Considered a variant of anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs after an individual experiences or witnesses a life-threatening natural or man-made disaster such as an earthquake, a tsunami or the violence of war. Other causative events may be major vehicle accidents or violent personal attacks such as physical or sexual assault. 

Those who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping and feel detached or estranged. These symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person’s daily life.

Yvonne developed similar symptoms of anxiety and panic after she recently witnessed a serious assault. That night she felt sick, was shaking and sweating and found herself ‘constantly showering’ with a strong feeling of being dirty and unclean. She recalls with painful clarity the details of the injuries she had witnessed which still haunted her: ‘I just can’t get that picture out of my head.’ In addition to having recurring nightmares in the weeks following the event, Yvonne began to wake in the mornings in a complete state of panic, sweating, shaking and unable to breathe. Sometimes this feeling of panic could last for an hour or two; sometimes it would persist for the whole day. On a bad day she also felt nauseous and suffered from recurrent diarrhoea.

A homeopathic medicine was prescribed, largely based on Yvonne’s unique experience of the event but also taking into account the set of physical signs and symptoms and her strong emotional response. This kind of analysis is sometimes called ‘symptom matching’: matching the distinctive symptoms of the patient to the equally distinctive symptoms of the homeopathic medicine.

At the follow-up four weeks later, Yvonne said, ‘I haven’t had a nightmare for three weeks now. The anxiety hasn’t been as bad. I did have a bit of
a panic attack last week on Monday morning but it wasn’t a bad one. Now actually everything has settled down well.’

At the one-year follow-up there was no return of panic attacks or nightmares.

Lee Formica , AHA professional member, Belligen, NSW