in keeping with the respect that we hold for you individually.

Many reference are available online to learn more about PTSD.  We are in the process of compiling a list of those we feel have relevance to Veterans, though it is by no means an exhaustive list.  If you have good references you feel would benefit our efforts, please send them to us and we will gladly incorporate them into our list. 

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We must never forget that FREEDOM is not FREE!