Besides the horrors of war PTSD is linked with other events such as witnessing horrific accidents , cardiac arrest, open heart surgery and many others. Is anybody suffering or has suffered PTSD? And what are your symptoms?
The reason I ask is that a number of people including medical professionals think I may be suffering from this. The open heart surgery was not a problem as it was not unexpected. However, the amputation was totally unexpected as I only went in for day surgery. One professional thinks that it was not the three months in hospital but the transfer to a locked "what we must not mention" recovery unit in a care home followed by Adult (Don't) Care trying to make me a permanent resident. Strangely I only caught it after I was transferred out of the unit. I was only allowed out of the unit for hospital appointments and not even allowed in the garden! Most prisoners have more rights.
Another thought though is my symptoms could be caused by Gabapentin I take for phantom pain.
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MichaelJH
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I’m not sure if this will be of any help Michael. Although I have not had the same experiences as you, I have, and still do suffer with some PTSD symptoms. For me, I replay the traumatic events in my head again and again. I also analyse them and think about all the things I could’ve done differently. It causes irritability and anxiety. I partly have insomnia and poor sleeping patterns as a result of it too. I also experience nausea and sweating sometimes from it. I try to avoid known triggers which might set my PTSD off.
I have had some therapy, but haven’t found it particularly useful for myself. I have been offered medication to which I have refused to keep my symptoms at bay when I do have a PTSD “event” or “episode”.
The first event was when I was rushed in resuscitation with double pneumonia after been ill for 2 weeks and the Doctors saying I had a virus
Second of course has been my heart events
The way it affects me is I have lots of flashbacks especially when the days these things happened , every detail seems like it was only yesterday , I can remember it all as if it was only yesterday
It has added to my already anxiety I suffer with and it feels like I am been tortured with what has been the worst events in my life as it is all so vivid and no matter how hard I try it just won't go away
I even wake up at night with it all there in my mind
I take Gabapentin but I had PTSD before I started on this medication for pain I suffer with my shoulder so I cannot say personally it has played a part in my PTSD for me
I am so sorry but not shocked if you are suffering from PTSD after everything you have been through and I hope someway if you are you get the help you need as you deserve it x
I read these replys to Michaeljh with great interest this morning and sadness.I'm 66 years old and from a very traumatic event at she 14 it has taken me till now to realise how what I experienced has affected my whole life. When you live in fear for your life all of your life it takes away what may have been a life lived with joy freedom and happiness.
At the time of my ATD (adverse teenage event), I had to see a child psychologist with my mother present when I didn't want to see or speak to anyone about what happened to me. I moved back to this town to take care of my mother ten years ago, she died two years ago, even now when I drive past the building where I saw that psychologist I feel so sad I look up at the window of the room and recall it all like it was yesterday.
I managed my trauma for fifty years alone. I married a man who I knew would never harm me physically but was far to young at the time to realise abuse can take many forms. I had a career that I loved but each day/evening I finished work and walked to the bus stop the fear would kick in.
I wrote to my GP last year and laid out my life less lived for fifty years. I said at the end I saw myself as a survivor and not a victim, she never responded to which my three friends who grew up with me were totally shocked. I have over the years seen a psychologist for other reasons but never had the courage to talk about my teenage trauma.
My fears and anxieties for some reason and I guess it's because now I have nobody to look after are getting worse but I manage them.
I am currently reading a very good book called The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate which I recommend for anybody dealing with any life changing events.
As I have said in the past this forum and the lovely people on it who are all super heroes to me after the major surgery and life event's you have been through are truly amazing and should give yourselves the pat on the back you deserve and embrace the challenges you face pre and post op, even those people who have not had surgery have been through so much trauma have my admiration.
Sorry to go on, but thank you for sharing your PTSD event's.
I am so very sorry to read your reply and yet at the same time how brave are you to write it and you have made me now brave enough to say as a teenager I went through something which I have told very few but again I seem to have 3 lots of PTSD going of it has left me with it and very frightened of men except my Husband who is gentle
I now request were I can I have a women only if I have any medical issues
Back then things were never spoken about and so as a child I did nothing except blame myself and try and cope with the flashbacks I think as milky fairy says they are all like doors in my head opening with these painful flashbacks this particular one is the one that I keep as closed as I can maybe the years have helped me to do that where the others are recent
I have had therapy many times over the years but still keep it locked away
We must be as they say survivors somehow we come on here support each other even though we have our own pain and we also even if a day at a time deal with our health issues and yet we have so much more in some cases happened and what we are dealing with maybe when I feel so weak I could along with others be stronger than I think
I am sending strength to you and letting you know you are a wonderful person x
Thank you for your heartfelt reply. I'm so sorry to hear you to had a very traumatic experience growing up and how you like me have filed it in a box that we live with.Your absolutely right we deal with events in our life as they come along and manage them but some events especially from our childhood we should have dealt with and still don't.
