Stuff You Should Know - How PTSD Works

Episode Date: May 23, 2013

With Post-traumatic Stress Disorder the sufferer relives, over and over again, the worst moment of his life. What's worse is medicine still doesn't know how to treat it. Learn about this condition and how it's leading to an understanding of memory. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and the cross for me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Howdy. And that makes this, say again. Howdy. This is Stuff You Should Know. Go ahead, jump the gun there. It's okay. Awkward. I was talking a little fast.

That's all right. It's a little weird. How's it going? It's going good. Good. This is a long-awaited podcast. It is. We've been putting this off for like a year. At least, maybe even two or so. Yeah.

There is a guy who we need to give a huge shout out to. His name is Will Sove. Is that who wrote us of it initially? Yeah, initially. He is a clinician who studies PTSD. He started out at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Basically, he's like right there on the front lines, not just treating, but like learning about PTSD.

And not only do we have to thank Will for basically, we handed him this document, this article, and said, hey, how up to date is this? And he sent back this great like annotated copy with all this new stuff. And basically said, don't say this, don't be stupid. That kind of stuff. So we have to thank not only Will,

but we have to thank his wife, Meg, who was the one who originally turned Will on to stuff you should know. So without Meg, we would have no Will. And without Will, we would probably have a grossly out of date and laughable PTSD article to work from. That would have haunted us.

We probably would have released a podcast and just pissed us off still. Exactly. Yeah. So you have now taken his information and redid your original article. And now we are pretty much up to date. Yeah.

And I need to go onto the site and update the actual article, which is harder than the trams, you know? Yeah, yeah. But to just listen to this podcast for the time being. OK. And this is really good timing, Chuck, because I found out after we decided to do this, June is PTSD Awareness Month.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. And specifically, June 27th is PTSD Awareness Day. So if you have a friend or a loved one or a coworker who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, be extra nice to him on June 27th. Yeah. So we're talking about PTSD, which

is, of course, an abbreviation for post-traumatic stress disorder. And it's not a new disorder. I can't imagine when it really first came about, although it was first described in the Civil War. My guess is that it came about the first time people started encountering big time stresses. Yeah.

Traumatic events. Yeah. They just didn't know what the heck to call it. Exactly. But it wasn't, I guess, until about the Civil War that we saw casualties on such a colossal level that somebody, a doctor named Jacob Mendes-Decosta, described what he called soldier's heart.

Yeah. Before that, they were just like, what's wrong with Goody Johnson? Exactly. Just always freaking out. Right, yeah. Whenever he hears us play this song. Right.

Well, Goody's short for good wife. So there's a lot going on with Goody Johnson. Yeah. Oh, that's a he. She. So DeCosta, he calls this thing soldier's heart. And it basically is like, you seem to have some sort of heart failures, tech and hearty.

You're very much stressed out. And DeCosta said, this is probably a result of some sort of trauma from the war. Right, but they initially, like you said, thought it was cardiac based because I'm sure dudes were like, you know, my heart's racing. Exactly, you know. I'm freaking out.

Right. Oh, it's your heart, then. It can't possibly have anything to do with your mind, which we know pretty much nothing about. Right, that came about during World War I when it was famously called Shell Shock. Charles Myers in 1915 described it as, and he was actually onto something here,

that it could have been resulting from pressure from artillery shells exploding nearby and how it affects the brain, like physically affected the brain. Right, and that's actually what he's talking about is called today, mild traumatic brain injury, which is the symptoms of which kind of overlap with PTSD. Yeah, I think we covered that in concussion some, didn't we?

I think we probably did, too. Because you know, some NFL guys or former NFL players are committing suicide now here and there. Yeah. Probably the same thing. That was an interesting episode, wasn't it? Shell Shock, yeah. So yeah, so Charles Myers describes mild traumatic brain

injuries and calls them Shell Shock. So if you just go slightly further afield and kind of get a little more into the psychology behind it, you arrive finally at PTSD, the modern diagnosis of which first came about in 1980. Yeah, thanks to, they really started doing a lot of studying post-Vietnam. And in 1983, they did a case study

that really just opened up a wealth of information to kind of get the ball rolling. And since then, we've studied a lot, and we continue to, because we're still not exactly sure the best way to treat it. And we've learned many, many things since 1980 about it. Oh, well, there's the part of the brain that stores memories of fearful incidents. I think that's a ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

The size of that can have an effect on whether or not you're at risk for PTSD. Sure. Some folks are more prone than others. We'll get to all this in more detail, of course. Like women may not get it as much as men. How much danger you perceived yourself to be in, how intense the danger was, how long the danger went on

for, all of those are contributing factors to the development of PTSD. Yeah, and like you said, perception is the key, because it's your perceived reaction to it. It's not necessarily the guy next to you might not have had any reaction, and gone through the same incident. Maybe two people are in the same car accident.

