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As June is PTSD Awareness Month, we will explore exactly what this condition is, the symptoms, treatment options, and how your pharmacist can help.
Around 1 in 5 American adults struggle with mental health disorders in any given year. That’s nearly 43.8 million people, or just under 20 percent of the entire population of the continental USA and all of its outlying territories. Of those numbers, approximately 8 million will grapple with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a devastating disorder caused by trauma experienced in either childhood or adulthood.
Your pharmacy has an important role to play in helping you diagnose, treat, and manage the symptoms of PTSD.
In this post, we’ll explain what PTSD really is, what you need to know to determine whether you may be suffering from PTSD, and how to seek treatment if you need help.
PTSD Awareness Month: The Basics
The first step to PTSD awareness is understanding what it is.
It is, in many ways, an amped-up version of the brain’s natural self-protective instinctual measures. After a traumatic event, the brain kicks into overdrive to prevent further trauma by making you nervous, jumpy, or filled with memories of the event. For most patients, these feelings slowly fade over time.
For a small number of patients, those feelings and experiences never seem to fade. Instead, they hang on for months or years, often causing extreme mood swings, depression, long-term anxiety, and in rare cases, even psychosis.
These symptoms begin to intrude on the patient’s life, interfering with their ability to work, form relationships, or in some cases, even properly care for themselves.
This condition is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because it represents a disordered response to the trauma.
Instead of healing and recovering, you become locked into a self-protective loop that does more harm than good.
PTSD Symptoms
One of the most important aspects of PTSD awareness month is understanding the symptoms.
Symptoms can be extensive, touching every part of your day to day life and significantly impacting your ability to function. Harvard’s HelpGuide lists the symptoms of PTSD as:
- Being unable to sleep or sleeping too much
- Night terrors that wake you from your sleep
- Unpleasant or upsetting memories of the trauma
- Intense negative feelings surrounding the event
- Persistent flashbacks and nightmares of the event
- A feeling of numbness, detachment, or inability to feel
- Feeling as if you will pass away young or die traumatically
- Lost memories, including an inability to remember the trauma
- Feeling suicidal, desperate despair, or as if you can’t go on
- Having auditory or visual hallucinations of the traumatic event
- Feeling guilty, ashamed, or blaming yourself for the traumatic event
- Undesired physical reactions, like rapid heartbeat, nausea, or spasms
- An overwhelming desire to avoid talking about or revisiting the trauma
- Experiencing persistent clinical depression and/or anxiety
- Feeling the need to abuse substances to rid yourself of negative feelings
- Aggression, intense anger, or even violent behavior you can’t control
- Feeling as if you’re constantly on high alert (known as hypervigilance)
- Feeling isolated, alienated, alone, or “cut off” from the normal world
- Startling easy or jumpiness to everyday stimuli (being tapped on the shoulder)
- Feeling unable to trust anyone, or feeling as if people you love will betray you
This list of symptoms is far from exhaustive; every patient is unique.
You shouldn’t assume you aren’t suffering from PTSD if your symptoms aren’t present on this list.
Instead, to enhance PTSD awareness of these symptoms, you should speak with your pharmacist or physician to see whether treatment is right for you.
Combat PTSD Differences
Some people believe that PTSD is a combat disease; that only soldiers suffer from it after returning from war zones. This isn’t true; in fact, PTSD can affect any patient who goes through a traumatic scenario, including violent crimes, abuse, or even car accidents and near-death illnesses.
Combat PTSD is merely one experience of the disorder; there are many other valid forms.
That said, there are a few differences between the type of PTSD experienced by combat veterans and people who have experienced abuse, violent crimes, natural disasters and non-combat events.
Primarily, differences exist within treatment options; combat veterans may need highly specialized, specific care measures that everyday therapists or psychiatrists don’t provide.
What is most important in this conversation of PTSD awareness is knowing that Combat PTSD, C-PTSD and PTSD patients have effective options for treatment available to them.
Therapy, medications, and simple lifestyle adjustments can help you get your life back and thrive.
You do not have to suffer alone; take the first step and reach out.
Is PTSD Always Severe?
Not necessarily.
In fact, every patient’s experience of PTSD is slightly different.
Some patients may find themselves totally incapacitated and unable to care for themselves. Others experience only mild symptoms, such as jumping or startling at common triggers. It is extremely important for patients, practitioners, and pharmacists to recognize that there is no one “right way” to experience PTSD.
A small number of patients – often those who experience repeated or long-term trauma, such as childhood abuse or combat – may experience a worsening of symptoms. This is called Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), and can be much more severe than standard PTSD.
Untreated C-PTSD can lead to lifelong struggle, and sometimes, suicide. It is important to know that effective treatments can help you to overcome these feelings and experiences.
If you believe you are suffering from PTSD or C-PTSD, please speak with us at the pharmacy – there’s so much we can do to help you with PTSD awareness and treatment.
How Pharmacists Can Help With PTSD Awareness Month & Treatment
Pharmacists play an important role in treating and healing from nearly all mental health conditions and struggles.
In fact, we are often the first point of contact for patients experiencing symptoms they can no longer tolerate, especially if they’re subtle (e.g., insomnia, anxiety attacks, nausea).
This PTSD Awareness Month, we want you to understand how your pharmacist can help. Your pharmacist’s main role in identifying or treating your PTSD is helping you better understand your symptoms.
For example, if you aren’t sure whether you have PTSD, but you have symptoms that fall under the list in section two, we can ask questions to help you narrow down whether you may be suffering from PTSD or another illness.
Your pharmacist can also help you with simple lifestyle changes, medication reviews, medication adjustments, and non-prescription options for relieving symptoms.
This includes adjusting medication to make it easier to take through compounding, changing your prescription to make it more suitable for you, or recommending vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements that won’t contraindicate with your current medications or cause you harm.
We also play an important role in education – including helping you understand PTSD disorders and how they can affect your life.
Often, your pharmacist can suggest non-medication measures, like relaxation strategies, emotional journaling, and lifestyle tweaks, to help you sleep better, feel calmer, and control your triggers.
How to Get Help
The biggest takeaway of PTSD Awareness Month is this: you are not alone.
If you believe you may be suffering from PTSD, we want you to know that help is available.
You do not (and should not) suffer from your symptoms alone. In this section, we’ll outline a few ways to get help.
First, if you are feeling desperate or suicidal, or if you believe you may be a danger to yourself or others around you, please head to your local emergency room or urgent care center. Feeling suicidal is a medical emergency, and even though you may not feel like it’s true right now, you deserve care and proper treatment.
You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Sometimes, what we need most is a kind ear to listen to us. Crisis line workers are trained to listen to you without judging your situation, and may be able to suggest resources.
We also encourage all patients to call or visit the pharmacy for guidance on PTSD awareness, how to treat your symptoms, and even whether or not (or when) you should see the doctor.
Conclusion on PTSD Awareness Month
Pharmacists work with PTSD patients every single day. We focus on helping them to move forward, heal, and make the best possible care decisions they can.
In honor of PTSD Awareness Month, we want to extend that support to you, too.
