Psychedelic drug provides relief for veterans with PTSD
The Navy Times reports a psychedelic recreational drug continues to show potential as a treatment option for patients with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study shows. The study, published in the The Lancet Psychiatry Journal earlier this month, found that MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy, dramatically reduced PTSD symptoms in study participants.
Doctors treated 26 patients during the two, day-long psychotherapy sessions that included full doses of MDMA. Many of the study’s participants were combat veterans.
Treatment with MDMA has the capability to “reduce fear and defensiveness, enhance communication and introspection, and increase empathy and compassion, enhancing the therapeutic process,” according to a 2017 press release from the California-based nonprofit, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.
MAPS has been researching the effects of MDMA for over 30 years, with results showing faster results with less talking. Accelerated resolution therapy requires fewer sessions than traditional treatment and doesn’t require patients to talk out loud about their experiences. That’s why, researchers say, it can be particularly attractive to service members and veterans.
Follow-up examinations one month after the second therapy session revealed that the symptoms of PTSD were effectively eliminated in 68 percent of the study’s participants.
The continued success marks another step toward reaching Food and Drug Administration-approval status, and the hope is that MDMA treatment can eventually replace antiquated methods that have proven unsuccessful.
“At least one in two PTSD patients cannot tolerate or do not respond adequately to existing treatments, so there is an urgent need for better treatments for the millions of military veterans and others with PTSD,” said Dr. Michael Mithoefer, one of the study’s lead researchers.
PTSD is nearing epidemic status, especially among veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates between 11 percent and 20 percent of OIF and OEF vets suffer from the condition.
But Mithoefer believes this type of psychotherapy could help check that trend.
“These results are further evidence that MDMA, used just two times at monthly intervals, can make psychotherapy much more effective and better tolerated,” Mithoefer said in the release. “I’m excited that Phase 3 trials will soon confirm whether this therapy can be approved for widespread use in a few years.”
The next phase of testing will begin this summer and will treat some 200 to 300 participants across 16 testing sites in the U.S., Canada and Israel. If significant efficacy and safety is demonstrated in this round of tests, full FDA approval is expected by 2021.
Previously reported at http://valorguardians.com/blog/
Category: Veteran Health Care
This is good news for those who suffer from PTSD. Previous treatment techniques have been spotty, at best. Good news folks. Hold on, help is on the way, although I wish it wasn’t going to take until 2021, although I understand the approval process.
This is complete bullshit. While there could be some efficacy, there are no randomized, double-blinded studies. Any my favorite part: make psychotherapy more accepted. Do they even know what psychotherapy is? It’s talking! So you need MDMA to talk? Get the fuck out of here. If you are under a drug, of course you will talk! Think acid or powder. Now what comes out of you suck remains to be seen. This is not fucking credible. And the “PTSD” folks will be lining up to get high in 3..2..1…
As to the date of acceptance, we will see. This organization is somewhat suspect and does not hold weight in many universally accepted medical journals/literature.
As to “Lancet”, yeah, “The journal offers the same fast track experience offered by its sister journals for all authors of research papers that…” These are the same folks who propagated and supported that autism-vaccination clown over in England, Andrew Wakefield.
Oh, and one last thing. For some afflictions, subjective or otherwise, there is not a “one-stop-shop” solution. Its not the same as taking an Advil to cure a headache. This “drug therapy” will be used to mitigate symptoms and sequale. So how does that fit in with psychotherapy as put forth in the article? It does not.
After 30 years of research, these folks need this to work….
I have some deep-seated suspicions about this myself. It’s kinda like the “medical marijuana” thing: it’s “symptom relief” in the sense that you don’t care about your symptoms when you’re high as a fucking kite. Otherwise, don’t bullshit me. It doesn’t cure cancer or any other shit. I can certainly understand why someone in constant pain might want to get baked out of their mind for that reason, but call it what it is.
A little over a decade ago, the state shrink said that I have PTS, and suggested medication for it. I told her thanks but hell no, I refuse to make my life dependent on popping pills. However, because she was an actual doctor instead of, y’know, a goddamn quack, she at least recommended actual medication. She didn’t feed me any bullshit about how I “just need to get high.”
Mrs. AW1Ed has Fibromyalgia, a debilitating and depressing condition. Has had it for years, and was being treated with opioids, anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds. She’s recently started on a medicinal marijuana regimen. She is not high as a kite, has halved her use of opioids, and cut the anti-depressant and anxiety meds out altogether. “Symptom relief” or not, it’s working for her.