One person can have it, one person might not. Right, and that can be exclusively based on the perception of the event. You were saying we're still learning about it. It's true. We don't have even numbers on the number of people with PTSD. That's shocking. I think the VA estimated as many as 800,000 veterans alone

have PTSD. Well, I say it's shocking, but it can also be confused with things like depression and just generalized anxiety. So it's very specific PTSD, so I sort of get that. Right, but it has a huge effect on people, like depression and anxiety disorders in general. PTSD specifically is known to increase unemployment,

failed marriages, domestic violence, and homelessness. And suicide. Yeah, suicide's a big one, too. We have no idea how many PTSD sufferers commit suicide, but in 2010, I believe, Chuck, 22 veterans a day, active and former military, a day, 22, were committing suicide in, I believe, 2010. Not all of those are necessarily PTSD related,

but once we have a better idea of how many people have PTSD, how many people who have PTSD commit suicide, I have a feeling the numbers are just going to get bigger and bigger. Yeah, I think you're right. Because we're still, I mean, we're only like a few generations removed from the concept of shell shock. Yeah, that's true.

And then even more from Soldier's Heart, and even more from what's wrong with Goody Johnson, or in the lake, see if she swims. OK, so I guess let's get down to brass tacks. Simply define it as a set of symptoms that result from a trauma. We hear about a lot in military, obviously, because they experience very intense trauma,

more than most folks do. But it can come about from an accident, an assault, natural disaster, anything that you perceive as traumatic, it can come about. Yeah, it can, the death of a loved one, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a trauma that happens directly to you, it can indirectly affect you, and you can still develop PTSD from it.

That's true. But the thing is, is there's, if somebody experiences a trauma that's not going to develop PTSD, they normally shake it off, right? There's actually some criteria for an actual PTSD diagnosis. So you have to, the symptoms basically have to present themselves over a certain period of time, for a certain length of time, and certain symptoms

have to appear. And the cornerstone of what's called the symptom cluster of PTSD, all the symptoms you put together to form a diagnosis, the cornerstone of those is re-experience. Yeah, and some of that can happen, but the thing I kept coming across in these studies is what they called excessive retrieval.

So just like, it's one thing to get in an accident and be a little weird next time you drive in the rain, or more careful or whatever, but excessive retrieval means that it's like consuming your life nightmares, day terrors, I mean you name it, like a song can spark it, and you're just re-experience this thing over and over in your mind. Yeah, and it doesn't even necessarily

have to be from something like a song, like the song that was playing on the radio when you crashed your car to trigger it, it can just come without any apparent trigger whatsoever. And the big problem with this is not just like, oh man, that was such a bummer that that happened to me, it's your brain is remembering this in such a way that the same chemical cascade takes place

as it did when you were initially going through it. So for all intents and purposes, at that moment, you're fully going through that same experience again, and this happens again and again and again and again, and that's the re-experience of the trauma, and that's the cornerstone symptom of PTSD. Yeah, that's one of what they call symptom clusters, one of four, the other three are avoidance,

which obviously speaks for itself, you're gonna avoid thinking about it, avoid, let's say you're in the military, you might not go to Fourth of July celebrations or other places where they're big booms. Numbness, doing anything you can to numb it, withdrawing alcohol and drugs. Yeah, that can be a big problem with PTSD.

