Prazosin: A review

I was going to write a blog yesterday about the fact I had been prazosin and that “yes this was the night it begins”. Now for those of you who don’t know prazosin is a medication with its main useage to treat low blood pressure. Which is a little dangerous for me considering my blood pressure is on the low side anyway. But there have been clinical trials all pointing to that it is good for treating PTSD nightmares and anxiety so my consultant wanted to give it a try.

When I first took it, it didn’t take long to kick in, sitting and lying down was fine but standing up I felt dizzy and sick and lightheaded which is why they recommend you take it at night. An hour after taking it I decided “let’s be fair, go to bed now rather than at 6am like you usually do and give the medication a chance.” So despite the worrying heart palpitations and the banging headache, I went to bed and fell asleep.

Now just looking at the time this blog was posted (nearing 4:45am – England time) you can probably guess it didn’t go so well.

Over the past few days, my nightmares haven’t been too bad since the stress of school has been dropped. But tonight, I could not tell the difference between the two. Wanna hear my nightmare? Lemme tell you about my nightmare. So I don’t actually remember the first part but here’s what I do remember. I worked at like a charity event for kids with cancer and there were these two kids and they were best friends and they had these little obsessions together. First it was those dolls for big lego/brick things and then it was polly pockets and then it was shoes. Time must have moved without me leaving but it seemed like I had just gone around the corner to check something and one of the best friends lost their fight to cancer and without even talking to anyone I knew what had happened.

I should just state that I can have PTSD nightmares that contain scenerios I’ve never been in but the end of the dream will be either a replay of a traumatic thing or an abstract adaptation of it. Back to the dream. Then it seemed like I walked into a room and I was at oakham house (for those of you who are new (hello, btw) that was the psychiatrist hospital I was in and basically was traumatised by) and I knew I was and I was sitting in a room and no idea how I got there, so I got up, sat in the ‘quiet room’ and cried and I was followed by at first a girl who came in and told me she heard about my time outside and apparently the rumours were I’d slept with a bunch of guys and did this, that and the other. Then essentially everyone came in and they were all worrying about me and asking why I was crying. After I’d calmed down I went out the room looking for someone, I found a group of adults.  I recognised three people but I didn’t realise I recognised one of them until I woke up. The three people were: my older brother, his girl friend and Delia from Ghost Whisperer (idk what the hell she’s doing there) and I asked them why I was there and I begun crying and saying “you can’t hold people against their will without telling them!” and various bouts of “why am I here?” and that is when my brother admitted everyone was worried about my mental health and he bought me here. That is when I realised it was a dream and woke up.

Here’s the thing: I love my brothers, I do but one of my brother’s isn’t that bothered about my mental health problems and so for him to bring me to Oakham house made no sense. You’re probably thinking “that’s not very scary” but just the idea of being back in that place makes me terrified and being held against my will because of a family member also a scary thing. It’s more about inflicting psychological terror by doing nothing but let me remember everything that happened in Oakham House and let me continue my survivor guilt for being able to get out of there but leave those perfectly nice inpatients in there when they hated it.

So as for my review of this medication so far to treat PTSD, considering it intensified and possibly caused a nightmare when I haven’t been having them that much means I rate it 2/10 – do not recommend. Maybe it’ll improve in time and my nightmares will stop, maybe it will treat the physical symptoms of anxiety and I’ll feel better but as a first night review I’m giving it a 2/10 and it only gets that because I’m generous and am continuing to have hope it’ll work.