I’m glad it helps her. And as I said, I fully understand why someone with a chronic painful condition would turn to that method. I just don’t like it when somebody pushes bullshit about it being some kind of miracle cure.
There are plenty of conditions for which symptom relief is the best you can do. In those cases, by all means, relieve the symptoms.
In reference to the marijuana. the pro pot lobby says it cures everything from dandruff to aortic aneurysms. Just sayin….
Google any pot strain and just read the comments about what it soothes and cures. Complete and utter bullshit. Every strain is touted as good for everything real or imagined.
Now if someone is truly suffering from some real ailment and pot helps ease that suffering then let them use whatever they need. The key word is “suffering”.
The Lancet article is entitled:
Lancet Article Link
Might want to consider reviewing the information before sharing your opinions.
Reread the article.
How the fuck can you have a randomized, double-blinded study with respect to psychotherapy? You cannot as you know you are getting the psychotherapy.If someone is talking to you, it cannot be randomized. And I have an odd feeling that the side effects that you wold be feeling would point to the fact that you received the dose, not a placebo.
And it phase 2, not 3. Phase 3 generally has the randomization and blinded factor. Also curious as how the pathways will be different in Israel and Canada? Oh, yeah, they have different regulatory processes. Hence my earlier point about the article.
So my opinion is warranted. By the way, this has nothing to do with medical marijuana. Kinda like comparing apples and oranges.
And don’t get me started on sample size and power analysis. 5 years and 26 vets? That is it?
This is a joke that has been 30 years in the making. Oh, by the way, what are the side effects of putting a robust and tough chemical substance in your body? 80 adverse events with 20 subjects? Are you serious? And they did this at an outpatient clinic somewhere in the USA.
Check out the funding source: “Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.” Yeah.
Guys, this ain’t rocket science.
“The next phase of testing will begin this summer and will treat some 200 to 300 participants across 16 testing sites in the U.S., Canada and Israel.”
Iterative process. Don’t like it? Don’t participate.
Cool your jets, GT. I post articles that I think will be of interest to TAH members, and will generate conversation. I know this is a controversial subject, and I neither agree nor disagree with the basic premise.
If they can prove to the FDA that this treatment has merit, more power to them.
The don’t randomly quote as gospel and throw it in my face.
You should brush up on scientific merit and realize a crackpot study that was given to a magazine versus those that actually have peer-review merit in the greater medical community.
As to the last part, I would agree if it has merit. But in this pathway, it does not.
So does this mean that the Timothy Leary acid I took back in the 70’s helped ???
“Take a trip and never leave the farm” !!!
Man, I took a trip to Iraq and never left the country!
Show me the PTSD money!!!
Where’s Lars when you need him ???
Gaslighting himself, or some such crap. Who cares?
https://youtu.be/YrtS2_TfbeY?t=32s
Lookie who has popped into the room! Hi Dave Hardin, where you been? 🙂
We’re not supposed to ask questions the answers to which:
a)May compromise national security;or
b)Get someone in trouble with their parole officer.
Or
C) The answer is something mortal man was not meant to know.
I can think of a lot of drugs that “ease” the symptoms.
Best one ever is Sildenafil and one on one therapy sessions.
One must be careful in selecting a therapist…
I’m in school now to be a therapist, but sites like TAH have ruined my ability to work for the VA. If I worked there and I found out one of my patients was lying to get benefits, I couldn’t report him. It would cost me my LCSW License.
All the health care workers at my local hospital are my friends and neighbors. Staff included.
Imagine the nightmare these people go through trying to comply with HIPPA.
Stormy Daniels is looking for work I heard.
Her last employment ended up being compromised…..
Of course she probably won’t do the single therapy thing….
If she does, tell her you’ll bring a donkey…
I (almost) spit my coffee on the computer screen after I Google’d “Sildenafil”!!
HAHAHAHAHAHHA
It’s an accepted fact in economics that subsidies create surplus. I wonder if PTSD would be nearing epidemic status if we did not pay veterans to have it. I say that as a curious economist, not as a pussy civilian that never served, although I am the latter.
The thing that scares me most about subsidizing PTSD is that when “common sense gun control” legislation gets enacted, a PTSD diagnosis and/or a prescription for psychedelic drugs might be sufficient cause to strip veterans of their 2nd Amendment rights. That would be the ultimate “bad trip” and I think it is worthy of contemplation.
I know there’s guys out there that need help. It’s not my intent to diminish them or their needs.
