# data[].attributes.body
1/3 of people who have experienced major trauma end up getting PTSD. 3.5% of the US population experience some form of PTSD in their lifetime, and 7-8% of people worldwide experience PTSD in their lives at some form.
Other source

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How Common is PTSD in Adults?

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur after you have been through a trauma. A trauma is a shocking and dangerous event that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger.

Going through trauma is not rare. About 6 of every 10 men (or 60%) and 5 of every 10 women (or 50%) experience at least one trauma in their lives. Women are more likely to experience sexual assault and child sexual abuse. Men are more likely to experience accidents, physical assault, combat, disaster, or to witness death or injury.

PTSD can happen to anyone. It is not a sign of weakness. A number of factors can increase the chance that someone will develop PTSD, many of which are not under that person's control. For example, if you were directly exposed to the trauma or injured, you are more likely to develop PTSD.

Facts about How Common PTSD Is

The following statistics are based on the U.S. population:

About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.

About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.

About 10 of every 100 women (or 10%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%). Learn more about women, trauma and PTSD.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur after you have been through a trauma. A trauma is a shocking and dangerous event that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. Going through trauma is not rare.

# data[].attributes.body
Reliving what caused the PTSD

Being alert or on edge at all times

Avoiding feelings or memories

Difficult beliefs and feelings

Constant production of Cortisol and Adrenaline in Brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tell us more

What do you want to tell us about?

Note:

Please don't include personal details like your name or email address. If you do, data protection law means we'll have to delete your comments.

Unfortunately we can't reply to this. If you want a response from us, see our Contact us page.

If you are in crisis right now and want to talk to someone urgently then you could call Samaritans on 116 123 (freephone). Our pages on crisis services have more options.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tell us more What do you want to tell us about? Note: Please don't include personal details like your name or email address. If you do, data protection law means we'll have to delete your comments. Unfortunately we can't reply to this. If you want a response from us, see our Contact us page.

# data[].attributes.body
serious accidents

physical or sexual assault

abuse, including childhood or domestic abuse

exposure to traumatic events at work, including remote exposure

serious health problems, such as being admitted to intensive care

childbirth experiences, such as losing a baby

war and conflict

torture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop after a very stressful, frightening or distressing event, or after a prolonged traumatic experience.
Types of events that can lead to PTSD include:

serious accidents

physical or sexual assault

abuse, including childhood or domestic abuse

exposure to traumatic events at work, including remote exposure

serious health problems, such as being admitted to intensive care

childbirth experiences, such as losing a baby

the death of someone close to you

war and conflict

torture

PTSD develops in about 1 in 3 people who experience severe trauma.

It's not fully understood why some people develop the condition while others do not.

But certain factors appear to make some people more likely to develop PTSD.

Why does it develop?

Although it's not clear exactly why people develop PTSD, a number of possible reasons have been suggested.

Survival mechanism

One suggestion is that the symptoms of PTSD are the result of an instinctive mechanism intended to help you survive further traumatic experiences.

For example, the flashbacks many people with PTSD experience may force you to think about the event in detail so you're better prepared if it happens again.

The feeling of being "on edge" (hyperarousal) may develop to help you react quickly in another crisis.

But while these responses may be intended to help you survive, they're actually very unhelpful in reality because you cannot process and move on from the traumatic experience.

High adrenaline levels

Studies have shown that people with PTSD have abnormal levels of stress hormones.

Normally, when in danger, the body produces stress hormones like adrenaline to trigger a reaction in the body.

This reaction, often known as the "fight or flight" reaction, helps to deaden the senses and dull pain.

People with PTSD have been found to continue to produce high amounts of fight or flight hormones even when there's no danger.

It's thought this may be responsible for the numbed emotions and hyperarousal experienced by some people with PTSD.

Changes in the brain

In people with PTSD, parts of the brain involved in emotional processing appear different in brain scans.

One part of the brain responsible for memory and emotions is known as the hippocampus.

In people with PTSD, the hippocampus appears smaller in size.

It's thought that changes in this part of the brain may be related to fear and anxiety, memory problems and flashbacks.

The malfunctioning hippocampus may prevent flashbacks and nightmares being properly processed, so the anxiety they generate does not reduce over time.

Treatment of PTSD results in proper processing of the memories so, over time, the flashbacks and nightmares gradually disappear.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop after a single very stressful, frightening or distressing event, or after a prolonged traumatic experience.

# data[].attributes.body
Therapy: usually cognative behavioral therapy, this will either be really effective or not help at all and there usually isn't any negative side effects.
CPT: a 12 week long course of therapy that focuses on how you think about your trauma and how it will effect your life in the future. More effective then standard therapy and usually no negative side effects.
PET: therapy that helps with not avoiding things that might trigger PTSD and learns how to deal with them. Same effectiveness and side effects as CPT
Medications: these effect the chemical balance in your brain to more of a normal state, only Paroxetine and Sertraline have been approved by the FDA for use to help with PTSD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder, can happen after a deeply threatening or scary event. Even if you weren't directly involved, the shock of what happened can be so great that you have a hard time living a normal life.

