PTSD
Flashbacks, nightmares and hypervigilance following traumatic experience.
About this condition
Post traumatic stress disorder develops after frightening or overwhelming events. It involves reliving the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares, avoiding reminders of it, feeling constantly on edge, and changes in mood and belief about yourself and the world. Sleep is very often severely disrupted, which makes everything else harder.
Recommended treatment is trauma focused psychological therapy, most commonly trauma focused CBT or EMDR, with medication used alongside it where appropriate. Waiting times can be long and not everyone responds. A specialist assessment looks at which therapies have been completed, what medicines have been tried and how symptoms affect sleep and daily function now.
Treatments people usually try first
These are the treatments commonly offered in the UK for this condition. A specialist doctor will want to know which of them you have tried, and what happened.
- Trauma focused cognitive behavioural therapy
- Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy
- SSRI antidepressants such as sertraline or paroxetine
- Venlafaxine or, in specialist care, other medicines for nightmares
- Specialist trauma services or veterans mental health services
- Sleep focused therapy and support
Could medical cannabis be appropriate?
People with this condition sometimes ask whether medical cannabis could be appropriate for them. That is a question for a specialist doctor, who will look at your diagnosis, your history and everything you have already tried before saying anything either way.
Medical cannabis is an unlicensed prescription only medicine in the UK. It is considered only where a diagnosed condition has not responded adequately to conventional treatment, and it is never a first step. We cannot tell you in advance what might be prescribed, and UK law does not allow us to describe or advertise any medicine on this website.
What we can do is assess you properly and be honest with you. If a specialist doctor does not think this route is right for you, they will say so, and they will explain why.
All treatment is subject to clinical assessment and eligibility.
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