Lockdown for me was a welcome to my world event.
I continually think nothing else can come my way so last year when I was diagnosed with mild CAD and moderate LVH I felt what else is life going to throw at me not oh poor me, more being it on.
Many people suffer much worse than you or I and we never hear about it. I'm sure for you to open up to me today can't have been an easy decision to make but I'm glad you had the courage to and thank you for that.
I totally understand the female doctor thing it's another sign of the scars our past experience has left us with, yet we soldier on, aren't we stronger than we think.
I start each day with a grateful heart, grateful I don't live a country turn apart by war and the daily horrors and fear that must bring, I'm grateful I have a roof over my head and don't live in the street, I'm grateful for food and water we do often take foregranted. I'm eternally grateful for the massive strides we have made in health over the years because without that knowledge and expertise so many of us may not be living the wonderful life we are.
I hope you grow in strength and courage and can't thank you enough for sharing. Xx
Michael I am sorry to hear you may also be affected by PTSD. I was formally diagnosed with PTSD about 4 years ago. There is a recognised assessment and questionnaire that you need to complete under the supervision of a Clinical Psychologist to be diagnosed.
Mine has resulted from my many hospital admissions when I was left in severe pain too long, refused pain relief or my IV GTN infusion abruptly turned off leading me to experience severe chest pain, not unlike being in labour.
It was the lack of control and loss of autonomy that affected me most.
I would describe it as an intense emotionally painful experience. Just as painful as my physical pain.
It's as though I haven't been able to file my memories properly. My memories are filed in a cabinet but cabinet door is slightly ajar. Certain triggers will mean all the negative experiences will fly out of the filing cabinet draw and be dumped all at once into my consciousness. This can be overwhelming when this happens. I feel as though I am reliving everything over again.
The dementors in Harry Potter reminded me of an episode of PTSD.
My trigger for an episode of PTSD is going into hospital. Which is a bit of a problem as I need to be admitted for unstable angina at least once or twice a year.
My Cardiologist would rather I didn't stay at home as long as I do and went into hospital sooner.
One of these days I'll leave it too late and will have a big troponin blood level rise when I arrive at hospital.
I have with good support from a Clinical Psychologist who specialises in trauma, my Cardiologist, the nurses on the ward and my family been able to manage my PTSD much better.
I feel I have nearly been able to close the filing cabinet door...but not quite yet.
Sorry I have no advice or knowledge on the matter, but I hope you get the correct help for what has clearly been ( and still is) a traumatic and difficult time x
I was diagnosed with ptsd after I’d had a HA and then collapsed on the ward at Kings and went into arrhythmia and they shocked me back to rhythm whilst I was still awake.
I’ve had NHS counselling which ranged from excellent to rubbish and private counselling which was ok-ish.
I’m a lot better now that I’m back to work and that is a distraction. I take mirtazapin for depression and I self-medicate with Nytol to help me sleep.
I can’t know what you’re going through and I can’t offer advice as everyone is different, but you have my sympathy.
When I had open heart surgery in 1968 it was still a newish procedure and the the psychological and somatic impact had not been explored. PTSD had not been identified and in soldiers was still largely understood as a form of moral cowardice. I was age 15 and rehabilitation through the summer of love took my mind off the impact which was actually ginormous and went on for years.
I left school at 15 because I was unable to cope, having long episodes of dissociation in the classroom which is like when you don’t feel in your own body. And I got palpitations and thought I was dying but kept quiet as I didn’t want to worry my parents. And I wanted to be that very brave person everyone said I was.
I think PTSD from surgery is different from trauma occurring when we’re fully conscious, less re-living and less flashbacks. I couldn’t listen to heartbeats and I was afraid my heart would stop any minute. And of course our hearts do stop beating when a heart lung machine takes over so in that sense it was a flashback. This went on for years, between all the good times and making a family and working and creating a life for myself.
What helped apart from time’s healing was talking about it, being believed, having things explained and having a pocket of propranolol (beta blocker) for if I had a panic attack. In fact the sense of safety those pills gave me stopped the panic without even having to take them more than once or twice!
My heart itself was just fine after surgery for 55 years until a year ago when my Afib started, but that’s another story.
