Vets Get Ecstasy to Treat Their PTSD

[unhappycamper]

Vets Get Ecstasy to Treat Their PTSD
By Katie Drummond Email Author
September 2, 2010 | 7:00 am

A pair of psychiatric experts think they’ve got the answer to the soaring number of troops coming back from war with PTSD: have them undergo intensive psychotherapy — while they’re rolling on ecstasy.

Dr. Michael Mithoefer and Anne Mithoefer, a psychiatric nurse, are the South Carolina pair who’ve been spearheading research into ecstasy, known clinically as MDMA, since 2000. After one successful study on 21 PTSD patients between 2004 and 2008, they’ve now received the final okay from FDA and DEA officials to start a study entirely devoted to former military service members.

“My sense is that, especially after we published the results of the first study, these institutions are more open to the idea,” Dr. Michael Mithoefer tells Danger Room. “Obviously, this is still new and experimental, and it can take time to get through to big institutions.”

With $500,000 in funding from MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), the two are recruiting 16 veterans — they’re hoping for a 50-50 split between men and women, and want most of the participants to have been diagnosed within the last 10 years.

“These will mostly be veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, because longer duration of PTSD means more complicating factors,” Dr. Mithoefer says, adding that he does anticipate enrolling 4 vets from earlier wars and is still accepting applications.

[formercia]

1. War Sucks.

It's amazing more Vets don't suffer from PTSD.

[reggie the dog]

2. seeing that mdma was originally used in psychotherapy sessions

this is not shocking. MDMA is a drug which actually helps you move past barriers in your own mind if used to that end.

[wookie72]

3. so ravers have ruined it for the rest of us?

I'm only being partially facetious. I have OCD and i've heard that LSD has shown promise for treating it. Of course, because of acid's "recreational" status, it can't be really used seriously by therapists.

I wish the soldiers the best; mental illness sucks.

(at the same time, I hate when people rag on the pharmaceutical companies for psychiatric drugs. Yes, they are over-marketed. But they are useful for some, and they do not turn people into mindless zombies)

[Capitalocracy]

9. Got a link on that?

I've never heard of that, LSD treatment for OCD. Got a link?

[mdmc]

4. ..

[mdmc]

17. 1

[coti]

5. Hey, give it a shot. nt

[lonestarnot]

6. Wow. Just wow.

[BlueIris]

7. Awful. I'm all for treating PTSD (especially for vets) but

the use of MDMA to do so sounds completely nutbar to me. How terrible that PTSD sufferers cannot get effective treatment options.

[Capitalocracy]

8. Sounds reasonable to me.

Reliving the experience in a way that does not induce stress and contextualizing it with additional details (an example being what you ate for breakfast that day, trivial details like that) is coming out as an effective treatment for PTSD. If taking MDMA makes that process easier, then go for it. It's certainly worth researching. Open your mind a bit.

[NoodleyAppendage]

10. Agreed. Memory is malleable. Each time you recall, you are simultaneously re-encoding.

If you can re-encode a negative memory divorced from the autonomic hyperactivity originally associated with the event, then some symptom reduction is possible. MDMA probably provides a potent competing emotional state that allows traumatic memories to be "re-interpreted" in a less severe light.

J

[Hawkowl]

19. Question

Do you think that maybe that's why some people who write about their PTSD experiences (book or journal form) say it has been therapeutic for them? Namely, that they me be able to divorce the autonomic response by kind of viewing it from a third person narrative point of view?

[dkf]

11. What is the downside of ecstasy?

[Hannah Bell]

12. similar to the downside for the adhd drugs given to children as young as 4.

any questions?

[Capitalocracy]

13. Seratonin depletion leads to a big down after the high

Probably not a good idea for potentially suicidal cases for that reason, although if it's super effective it might be worth it with observation.

[dkf]

15. Anti drug site says it creates nerve cell damage with psychiatric disturbances

And long term cognitive impairments.

[dkf]

16. Anti drug site says it creates nerve cell damage with psychiatric disturbances

And long term cognitive impairments.

[backscatter712]

21. Probably good to mention...

that we're talking about prescription MDMA, that's made in a pharmaceutical facility rather than an underground drug lab, probably administered in lower, and certainly more controlled doses, than street ecstasy.

I'll approach these experiments with an open mind - maybe they'll help these soldiers.

[Tsiyu]

14. Makes sense

PTSD has a strange phenomenon called flashbacks, where something triggers a memory that suddenly becomes real even though a trauma may have happened years ago.

In the moment of trauma, you don't have time to process what you're dealing with, only the time to survive it. So you end up with all these un-processed thoughts, which I liken to a bunch of windows containing documents you can't ever put into a folder. They can pop up any time because you've never filed them anywhere.

The best realization I had about PTSD was that you had to somehow find a way to look at those windows before they open so you can put them somewhere, make sense of them, deal with the fear, the grief, the guilt, whatever. Deal with the fight or flight you feel whenever a trigger tries to open a window.

It's hard to explain but I can see how mind-altering drugs might help someone safely process traumatic memory so that those windows don't open randomly or have as much negative impact.


Kudos to those with courage like the Mithoefers

[Liquorice]

18. MDMA can be very effective for psychological issues. It cured me of a long-standing, albeit

comparatively small issue. When I say "cure," I mean I was able to completely resolve the problem I had with one use of MDMA. I can't say enough good things about it because of what it did for me.

[krabigirl]

20. It makes much sense. This drug was developed for controlled psychiatric use.

I think they have to use it in a controlled environment as well.