Going into it and afterward, right? Right, and if you already had a drug or alcohol problem and you develop PTSD, that can be a really hard thing to treat and separate. And the last one there is hyperarousal, which basically, when you see movies, they'll portray it this way in movies a lot, is a soldier that's just jumpy and irritable

and can't sleep, they feel unsafe, sort of paranoid. Always on guard. It's like your fight or flight response is always on. Yeah, that's gotta be exhausting. Yeah, well, we talked about, you can die from that kind of thing, from prolonged stress, heightened stress, like it depletes your immune system

and you can die as a result. And that's one of the hallmarks of PTSD, is you're just constantly on guard. Yeah, I can't imagine how tired you must be. Plus you can't sleep on top of that. Exactly, yeah. So it's a pretty awful condition to have. And one of the criteria for diagnosing this

is that it's not short. This can go on a very long time. There's three different types. There's acute, which is acute PTSD, the symptoms come on and last about three months, right? Yeah, it has to, to be PFC, it has to go beyond the one month period. Right, after that it's kind of,

most people I guess shake off a trauma within a month. If it keeps going on after that, then you're in PTSD territory. If it lasts three months, that was acute PTSD. And you probably should consider yourself lucky that that's all it was. Yeah, that's true. You could also develop chronic PTSD,

where the symptoms last more than three months and possibly a lifetime. And then there's delayed onset where the symptoms don't show up for at least six months. And then I guess it could be acute delayed onset or chronic delayed onset. Yeah, and you point out here that kids can get it too. It's not, you know, we talk about adults oftentimes,

but kids can present differently. You know, really poor behavior, really needy behavior, drawing things out. And that's something you always see in movies too. Like the kid drawing the plane crash or stuff like that. Or acting it out with dolls. Oh yeah. That's another one too.

But as they grow up, they become a little more just regular adult symptoms if they haven't, you know, gotten over by then, which is super sad. Yeah, so for a very long time, Chuck, researchers thought that everyone is at equal risk of developing PTSD after going through trauma. Right.

But they found, I guess from studying really hard course since that 1983 Vietnam study that there's actually risk factors and protective factors that can keep people from developing PTSD or can make you more likely to develop PTSD. Yeah. One of the big ones is if you've already experienced a prior trauma.

Yeah, because it's additive. So it can actually mount up these things over the years. And then there could be one final trauma that finally triggers the PTSD. Sure. More likely to if you've experienced these things. Exactly. And you were saying like the military is at greater risk

than the average person because they are experienced a prolonged intense trauma. And it seems to me that PTSD is moving very quickly toward an almost entirely brain-based model. Yeah. And one of the reasons why is they're finding like all these chemicals and genetic markers that are responsible for different aspects.

And it's like this clear picture is emerging. One of the big ones is a glucocorticoid. Yeah, that's right. I got it. No, that's a good scale. It's a class of brain hormones. And they help control our stress response. Yeah.

So we were talking about how if you experience one trauma, you your glucocorticoid levels are depleted. Yeah. Because it's like, come on, let's just hang in there. We'll hang in there. If you get another, if you experience another trauma and those hormones are depleted already, then you're going to experience the fear and stress

of that far more acutely than you would have had your glucocorticoid levels been normal. Yeah. That's why it's compounding an additive. Well, and they also have found that cortisol, which is a glucocorticoid, elevated levels of this can affect your memory in a negative way, which can be positive if you have PTSD.

So they did a study in 2008, a three month blind, double blind placebo controlled study, our favorite kind. That sounds like a real deal. Where they gave these three soldiers low doses of cortisol or hydrocortisone. And they found significant effects with no side effects and even evidence of prolonged effect. So I know later on in the article,

you talk about one of the things they're doing now is injecting people with hydrocortisone. Yeah, and like the ER. Yeah, like immediately after an event. And it's basically shown to decrease your memory, like you just don't remember that stuff as well. Yeah, and it lowers the stress response. I mean, think about this.

The stress response is part of your immune system, right? Or it's at least connected in some really close way. Hydrocortisone is like an anti, it dampens your immune response. So they think that PTSD is like maybe a heightened stress response or a heightened immune system response. And just giving somebody like a regular shot of hydrocortisone, it's working.

Yeah. It's so weird. Well, because it has to do with memory. If you're decreasing your ability to remember something, you're going to increase the likelihood that you won't suffer from bad memory. For sure, right? The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not

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This makes sense. If you're an optimistic type, you're probably going to be less likely to suffer PTSD. Yeah, you have in here belief that there's order to the universe. Is that specific to a belief in God? I think that that's one of the accepted definitions of optimism or the optimistic personality type. Interesting.

Somebody who believes that it's not chaotic, that there's reasons for things. Things happen for a reason. So I wonder if an atheist is more likely to get PTSD. I could see that. Interesting. But it's also that other people are generally good, is like the second part of that definition.

