The last month has really flown by for me – how is it already October?! Where did the time go?
Oh yeah, it all went to recovering from pneumonia, getting through school, and starting back at work.
I’m not complaining; I’m just exhausted. I posted a couple weeks ago about Managing Chronic Illness and College, because it really is no joke. It’s a different ballgame entirely, and one you can’t quite get unless you have to deal with it.
You also might have noticed I didn’t post last week – that’s because I was contacted by someone from Overcoming MS, and was writing a post for them. I’m not going to lie – I was totally fangirling a bit. I’ve written about the protocol a bit before, and it’s played a big part in my recovery. I hope to have a link for y’all soon!
Today, I plan to talk a little bit about Medical PTSD – mainly what it is, who it affects, and my own experiences with it. I asked people what sort of mental health related items they’d like to see on Stumble Pup, and this is another request I was happy to oblige.
Medical PTSD comes in many forms. When I started researching for this post, I wasn’t shocked so much by the numbers, just heartbroken.
So many patients suffer from this, without any clue that it is 1) a separate condition from what they’re actually dx with and 2) a condition that responds relatively well to medication and/or therapy.
A lot of the time, patients will just assume that their suffering is because of the condition. This is not the case when it comes to Med PTSD. Simple treatments could alleviate these issues, yet they’re often never explored.
Diving right in, what is Medical PTSD? PTSD is an extreme emotional rection to a traumatic experience; in this specific instance, these experiences occur within the healthcare system. This could be due to a negligent provider, a long stay in ICU, or a life shattering diagnosis.
For statistics, let’s start with the moms, shall we? The number of women who face PTSD after having a miscarriage is huge, but not surprising to me. I would expect trauma after something like that. Something waaay under reported, however, is the prevalence of women who suffer from their own type of PTSD due to a traumatic pregnancy, birth, or other trauma. This is completely separate from postpartum depression, btw.
Moving on – in this study that followed up on patients after an ICU stay, they found a little more than 1/3rd of them suffered from debilitating anxiety months after their stay. Living through a heart attack has also been shown to trigger PTSD in some individuals.
Because I typically talk about things that have impacted me personally, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve dealt with my own form of this.
Going through the healthcare system for over a decade searching for a diagnosis did not leave me unscathed. I can’t tell you the number of horrible practitioners I came into contact with – a lot more than good ones, I can tell you that.
To this day, I refuse to watch shows where mentally ill people are taken advantage of, or shows placed in asylums. (Sorry AHS, I dug the rest of the seasons, though) I also can’t watch doctor shows where the providers are obviously negligent or incompetent. They just make me feel sick to my stomach, and I’ll actually get nauseous.
Whenever I’m walking into a doctors office, I almost have to force myself inside.
In the last 18 months, I’ve really focused on building an amazing team of medical professionals, all of whom I trust implicitly. Still doesn’t stop that little voice in the back of my head that tells me to run as fast as I can as I’m walking through the front door.
Even though I now have doctors that actually know what they’re doing, in the past, I’d heard it all –
“You’re too young to hurt like that. It’s just because you’re overweight. Oh no, you’re just depressed. Having anxiety is a normal part of being a female. Are you sure it’s really that bad?”
And on. and on. and on they went. All the while, I was trapped in a body that was short circuiting; people all around me swore up and down that I was imagining it, or worse, making it all up for attention or sympathy. Doctors love minimizing things they don’t understand.
I’ve talked a little bit about how doctors ignored my symptoms for years, and what to do when you’re in that position. Being my own advocate is the most important job title I have, and if you have a chronic illness, it should be yours too. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and not all doctors are good.
So, if you have Medical PTSD, what do you do? Go see a professional, please. I’m not just saying that because I’m going to school to be a counselor, either.
Therapy and medication have been proven to be reliable when treating certain types of PTSD. You deserve to live your best life, and dealing with any type of trauma you’ve been through is a great first step to achieving that.
Speaking of going to school to be a counselor, I’m off to do homework for the foreseeable future. Never ending around here!
If you or someone you love deals with this, know you’re not alone, and here is help available. If you’d like to share your experience, please do so below!
Until next time,
