Antidepressants were prescribed frequently in the past for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. However, currently, ibogaine is emerging as a potential drug to treat the illness. Though the exact mechanism of how ibogaine acts haven’t yet been uncovered, it is said that ibogaine has shown significant progress in improving the patient’s condition. The query whether ibogaine helps with trauma or not hasn’t yet been completely resolved. We’ll look at some facts related to the illness and how ibogaine can be helpful for it.
What Is PTSD?
Every year tens of millions of people suffer from PTSD. You may experience trauma or distress after going through a terrible or stressful situation. For instance, if you get into an accident while driving, get burned while cooking, or get drowned while swimming for the first time, you will be slightly reluctant to do the same thing for the next few days. But this phase won’t last for a long time.
Hence, it’s not a disease if you can overcome the stress or trauma after a few days or weeks. But if the fear from that event is rooted in your heart that you can’t shake off even after several months, it may cause trouble. The reason that people suffer from PTSD is that they keep reliving those past incidents, having flashbacks, or dreams of them.
Causes of PTSD
Most people who witness the following situations develop PTSD:
- Sexual assault or molestation
- Got abducted
- Domestic violence
- Accident with a narrow escape from death
- The unexpected death of a loved one
- Catastrophic events
Symptoms of PTSD
The symptoms that a trauma victim shows are very troublesome. They make the individual’s life quite miserable.
- The person may develop a phobia of visiting that place, meeting that person, or doing that activity.
- He/she will even avoid going to places or doing activities that may bring up the memories of that event.
- Continuous flashbacks or, even worse, hallucinations will make the person feel as if he/she is back in the same situation.
- Mood swings or irritability
Ibogaine Therapy for PTSD
The longer you hold on to awful memories, the more they will haunt you. Therefore, the best thing you can do is to let them go. It’s also the foundation of ibogaine therapy for the treatment of PTSD.
The illness begins at the point when you start avoiding those things that traumatized you instead of confronting them. It lets the fear settle deep down in your heart that you don’t dare to experience that event again. Ibogaine lets your subconscious relive those events and creates a balance of chemicals that can trigger any strong emotion. As a result, instead of giving any strong emotional reaction to those memories, you learn how to face them and cope with them.
Conclusion
Although ibogaine can help with trauma, the experts say that more research should be carried out before marketing ibogaine as prescription medicine.
