There is a good reason why  we have doctors and train them for years ..... and some amateure chemists that havent got that training and experience a qualifyed doctor has should not be trying to make long distance telepathic diagnosis on patients or advise them or others to dose them with drugs .

SO to all of you .... grow the fuck up and stop adviseing people to dose themselves and / or others and try to separate your emotions , your egos and your own personal psychology from this and other situations like it  ...... and  ......... start to think and act like responsible adults . IF you dont you are a danger to yourselves , the comunity

One would think the key to the original post in question is how someone can be helped when the normal avenues are closed.  It would seem that inadequate finances would qualify in this regard. Therefore thinking outside the box becomes the only viable alternative to an otherwise deplorable situation. If my life was on the line and all I had was the help being proffered by another concerned human being, I would be grateful. Ideas being floated are not those of bloated ego's but merely potential options.

The inability to discern between the two shows a lack of empathy towards others and a mentality that has truly become bereft of coherent thought. One would think that if someone such as yourself suffers from such a severe mental condition, you wouldn't take the risk of exacerbating the situation by traipsing around these rooms looking for the chemical knowledge from such "amateur chemists" and instead find what you seek in those hallowed halls of the medical professionals. But here you are, and here we are, it seems we are at an impasse. It's easy to give advice that one would never follow themselves, but it takes a real man to talk the talk while walking the walk. So what are you?

@ vesp ... sorry I do not have anything worthwhile to contribute to your present dilemma. I have been where you are now and it's nothing nice...

@ sedit... whatup hommie....


oh yeah...

@LTS... ever use a thing called a spell checker?  Learn how to use it and maybe someone can then understand what the fuck you are trying to say or try cleaning out your system every once and awhile, maybe that might explain the haphazard keystrokes that produce what looks like vomit affixed to your namesake.



mez

I'm sorry I'm not at all impressed with the quality of care for PTSD and most doctors don't know shit beyond what the pharm's companies have taught them.  An intelligent person can easily run rings around so-called qualified professionals if they have access to journals.  And there are millions of people in this country who have no access to health care.  We muddle by.

But that doesn't help this lady.  I was fortunate to find someone who treated me for PTSD for a year for no cost at all.  Just got lucky.  From reading a lot of articles over the past 3 years I have learned a lot and formed some opinions as well as gained some experience in overcoming PTSD on my own. 

PTSD is different for each person because biologically and genetically we all have different weaknesses which result in different symptoms for each individual.   People who have been in long term traumatic situations such as your friend are much more likely to get PTSD.  The body makes adjustments for high stress environments and PTSD is just another of those adjustments.  Symptoms like Hypervigilance are intrusive in modern life but were life-saving from an evolutionary stand point.

I believe that drugs such as SSRI's and others work by helping promote neurogenesis.  Getting off SSRI's may be a big problem eventually, especially if it is a drug like effexor.

Other things which might help include omega supplements.  Also anything that helps her get adequate sleep is important because neurogenesis purportedly occurs during REM sleep.  Exercise can be helpful if she is experiencing HPA activation.  See geezmeisters stairclimbing therapy.  Also herbs or drugs that increase Growth hormone which promotes BDNF can help.

EMDR can be hit or miss.  I did not find it helpful and later figured out that the problem may have been due to dissociation on my part.  I believe that in order for it to work you need to be actively experiencing the emotions.  However I dissociate so easily that I could talk about my trauma without activating and therefore the EMDR was not able to work.  If you look at how they do therapy with MDMA you will see they are using it to relax the defenses so the person can re-experience the event and thereby retrain the autonomic responses.

This lady http://www.janinafisher.com/resources.php has some excellent papers on the physical and emotional effects of trauma.  It is important to recognize the various coping strategies the subconscious (the amygdala IMHO)  is using and counteract those by conscious interventions.  Over time you can subdue autonomic responses to environmental triggers which are part and parcel of both a traumatic life and PTSD.  The articles are also good because they help you understand what psychological terms like dissociation really mean and how automatically they are applied. 

I found binaural meditation and meditation in general to be helpful in calming myself when I was activated.  I also found Arcalion (Sulbutiamine) to be surprisingly effective at controlling background anxiety.  I take 600 mg a day and was amazed at how little anxiety I have now.  I was not expecting that effect.  It may well be due to by genetics.  Anxiety is after all, the body telling us there's a problem.

I've attached an interesting personal account from a PTSD forum I belong to.  This person was cured of PTSD.  Part of his cure involved learning to play guitar left-handed.  I think that worked because it increased the connectivity between various parts of the brain and because it was something the person enjoyed and therefore practiced daily. 

Though it is not in practice anymore, I was just reading an article on the uses of mdma in therapy sessions (before the DEA fucked it all up).  From what I have read about PTSD, I believe that this would be the best route for therapy for victims of trauma.  I'll see if I can find a pdf of the article and post it.  It was very informative.