If you are someone who tackles things head on and don't put your problems on the back burners, obviously this is going to wait. If you're not putting it on the back burner, that means you're going to have a less likelihood. Yeah, I got all confused there. Well, yeah, because avoidance is one of the symptoms. Yeah, you got to deal with it.

And if you have problem avoidance behavior, avoidant behavior, or you just don't like to talk about problems or don't like to think about things, you just rather just kind of push it off. That's probably true for any mental disorder. If you're not prone to tackle it head on, then it's just going to get worse. Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's one of the things about PTSD is your memories become exaggerated and bloated and way worse even than the actual experience. Right, if you are a college graduate or maybe even just went to college, then you're going to be less likely to have it. And we also pointed out earlier that women are less likely to experience it than men.

Yeah, they're not entirely certain why. I don't know. But that's strictly from the Vietnam study, I think. It was something like 36% of Vietnam veterans who experience hardcore combat. I don't know if that's the term they use, but you know what I'm saying. Hardcore combat, yeah.

36% of males in that situation had PTSD and 18% of females did. Right. So what that's like twice as likely if you're male than female. They think genes may have something to do with it. They're looking to a gene called the serotonin transporter gene and there is a paper out there

that indicates that if you have a mutated gene, serotonin transporter gene, then it could impact your attention to environmental threats which could impact whether or not you get PTSD. Right. PTSD, geez. So you remember we did that episode

Ken, my grandfather's diet shortened my life about epigenetics? Yeah, that was a good one. Well, epigenetics possibly factor into PTSD as well. So epigenetics is basically where the function of a gene is affected within somebody's lifetime. Like changes, basically. Right, so it's like evolution on the basis of years

rather than generations and generations. And there was a study in Detroit of 100 people who fit the criteria for PTSD diagnosis and they found that they had six to seven times the epigenetic changes of the control group and that a lot of those epigenetic changes, most of them had to do with genes that were responsible for keeping up the immune system.

Interesting. Did they factor in the fact that they lived in Detroit? Well, what was funny, I guess, in some horribly dark, comical way, is that the researchers were from New York City and they traveled to Detroit to find 100 people with PTSD. I'm sure they could have found that in New York. I guess they cast a lot in Detroit for some reason.

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Yeah, two dozen. Exactly. And then, of course, the most important factor with this or any other mental disorder is what they call a trauma membrane, which is that support network, your friends and your family. If you've got a strong one and a strong one in the right way,

like you point out, they can be well-meaning, but the person receiving that membrane and that protection, it has to do right by them. Yeah, and they can't just be like, well, just look on the right side. Don't worry about that. However you're experiencing this and getting over it, you're doing it wrong.

Do it this way. That's not gonna help. Right, but basically the point is, if you are a single alcoholic veteran that is a loner, live by yourself. It doesn't like to think about your problem. Yeah, and like your tiny little apartment, then that's like the worst case scenario for PTSD.

Yes, yeah. Like we said, the military is at a greater risk, just from being exposed to these situations and being exposed to them over and over and over again. Yeah. And, but one of the other reasons that the military, especially the military of late is at risk is because brain injuries were the quote,

signature wound of the Iraq war. Don't remember, thanks to roadside bombs, IEDs. There were a significant amount of head injuries. Our treatment of head injuries advanced enough so that we could save lives where they wouldn't have been before. Right. Like people were exposed to head injuries

like in countless other wars, but now we've gotten to the point where we can save those people's lives. Right. The problem is that their brains are changed. They've undergone what Charles Myers called shell shock, mild traumatic brain injury, which again is almost indistinguishable

and possibly one in the same in some cases as PTSD. Yeah, and imagine the uncertainty of guerrilla warfare and things like roadside bombs. Like you can be prepped somewhat for battle and we'll get to that here in a little bit, what they're trying to do the more and more these days with that, but with these guerrilla tactics that are going on in the Middle East

with suicide bombers and car bombs and things like that. Yeah. That's kind of the perfect prescription for eventual PTSD. Yeah, it is. Why don't you sing PTSD? It's just easier. I'm trying to take the trauma out of it.

Right, yeah, that's nice of you, Chuck. Yeah, we mentioned earlier, you remember the optimistic personality is less likely and the optimist believes in order in the universe. Well, guerrilla warfare is like the opposite of order in the universe. Yeah. It's a point.

Are you starting to see like this pattern? Like all the stuff is on the table. Yeah. It's just now a matter of connecting it. Right. And it seems like neurology is going to be the field that does that. I think so.