People with PTSD can have insomnia, flashbacks, low self-esteem, and a lot of painful or unpleasant emotions. You might constantly relive the event -- or lose your memory of it altogether.

When you have PTSD, it might feel like you'll never get your life back. But it can be treated. Short- and long-term psychotherapy and medications can work very well. Often, the two kinds of treatment are more effective together.

Therapy

PTSD therapy has three main goals:

Improve your symptoms

Teach you skills to deal with it

Restore your self-esteem

Most PTSD therapies fall under the umbrella of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The idea is to change the thought patterns that are disturbing your life. This might happen through talking about your trauma or concentrating on where your fears come from.

Depending on your situation, group or family therapy might be a good choice for you instead of individual sessions.

Cognitive Processing Therapy

CPT is a 12-week course of treatment, with weekly sessions of 60-90 minutes.

At first, you'll talk about the traumatic event with your therapist and how your thoughts related to it have affected your life. Then you'll write in detail about what happened. This process helps you examine how you think about your trauma and figure out new ways to live with it.

For example, maybe you've been blaming yourself for something. Your therapist will help you take into account all the things that were beyond your control, so you can move forward, understanding and accepting that, deep down, it wasn't your fault, despite things you did or didn't do.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy

If you've been avoiding things that remind you of the traumatic event, PE will help you confront them. It involves eight to 15 sessions, usually 90 minutes each.

Early on in treatment, your therapist will teach you breathing techniques to ease your anxiety when you think about what happened. Later, you'll make a list of the things you've been avoiding and learn how to face them, one by one. In another session, you'll recount the traumatic experience to your therapist, then go home and listen to a recording of yourself.

Doing this as "homework" over time may help ease your symptoms.

Continued

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

With EMDR, you might not have to tell your therapist about your experience. Instead, you concentrate on it while you watch or listen to something they're doing -- maybe moving a hand, flashing a light, or making a sound.

The goal is to be able to think about something positive while you remember your trauma. It takes about 3 months of weekly sessions.

Stress Inoculation Training

SIT is a type of CBT. You can do it by yourself or in a group. You won't have to go into detail about what happened. The focus is more on changing how you deal with the stress from the event.

You might learn massage and breathing techniques and other ways to stop negative thoughts by relaxing your mind and body. After about 3 months, you should have the skills to release the added stress from your life.

Medications

The brains of people with PTSD process "threats" differently, in part because the balance of chemicals called neurotransmitters is out of whack. They have an easily triggered "fight or flight" response, which is what makes you jumpy and on-edge. Constantly trying to shut that down could lead to feeling emotionally cold and removed.

Medications help you stop thinking about and reacting to what happened, including having nightmares and flashbacks. They can also help you have a more positive outlook on life and feel more "normal" again.

Several types of drugs affect the chemistry in your brain related to fear and anxiety. Doctors will usually start with medications that affect the neurotransmitters serotonin or norepinephrine (SSRIs and SNRIs), including:

The FDA has approved only paroxetine and sertraline for treating PTSD.

Because people respond differently to medications, and not everyone's PTSD is the same, your doctor may prescribe other medicines "off label," too. (That means the manufacturer didn't ask the FDA to review studies of the drug showing that it's effective specifically for PTSD.) These may include:

Antidepressants

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)

Antipsychotics or second generation antipsychotics (SGAs)

Beta-blockers

Benzodiazepines

Continued

It's OK for you to use a medicine off-label if your doctor thinks there's a reason to.

Medications might help you with specific symptoms or related issues, such as prazosin ( Minipress) for insomnia and nightmares.

Which one or combination of meds is likely to work best for you depends in part on the kinds of trouble you're having in your life, what the side effects are like, and whether you also have anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or substance abuse problems.

It takes time to get the dosage of some medications right. With certain medications, you might need to have regular tests -- for example, to see how your liver is working -- or check in with your doctor because of possible side effects.

Medications probably won't get rid of your symptoms, but they can make them less intense and more manageable.

Sources

SOURCES:

Mayo Clinic: "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder."

Cleveland Clinic: "Anxiety Disorders."

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: "Treatment of PTSD," "Clinician's Guide to Medications for PTSD," "Medications for PTSD."

UpToDate: "Pharmacotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder in adults."

Society of Clinical Psychology: "Stress Inoculation Training for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

Medscape: "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Medication."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder, can happen after a deeply threatening or scary event. Even if you weren't directly involved, the shock of what happened can be so great that you have a hard time living a normal life.