Quite few refuse prescription drugs for just that reason. Obama started the trend along with his no-fly and “handle money”
bullshit. Seek help at your own peril is what it is becoming.
The military, LE, and fire communities all have a severe fear/hatred for the shrinky types. Don’t talk about your thoughts and feelings, just stuff them down, make some off color jokes, and go back to work. Cause when you do go talk to someone, the first thing they do is put you on a profile or on light duty, which just makes the situation worse. So people don’t seek out help.
It’ll be interesting to see if this really is a “cure”. I’m hesitant to get excited cause it seems too good to be true. Two doses and boom, no more PTSD.
Use some googly and learn what answers to give in order to receive a check. And once the checks start coming, well, that’s income no one wants to relinquish. PTSD’s greatest enabler is that check.
I was at a small combat outpost for several months. Also there was another contractor who worked for a different company … a retired 1st Sergeant. Every afternoon he would hold Court in the motor pool, advising Junior enlisted about how to maximize their disability score. For instance, I recall him saying that sleep apnea would get you 15%, so make sure you get diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’m reluctant to cast a broad net, but based on what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears… Several soldiers were advised about how to game the system for their own monetary gain.
At least a vet scamming the system has given some service to the country. I’d rather that than seeing benefits going out to people that have never done anything for anyone.
I wouldn’t. Whether it’s a vet or not scamming the system makes zero difference.
In either case, the scammer is stealing from US taxpayers (e.g., from you and me). And he/she is stealing $$$ that could – and SHOULD – rightfully go to helping those that actually need the help.
Vet or not, they’re simply thieves.
Several vets I served with that I have seen at reunions talk about their PTSD disability payments from the VA like it is some earned entitlement benefit like Social Security just because they served in a combat infantry unit in the Viet of the Nam. I also have a shirttail relative who served in the Viet of the Nam. He has a 51% VA disability rating largely due to PTSD. He attributes his ability to get this rating to his VSO who coached him on how to claim PTSD with the VA. He admits he doesn’t have it, but needed the free VA health care that comes with a 51% rating. He was a bulldozer operator in an Engineer battalion and never heard a shot fired in anger. His only other disability is for impaired hearing likely caused by operating heavy equipment with no hearing protection.
Sounds like a union meeting
26: How about a spew alert? Yeah, having worked for the VA for many years, I’ve overheard many conversations on gaming the system. Some/Many of the examiners are also part of the problem. I’ve had vets tell me of rating exams that lasted only a few minutes. Don’t see how that is possible, but I know it to be true b/c it happened with me
Do they provide glow sticks, big fuzzy pants and House music as part of the therapy?
There is no question that there are situations that are improved by the use of psychotropic drugs, others which need none of the above, and some so bad that isolation is called for. That is not the issue.
Diagnosis is the issue. Figuring out an appropriate treatment is a problem now and no amount of experimenting by folks who actually know very little about combat, mental illness, or pharmacology will improve it. Inappropriate and/or experimental treatment by people with an agenda is somewhere between cruel and criminal abuse.
“Diagnosis is the issue.” Compensation is the issue. Eliminate compensation, offering treatment only, and watch 90% the PTSD sufferers be miraculously cured.
Unfortunately, too true. Improvements in diagnosis followed by better treatment options will not happen until the compensation issue is resolved. That is not likely to happen just because reducing the need reduces the number of employees – the only real beneficiaries of all these special programs.
Hmmmm. Perhaps the reason “PTSD is nearing epidemic status” now instead of during the Vietnam war was all the nonprescription “LSD” (and other drugs) going around back then.
Before we freak out about folks ‘just getting high’, lets remember that Ketamine is used A LOT in the Fire/EMS world and does wonderful things for a lot of folks.
It is also a ‘club drug’ like MDMA. Dosage is important, as well as method of introduction. My ER nurses tell me that the highest doses they use for Ketamine is no where near the club dosage. I’m willing to bet that this is the same situation.
I hope those EMT’s do not test positive.
Not buying it. The government has a terrible history of fucking vets up with drugs and MDMA is fucking terrible for your body.
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Sometime ago I saw a presentation on NGCW regarding the use of MDMA (Ecstasy) for PTSD. During the program they interviewed vets and in one case the spouse of one who said there had been some real changes.
At the time, the program mentioned it was still in the study phase.
My take on the study is that ecstasy does fill a person with feelings of love
That would be helpful to someone grappling with ptsd
I am certain that other designer drugs will be developed to produce these feelings without the psychedelic effects