You know? So counseling obviously is step one. And this goes down in a couple of ways. The old favorite, cognitive behavioral counseling, which we've talked about quite a bit. Right. Which apparently I'm told by Will Sove is not really called that.

It's cognitive processing therapy. Oh, is that what they call it? I think he said, I haven't really seen it called that, but okay, in his note. So we'll stick with the cognitive processing therapy. Well, a couple of the aims there are to basically limit the amount of that excessive retrieval to sometimes it's like, hey, every day for like from nine to 930

you can think about this in a healthier way. And then you put it away for the day. So that's one way they can do it. Yeah. Another way is to just lessen the memory's impact on like how bad it was maybe by pointing out some of the good things. Like what about the valor you showed during battle?

Right. By saving your buddy's life. You died and you watched him die, but you also try to drag him to safety. So you tried and you put yourself at risk and you really need to commend yourself for that. Like carry that around too. It's gonna balance out the horribleness.

So not like you need to forget all this, but you need to bring it back to an acceptable level where you can live your life. Exactly. And one of the reasons it's not at an acceptable level is because this memory has become so grossly exaggerated through the process of this, I guess memory retrieval, fearful memory retrieval over and over and over again.

It's getting worse and worse. Like I think most memories are enhanced. Good or bad, you know, like you remember, like that prom in high school was way better than it really was or that breakup that you suffered was really, actually those usually get better with time. But you know what I'm saying? Right, yeah.

But I think Chuck, imagine that while you're, see whenever you retrieve a memory, you're adding to it. That's how like scents go from, you know, what you initially thought of to what, you know, 10 years after smelling the thing you think of. The same thing with fearful memory retrieval. But when your memory is being retrieved and your life is in the gutter and you're addicted to drugs

and you're scared out of your mind. Yeah. And then you compound that onto the original memory over and over again, then it's just gonna get worse and worse and more and more exaggerated. And yeah, one of the, or the point of cognitive processing therapy is cognitive restructuring. Like literally reordering the brain

by taking that memory head on and saying, no, no, no, like this didn't really happen like this. And you're not paying enough attention to that. Right, right. Another type of therapy that is not as fun, although I don't know if the other is actually fun, but exposure therapy is pretty hardcore. It's like the pull your knees up to your chest

and just rock back and forth kind of therapy. Yeah, I mean, it's basically to relive it over and over and over in great detail, sometimes taking you to the actual place that it took place with the idea that eventually that fear extinction will happen and you'll get over it. Right, well, remember you were saying like the song that was playing on the radio when you got in a car wreck.

Right, I like to play that. Well, welcome to hearing that song over and over and over again. Right. So it doesn't, again, when you're retrieving that memory in a certain context and bad things aren't happening. Yeah. And there's somebody reassuring you saying like,

look, you're okay, like everything's okay. Right. Then you're relearning that memory again without the fear associated with it. Yeah. But you have to go through hell to get there. Yeah, and it also stops avoidance in its tracks, which is, you know, if you're avoiding something.

Oh yeah. The complete opposite of that is immersion therapy like that. Yep. And then what they're finding is the best, the best results are coming from a combination of therapy and medication. Of course. Because it helps to not be freaked out of your mind

when you're having to go through exposure therapy and relieving it. And a class of drugs that helps with that are SSRIs. Yep, our old friend SSRIs, the two approved by the US Food and Drug Administration are Zaloft and Paxil. And those are actually the only two drugs approved by the FDA to treat PTSD.

Yeah. On label. Yeah. Not just the only two SSRIs. So use those with your therapy. Right. They also have something called D-Clycocerine. And that is actually, is that the one that's a

anti tuberculosis drug? Yeah. And they found that it also helps with PTSD. Yeah, they noticed that like it cut down on fear by basically it agonizes your N-Methyl D Aspartate receptors. NMDA? Yes. Now that enhances learning.

So if you're going through exposure therapy, you got a little Zaloft going to keep you calm and chilled out. And able to go through therapy. And you're taking DCS at the same time to make you learn faster. Yeah. Then that would probably be a pretty good treatment

for PTSD for some people. Yeah, beta blockers like paninol have been long known to decrease stress levels. Yeah. And kill Michael Jackson. Really? Was that what he was on? That was the one.

