Doxycycline is a cheap, widely available antibiotic. It is used to treat everything from acne to urinary tract infections. This humble little pill, we have now discovered, might also be useful for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Many people associate PTSD with war veterans, but people can develop the disorder as a result of having experienced any type of extreme trauma, such as sexual abuse, a road traffic accident or a natural disaster. Not everyone who experiences trauma will develop PTSD, but those who do often experience hyper-vigilance, flashbacks and nightmares.
People diagnosed with PTSD are usually treated with talk therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). But talk therapy is expensive and time consuming, and it doesn’t work for everyone. If we could find a cheap, effective way to prevent or minimise the symptoms of PTSD, that would surely be a boon.
[For more of this story, written by Dominik Bach, go to https://theconversation.com/ho...tress-disorder-75645]
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