Post-traumatic stress disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder of PTSD is a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock. It most often develops after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event, such as combat, a natural disaster, a car accident, or violent or sexual assault. Traumatic events of a criminal nature are more likely to induce PTSD than are random “acts of God.”

DSM-IV Stressor Criterion
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
 * 1) The person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others;
 * 2)  The person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

PTSD and ME/CFS
Dr. Nancy Klimas and Dr. Mary Ann Fletcher surveyed patients of chronic illness on the experience of living through Hurricane Andrew, a Category-5 hurricane that hit Florida in 1992. During the survey they found that post-traumatic stress disorder is more common in ME/CFS patients than in other patients with chronic illness, even for those who did not live through the hurricane. Upon further examination, Dr. Klimas found that the increased incidence of PTSD was attributed to the poor treatment of ME/CFS patients by the medical community, as well as the stigma surrounding the illness and the general lack of support patients receive. Patients reported in the study that the trauma that had happened in physicians' offices was related to "being disregarded, being patronized, being dismissed, and told you're crazy, or go get your hair changed, or you need a new boyfriend, divorce your husband" repeatedly by different physicians instead of being given medical care for their symptoms.

In an interview in the Miami Herald in 2009, Klimas said: "I've had patients who met posttraumatic stress disorder criteria, where their trauma was their interaction with their physician around this illness. They came to a doctor with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; they left the doctor with PTSD."

Both PTSD and chronic illness increase the risk of suicide, which is higher in ME/CFS patients then the general population.

Learn more

 * Livets bilder - The most extreme consequence - trauma and premature death
 * DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria for PTSD