His milk, he called it. Oh, he had like the drip going. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a little different than like. Oh yeah. Described a pill. But this drug specifically goes in there

and basically like disconnects neurons so that you don't have that memory any longer. I read a paper once on using this drug to treat PTSD. And this guy was like, this is so effective that you're basically rewriting history. It's like transhuman. It has like that level of impact on some people. Interesting.

Yeah. Well, we mentioned earlier the army preparing soldiers for battle. It is not just happening in a physical training way, like learn how to shoot guns and do things like that. Now it's happening very much on the mental level. It was formerly called Battle Mind. Is it not called that anymore?

No. That surprised me that they changed it. Right. When was it from? That was from Walter Reed Hospital too. Yeah, exactly. Now they call it resilience training. That's way better.

Exactly. And it actually didn't even start out as something to help with PTSD, but they're learning that it can help. It's basically, they handle the seven phases of deployment mentally. They prepare you mentally for the seven phases. It's like pre-deployment, deployment,

post-deployment, redeployment, and everything from, hey, when you're out of the army or the Marine Corps and you're driving your car around, you can't drive like you're angry and like you were over there. Right. If someone addresses you in an aggressive manner, you can't handle it like you did when you were in battle.

You didn't have alcohol over there. Now you're back home, there's booze everywhere. You can't go crazy with that stuff. Yeah. And so all of that put together, they figured out, ends up helping out with PTSD. Like rely on your family. They're trying to encourage stuff like this.

Right. Well, also they think it works because they're using it ahead of time, like pre-deployment as part of training as well. Right. So I think like being exposed to horrors ahead of time, will kind of keep you from going through, I guess, as much of a trauma when you see it,

the real thing. Right. A month later, whatever. Yeah. What's interesting Chuck is the Iroquois had something like this. Oh yeah? Yeah, after like going into war,

they were basically sequestered from everybody else after they came back and were just assimilated. Yeah, exactly. There was like a step down cooling period. Wow. But the Iroquois used, because they would go totally insane while they were in battle.

Right. That makes sense. They would go berserk. No, the Vikings would berserk. Yeah, but I think the Iroquois did too. Okay, so we were talking about neurology being the key to this. One chemical that they have been studying

is called Stathman, Jason Stathman. And that basically allows us to form fear memories from our experience. So they're obviously working with this and mice, finding that lower levels of that are gonna decrease our fear memories or our ability to form them at least. So that's pretty, you know,

they're fighting this on a lot of fronts. Yeah, well they're doing a lot of research and just need to put it together. What else, Gastron releasing peptide? Yes, they found that apparently this chemical like signals the brain like calm down, calm down. Right. And if you have not enough of it,

you have an increased chance that you're going to become fearful. Right, so that's another one. Narrow peptide, why? What did we talk about that in? I don't remember. I know we've definitely talked about it. It's basically our own body's anti-anxiety drug

and the levels of this are gonna fluctuate depending on what kind of stresses and traumas we've been through. And once again, if that one's depleted, then you're gonna be less prone to overcome obstacles mentally, naturally. They're trying to figure out how to synthesize it. So if it's as simple as like injecting

some neuropeptide wine to somebody's brain following a trauma, just to get that little extra boost so you can take this on and process it and shake it off, I guess. Ecstasy. Yeah, that's another one. MDNA, MDMA. Yeah.

Not surprisingly, when they've treated people with PTSD, they felt better. Yeah, but it was long lasting though, right? Or was that the mushrooms? I know we studied that, hallucinogenic mushrooms. Yeah, I don't remember which one went back more easily. Yeah, I can't remember either. But there was a guy in that study, the MDMA study,

who was like suicidal for three years or two years. Oh no, that was something different, the stellate ganglion block. Oh, right. It's like an inoculation of just a local anesthetic. Right. But just above the clavicle. So it interrupts the nerve transmissions

of your sympathetic nervous system, the fight-or-flight response. Yeah, so it physically blocks it. Yeah, and it works, apparently. And it can last. There was one guy in that study who was suicidal for two years and he felt immediate relief. Yeah, the ecstasy, I think you said,

that some people that experience relief had never experienced relief with therapy or any other drugs. Right. So it's pretty interesting. And then our old friend, the thinking cap, the transcranial magnetic stimulator. I don't know if that's what they call it.

