Ecstasy (MDMA) may help with PTSD

[commandlinegamer]

From Nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100416/full/news.2010.188.html

[Dancing David]

Maybe, time will tell.

[Andrew Wiggin]

I have heard that it showed some promise before as an ajunct to psychotherapy and was still in use in holland for that purpose. I'll have to go looking for footnotes though to see if that's true, or STILL true.

A

[Dancing David]

The issue is usually the small sample sizes and lack of control groups. As well as consistent measures of symptoms.

[Kwalish Kid]

Hey, I am definitely behind any effort to get people with PTSD high in a safe environment.

[taiyo]

This is purely anecdotal, but a friend of mine was badly affected by PTSD after being raped and initially was secretly self-medicating with ecstasy. He later said "I just wanted to feel normal" and said it kind of stabilised things - I got the impression it reduced the flashbacks, so he could try to function day to day without being constantly terrified that flashbacks would take him by surprise. However he was only taking it sporadically, when it was available (and presumably in varying doses/purity) and when he stopped it suddenly he would 'crash' badly.

[INRM]

Taiyo,

Did it have any affect on his memories of the events, or just the traumatic response to them?

[taiyo]

I don't know if it affected his memories actually while he was taking it, since at that time he wouldn't talk about it anyway. It just seemed to make it easier to focus on other things a bit more. So I suppose my impression is that it affected the response. His memories were crystal clear later on anyway (I spoke to him a couple of mins after it happened so I'm in a position to judge that). But as I said, these were not exactly controlled doses or anything!! (I think CBT eventually helped enormously)