PTSD is chemical change in brain

New news? Not so much but this seems like a better study than what has been done lately. If they want to get rid of the stigma, they should start by keeping it simple. The simple truth of PTSD is that it only comes after traumatic events. There is no other way for PTSD to start. It is an invasion. It changes the way the brain works, how we feel, what we believe and how we process all things in our lives. How can anyone be ashamed of being attacked by something?

Traumatic events for witnesses as well as survivors leave us in shock. It was out of the ordinary and very hard to process the fact it was real instead of some kind of movie. In combat, traumatic events become part of the normal, at least they are expected to happen, and the body is automatically on guard, waiting and watching with every sense fully alert. Yet even with vigilance, they happen, leaving humans to overcome all of it. Sometimes, the event itself is just too much to take.

There is survival guilt when they wonder why they are still alive, what they could have done differently and even times when they blame themselves. This adds to the shock of the event. All of it becomes their fault.

Once this sets in, then there is taking on the blame for what they go through feeling as if they are defective because they seem to be the only one really suffering. They wonder what is wrong with them that they are unable to just snap back to "normal" getting over it the way their buddies did. They see what they want to see but if they really pay attention to those around them, they will see the changes in those they simply assume have been untouched. No one walks away from traumatic events the same way but sometimes the changes is so profound, it takes control.

Most of the veterans and warrior types have great compassion within them. This is reported by their families when they reminisce about lives before combat and how much they had changed after, suddenly cold, uncaring, distant and showing anger more than any other emotion. They will look for the veteran to come home the same way since they look the same, time has only been measured in a year or so, leaving them to find it very difficult to understand the profound changes. The obliviousness is also part of the problem when the veteran will not talk about what they went through trying to protect their families from hearing about it, as well as the fact most families do not want to be subjected to the dangers some they loved had to face.

How can they understand when no one will tell them and they have little interest in knowing? They need to have PTSD as part of a normal conversation without all the graphic images but at least being presented with the knowledge of what the veteran is experiencing so they can help them heal.

These studies can go a long way in doing that. With the studies in mental illnesses, like depression, we see commercials making seeking help for depression as easy to understand as seeking help for erectile dysfunction. Maybe some day we'll see a Marine veteran talking about how his time in service to this country has changed him with the frequency of the couples in tubs out in the open talking about "when the time is right" and leaves us thinking everyone is now using bathtubs out in some field. Normalize PTSD because when it comes to traumatic events, changes are normal.

“Once veterans see this is a neurobiological disorder in which their brain acts differently in terms of circuitry and chemical function, oftentimes it motivates them to seek treatment,” he said.

2 studies: PTSD is chemical change in brain

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 8, 2009 16:26:09 EST

Two new studies seem to provide more evidence that post-traumatic stress disorder is a chemical change in the brain caused by trauma — and that it might be possible to diagnose, treat and predict susceptibility to it based on brain scans or blood tests.

In one study, Christine Marx, of the Duke University Medical Center and Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, wondered why PTSD, depression and pain often occur together.

Researchers already knew that people with PTSD show changes in their neurosteroids, which are brain chemicals thought to play a role in how the body responds to stress.

Previous animal studies showed that blood neurosteroid levels correlated to brain neurosteroid levels, so Marx measured the blood neurosteroid levels of 90 male Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. She found that the neurosteroid levels correlated to symptom severity in PTSD, depression and pain issues, and that those levels might be used to predict how a person reacts to therapy as well as to help develop new therapies.

read more here

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/12/military_ptsd_diagnosis_120809w/