A new pill created to treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could help rape victims.
[Scientists] have been testing a pill that, when given after a traumatic event like rape, may make the resulting memories less painful and intense....Scientists think [PTSD] happens because the brain goes haywire during and right after a strongly emotional event, pouring out stress hormones that help store these memories in a different way than normal ones are preserved.
Taking a drug to tamp down these chemicals might blunt memory formation and prevent PTSD, they theorize.
Propranolol, a beta blocker, is generally used to treat high blood pressure; now scientists have found that it can help trauma victims by crossing the blood-brain barrier and working on stress hormones. (The drug would need to be administered within a day or two of the traumatic event.)
A Harvard University psychiatrist did a recent study where he gave 10 days of propranolol or a placebo to accident and rape victims--three months later the eight people who had taken the drug had fewer stress symptoms.
I’m generally skeptical about the idea of medicating people in an attempt to numb feelings. But I’m unsure--if the drug treats the often-debilitating symptoms of PTSD, who am I tell a victim not to take it?
Related aside: I’ve heard of MDMA (Ecstasy) being used in similar studies. Anyone know the latest on this?
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Propranolol has been used for a long time by musicians for stage fright. It blocks some receptors that take adrenaline-like compounds (the stuff dumped by your adrenals in a fight-or-flight response). Reasonable hypothesis, study numbers too small to tell much.
But if it's meant to dim memories of an event, isn't that something the defense could use in court? "You took this drug to dull your memory -- are you sure you remember clearly enough to say my client did this?"
But if it's meant to dim memories of an event, isn't that something the defense could use in court? "You took this drug to dull your memory -- are you sure you remember clearly enough to say my client did this?"
You could probably say the same thing about EMDR because it imposes a dream-like state. Nonetheless, it has proven helpful to a lot of us that have PTSD from sexual assault.
If this is true, I might just cry. I was on propranolol for 6 years for migraine prevention, but I was taken off of it after developing asthma. Two months after that, I was raped, and I have only felt like the resulting PTSD was not running my life very recently.
Obviously, there is no causal relationship between going off the propranolol and being raped. It just would have been nice if the drug that I had been taking for years would have helped me handle the trauma.
man, i would have liked to have had some of this stuff handy 5 years ago. who would not like to make their worst memories less painful>>???
The only adequate way to help rape victims is to take rape seriously and work towards prevention. Giving someone a pill is a lot like saying rape is something we all have to continue to live with. Is there a pill the perpetrators can take?
The only adequate way to help rape victims is to take rape seriously and work towards prevention.
Yes! Whilst I agree that it can be very good to minimise pain, I also wonder whether various forms of distress which are socially caused would be considered more petty (not just by society in general but by women themselves) if the pain itself was minimised.
I tend to think that pain is there for a reason, most of the time, and once we know the reason, we are propelled to make changes so that the painful event does not happen again.
The emotions relating to trauma are so strong because they indicate extreme discomfort with the social order which makes change necessary.
But if it's meant to dim memories of an event, isn't that something the defense could use in court?games