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Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

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Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#61

Post by rendx »

amelius wrote: post #10

Why not use EMDR instead? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_a...

You can use EMDR both for anchoring positive experiences, as well as to dip into unprocessed traumatic memories. In a typical therapy setting, you do both. Stabilization techniques are in addition to that; vagus nerve stimulation serves to calm down your nervous system, so it would aid the stabilization, so then in turn you can face more of the unprocessed trauma. It's not an either-or. PTSD therapy requires a combination of various elements, tailored to the specific circumstances, history and personality.

The idea to "try it at home" from some YouTube videos is absurd, unfortunately. It may do you good, OK, but it has nothing to do with real EMDR used in a therapeutic setting.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#62

Post by rendx »

Sylamore wrote: post #33
airbreather wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I said it was dhit when my ex-wife said she was going to do it, but it definitely did something. And I am well aware of the placebo effect. But just because something is not provable or falsifiable under current scientific knowledge, it does not mean it is neccesarily quackery, there's a Venn diagram there where some things may be effective. Automatically discarding something that even occasionally gets results,…

Sadly it made my ex-wife worse off than before - she went from a functioning anxious person to being completely overwhelmed by anxiety all the time.

Any successful form of trauma treatment will first make it worse, because you open the can of worms and begin to go deep. Unfortunately, many therapists are not very good at explaining that up front. If you only have a few sessions, it is basically guaranteed to make matters worse. That's a sign that it is working (but maybe a sign to switch therapist if it wasn't explained well and cautioned about; making sure the environment and person is ready for it should happen first...).

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#63

Post by balfirevic »

airbreather wrote: post #30
carabiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these treatments has a 100% success rate. You can try EMDR on Youtube and if it worked all the time, psychiatrists would be out of a job.

Yeah I said it was dhit when my ex-wife said she was going to do it, but it definitely did something. And I am well aware of the placebo effect. But just because something is not provable or falsifiable under current scientific knowledge, it does not mean it is neccesarily quackery, there's a Venn diagram there where some things may be effective. Automatically discarding something that even occasionally gets results,…

> But just because something is not provable or falsifiable under current scientific knowledge

Do you mean unproven instead of "not provable or falsifiable"?

Something not being falsifiable would mean that we can't detect if it's doing anything even if we tried, which doesn't bode well for its effectiveness.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#64

Post by 9x39 »

pizza wrote: post #24

I don’t think there is clinical level evidence for it, but there’s this thing called Trauma Releasing Exercise which apparently some people swear by. The idea is that you do extremely taxing, high neuromuscular-recruitment static holds etc - til the point of total muscle control loss that turns into widespread trembling. I would speculate that if a big part of feeling bad is getting stuck in a state where tension bec…

I think we're way early to have clinical evidence for a lot of vagal nerve theory that is approachable by anyone outside research fields, but I've had my eyes opened to how much is connected to vagal nerve stimulation (VNS).

For example, basically deep belly breathing reduces stress supposedly through VNS: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6189422/. Yoga, yes, but also even popular and known in some military and police cultures where I've seen it labeled "tactical breathing" as a proven way to lower stress responses like heart rates on command. There seems to be growing evidence around some of these responses being real and reproducible.

FWIW, I've personally observed this working in my family with a licensed therapist as a family member was able to develop and rely on belly breathing to interrupt the onset of panic attacks. There's a lot of talk - if not reproducible science yet - about the possibilities of positively outcomes through so much connected to the vagal nerve.

At something more of a stretch, the same pro-VNS therapist posited to me that even swallowing is a way to engage in VNS, and thus might have a connection to eating disorders. Sure enough, maybe there is emerging evidence: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8027699/

Emerging therapies seem to always get a sideways glance from the medical industry which loves its double-blind derived protocols, so I've started to be more receptive to being part of the vanguard in experimentation when I or someone I love is acutely suffering and it doesn't have a known protocol to alleviate it. An example of that reluctance in PTSD, of course, is the controversial psychedelic therapies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38284341/. Sometimes these treatments just need time, and if they're reproducible, they grow in popularity.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#65

Post by strangegecko »

pizza wrote: post #24

I don’t think there is clinical level evidence for it, but there’s this thing called Trauma Releasing Exercise which apparently some people swear by. The idea is that you do extremely taxing, high neuromuscular-recruitment static holds etc - til the point of total muscle control loss that turns into widespread trembling. I would speculate that if a big part of feeling bad is getting stuck in a state where tension bec…

> He wondered if maybe that there was a tangible benefit to the shaking itself, in that it could help perturb out of the traumatized state itself.

As someone with a trauma background who never learned to suppress this shaking, I am very skeptical of that idea. I'm middle aged by now and still have severe social anxiety problems in certain moments. My body will still shake when this process gets triggered off.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#66

Post by shutupnerd0000 »

holovan wrote: post #51
computerdork wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There with you:( ... and actually, scheduled to get that "Lenire" device in a couple of weeks. Hope works

It seems like a more effective bimodal stimulation device is winding its way through the FDA: https://www.reddit.com/r/tinnitus/comments/1d0it8b/comment/l... The results are very promising, but it's sure taking its time getting approved.

The Susan Shore device is open source via studies and publications and it's possible to build your own if you're desperate enough. DM me if you want exact hardware specs. I've gone down this road because I have severe tinnitus.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#67

Post by nurettin »

ivape wrote: post #36

I don't know how I feel about this. The nature of PTSD is that you have a true memory, that the event happened. Imagine if I tell you, 9/11 was real and it happened, but from now you will never feel any feeling about it. What exactly did we accomplish here? The bombings in Gaza are real, but from now on, you will feel nothing about it. You see? It reads like a dystopia. There's an obsession with erasing the past and…

You can't deal with how bad something feels if you have uncontrollable crippling sensations about it. Trauma does not let you mature, learn from experience or grow up. You can't walk it off. If you try to "man up", it comes back even stronger in terms of attention deficit, bouts of anger and OCB. It is very hard to convince people that the sensations trauma causes are real. Especially to people with a hero complex.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#68

Post by rexpop »

ivape wrote: post #36

I don't know how I feel about this. The nature of PTSD is that you have a true memory, that the event happened. Imagine if I tell you, 9/11 was real and it happened, but from now you will never feel any feeling about it. What exactly did we accomplish here? The bombings in Gaza are real, but from now on, you will feel nothing about it. You see? It reads like a dystopia. There's an obsession with erasing the past and…

> from now you will never feel any feeling about it

You're tilting at windmills, mon frere, by exaggerating egregiously.

> You are custodian of the trauma.

True, and beautiful, but debilitating trauma that destroys its vessel is not delivered to the future that would learn from it.

Re: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Erases PTSD: Study

#69

Post by amelius »

msc1 wrote: post #25
amelius wrote: post #10

Why not use EMDR instead? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_a...

From wikipedia: EMDR has been characterized as pseudoscience, because the underlying theory and primary therapeutic mechanism are unfalsifiable and non-scientific. EMDR's founder and other practitioners have used untestable hypotheses to explain studies which show no effect.[55] The results of the therapy are non-specific, especially if directed eye movements are irrelevant to the results. When these movements are re…

> because the underlying theory and primary therapeutic mechanism are unfalsifiable and non-scientific

Underlying theory doesn't matter much. Remember that we don't even know the mechanism of action of acetaminophen.

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