Is it? Yeah. Okay. It's better than a thinking cap. Yeah, that's true. They did a study in 2004 of 24 male and female patients suffering from PTSD. And they hooked up the magnets to the head,

stimulated blood flow to the brain. And they found out that it had a nice effect for the people. Yeah, yeah, they think it increased metabolism or something like that. Man, I think it's a complicated thing. So it takes a complicated cure. Yeah.

Because it's not just like, well, it's this one thing. It's like all over the brain and it's emotions and it's like fear and memory. It's just, it's crazy. Well, yeah, and you have to go in and undo a memory the way that somebody formed it. Yeah. And it's pretty interesting stuff.

So thank you very much to Will Sove for his help on that. And remember, it's PTSD Awareness Month. So we hope we've made you a little more aware. Yes. And yeah, I'm very interested to see how the research pans out. Yeah, me too. It seems like they made a lot of headway in recent years.

Yeah, for sure. If you want to learn more about PTSD, you can go type those letters into the search bar at house2first.com. It'll bring up the old version of the article, but I'll work to get it updated. Okay? Okay.

And since I said updated, it means it's time for, is it time for message break? Oh yeah. Stuff you should know. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is gonna show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2200 pounds a marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed.

What do you call civil asset for? Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How's that New Year's resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off your pesky credit card debt and finally starting to save for retirement. Well, you're not alone if you haven't made progress yet. Roughly four in five New Year's resolutions fail

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Listen to How to Money on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, listen to me. Yes. OK. This is I'm going to do a couple of D&D emails over the next couple of weeks. We did a podcast on Dungeons and Dragons.

Boy, people loved it. They did. That was a good one. Good feedback. Even the Uber nerds were like, you guys did a great job. Yeah, there were a couple who were just like, you used the basic ruleset. Ugh.

But for the most part, people liked it. Well, this is from Christina. And she was very nice. She is from Cleveland. And that is Christina with a K and a Y. And she says, guys, I love your show. I'm Christina from Cleveland. I'm writing about the recent D&D podcast because it reminded

me of something that happened recently. Both of my parents are huge nerds. And as a result, had awesome nerd gaming daughters, that is me and my sister, of course. Anyway, when they were dating, my mom and my dad and my dad's four best friends, my uncles Bill, Larry, Calvin, and Carlton, would get together on weekends, play D&D all week and long.

Nice. Recently, when Uncle Carlton was in town, he brought his old reel-to-reel tape recorder player and a bunch of recordings of their D&D weekend sessions from the mid-80s. That's awesome. It's like Brian Posen now. It was a hilarious trip in the time machine, and every session had its own unique flavor.

And each time they were at Carlton's house, you'd hear jazz playing in the background, for example. And they always say Larry was a God among men as dungeon master. It was a ton of fun listening to my young dad and his buddies and their girlfriends and wives joking, drinking, even a little toking. Oh my god.

And talking crap to each other while they played. The one story that they always tell is when Carlton brought a friend who was new to the group and loaned him a super awesome, leveled up ax since he knew he didn't have anything good starting out. When the friend wouldn't return it, Uncle Carlton killed his buddy's character, got his ax back, and they continued on. Thanks for everything, Christina.

That's pretty awesome. That's a great D&D story. I would love to hear those tapes. Thanks, Christina. Yeah, really. You know Brian Posin's doing this podcast, where he plays Dungeons and Dragons with some friends, and they just record it.

Same thing. Oh, really? But he releases it as a podcast. I'll have to go that. Yeah, I'll try what I love about guys. Well, if you want to tell us a great story about your parents, we'd love to hear those. You can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast.

You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcasteddiscovery.com. And by the way, thanks for the letter, Christina. I forgot to say that. And as always, you can join us at our home on the web, stufffushudow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

visit HowStuffWorks.com. Jackthreads has quickly become the online shopping destination for guys. Here's why. Everything on the site is up to 80% off. As a listener of stuff you should know, you can skip the membership wait list and get instant access at jackthreads.com slash K-N-O-W stuff.

That's jackthreads.com slash no stuff. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed.

They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola, qué tal, mi gente. It's Chiquis from Chiquis and Chill Podcast. Welcome to the show. I talk about anything and everything. I did have a miscarriage when I was 19 years old.

And that's why I'm a firm believer and an advocate of therapy and counseling. The person that you saw on stage, the person that you saw in interviews, that was my mother, off stage. Apropaname every Monday on my podcast, Chiquis and Chill, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.