Hello MichaelJH, after my bypass I had PTSD. I am not at all surprised that you may have PTSD from all the trauma you have experienced. In the end I had EMDR therapy, it’s tough because the process means you go through the experiences again in your head in order to process what happened and then through the programme you are able to move on. It was described to me as the trauma of the heart attack had got stuck like a huge groove in a record that kept on playing over and over in my mind. The one side of my brain was working normally but the other side was stuck in trauma. The EMDR programme is aimed at gradually smoothing out this groove and enabling the brain to process again normally. I am sure this is better described by professionals than me! I am not sure if this helps, we are all different and need to consult the professionals to ascertain if the programme is right for each person. That said it definitely helped me. It was a 9 month programme and enabled me to not live in fear as I had been doing since my heart attack. The measure of its success for me was that the panic attacks reduced significantly and I had been admitted to hospital due to losing 2 stone in weight due to not eating and not being able to keep anything down. Fear can do strange things to our mind. I do hope you are able to get the help you need. I can not imagine the trauma you have been through. Take care, Judi
Hi I have never been officially diagnosed with PTSD but in 2011 I tried to save my friends hubby who just keeled over at the table.I couldn't but ever since I have had a severe health anxiety especially cardiac related.In 2020 I de eloped flutter and afib and had ablation May 22.Im still very heart anxious.
I hope you get the proper help soon. I haven’t been diagnosed with PTSD but I understand the comments on this thread perfectly. I go over what happened and in my marination, I do something differently and so I am still fine and I never caught legionella with all the consequences! I think when something unexpected and traumatic/life-threatening happens, it is a natural reaction to try to dismiss it somehow although of course we all know that things are what they are in the present time. Doesn’t make it any easier to live with. Sending all good wishes.
Only four months post OHS (and three ICU events in the last 16 months); my world has become inward looking, big crowds and complexity do not work for me. Significant visual dreams which lie deeply buried and occasionally emerge. Irritability and low patience is not great for my family; BUT I am slowly getting better and positive. I am not big on relieving experiences through counsellors, I prefer to be busy and learn to live my life through new experiences not reliving the old ones. We are all different and need ways to cope depending on our ongoing circumstances. Be positive and happy as you can. Wishing you all the best
I was put on Gabapentin years ago for severe nerve pain. My GP has written a large warning on my notes "Do NOT prescribe Gabapentin" After just 4 or 5 weeks taking it, I felt totally suicidal. I terrified my then 15 year old son who was in the middle of his GCSEs. I didn't feel it was doing anything at all for the pain so I stopped it. Within 2 weeks I was myself again even though the pain hadn't gone and no the Gaba hadn't been helping it at all. I foolishly agreed to try the newer one that had just come out but within a couple of days the feelings came back. NEVER again. OK I ended up on oxynorm; horrific stuff with long term side effects and not supposed to work on nerve pain but for me it does work ( well it used to until my body got used to it). I'm now back at stage one because the oxy can't be increased any further and there's nothing else they can offer but I certainly won't be persuaded to take Gabapentin again.
That's just my experience and you may be fine on it. It does sound very much as though you have PTSD . After that experience I wouldn't be remotely surprised after being locked up like that but your experience with Adult Services alone is enough to push anyone into PTSD.
I suggest looking online for known side effects of gabapentin.
The care home sounds abusive to me. I'd suggest going to CAB or another advocate and asking a complaint is in order, or possibly legal action.
My experience of adult social care and mental health is that they can be sometimes helpful, often irrelevent and sometimes damaging.
I also wonder what other support you have? We all need a caring supportive community and if you are dealing with these things on your own they will be very hard to deal with.
Finally I see nothing disordered about feeling a complete reck after all you have been through. There is a school of psychology which believes we should ask people what happend to them and not what is wrong with them.
I am sorry to hear that you are going through this and hope that posting here will help you and others find the help you need - symptoms of PTSD are more common than many people realise after health issues, but I have heard good reports of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy as an effective treatment
I was diagnosed with PTSD over 20 years ago, after 2 extremely distressing events in my life. (Not medical related.)
I would see/hear a trigger of the events and it would be like I was instantly back in that moment in my mind, my anxiety levels were through the roof and the nightmares meant I was scared to sleep.
I actually had brilliant care from the mental health team and had all sorts of therapy and medication. I was extremely lucky.
I still have problems with my mental health (and have also been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and OCD at various points) but have managed to mostly control the symptoms.
Take care of yourself and keep pushing for the help and support you need.
Think you for all the kind and supportive comments. Mine seems to be repetitive dreams of entrapment such as being stuck by my prosthetic in mud/sand with the tide coming in and others where I shoot an adult care worker through the knee and say "Now you will start to understand what I am going though instead of making pig ignorant comments!".
The abusive “care” home sounds awful. I’m wondering if you could find the support to make an official complaint? These things don’t happen in isolation and you won’t be the only one who has suffered at their hands. Maybe the medical professionals you mentioned can help or point you in the right direction? Speaking from experience don’t go it alone! Maybe get it out in writing first? Surgery puts us all in a very vulnerable place and to be mistreated at such a time is dreadful. Hope that you can now find a comfortable and healing route forward.
that all sounds very reasonable in light of the awful experiences you had of the csocial care system you experienced. I think you need a lawyer and a good understanding friend rather than a psychologist or psychological assesment.
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