Posted by bertie on October 31, 2003, at 16:05:32
In reply to Re: PTSD and drug withdrawals » bertie, posted by Sebastian on October 29, 2003, at 12:34:27
(warning: this is a wordy response :))EMDR is eye-movement desensitization and regression (I think, can never remember the R part). It is a therapy that is related to hypno-therapy but with a significant clinical twist. The idea is that when the brain is in REM sleep, it taps into a unique ability to heal and to access parts of the memory that are otherwise hard to get at, and by stimulating the rapid eye movement response artificially while regressing a patient's memories, the therapist is able to both dig deeper and facilitate more healing than with traditional therapies. It's rather more complicated than that really, but I've had some friends who had horrific childhood experiences and what not who came away from this therapy with far better results than any other kind of behavior therapy or drug therapy or anything else. One of the truly miraculous things about it is that it can begin to have healing benefits in a very short period of time (like 8 sessions). As for playing the anti-depressant ruoulette game, I was on Zoloft for over three years, and kept having to gradually increase my dosage until I was getting these buzzy sensations almost daily, and had some other unpleasant side effects (which were better than being cripplingly depressed, but not fun). My docs tried me on Prozac, Celexa, Paxil,Wellbutrin, and Effexor, all of which had either no benefit or extra nasty side effects (most notably, a a descent into hell and a psychotic break with the Effexor withdrawals - its important to note I have no history, and no family history, of schizophrenia or anything like it). Anyway, I've just come away from it all thinking that, for me at least, the benefit of medication is far-outweighed by the long term bad effects. Don't know if I'll ever be able to be tremor free again. They've ruled out Parkinson's, essential tremor, epilepsy, lupus, MS, and various other potential causes that might not be drug/trauma related. Near as I can tell, the whole drug withdrawal thing just tipped an avalanche of emotional buildup that drug therapy has really just suppressed, and the only hope I have of getting my life under control again is the EMDR. Or maybe bio-feedback (heard some promising things about that too). Anyway, I'm pulling the plug on all medical - or rather medicinal - intervention.
poster:bertie
thread:269444
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031030/msgs/275334.html