Epilepsy drugs to treat PTSD

Epilepsy drugs to treat PTSD
guardian.co.uk - UKBMJ Group, Friday 7 November 2008 Article history
Do they work?
We don't know. Some doctors have tried using drugs for epilepsy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But this treatment is still experimental. There's no good-quality research yet to say whether drugs for epilepsy can help people with PTSD.

What are they?
There are several drugs that doctors use to treat epilepsy. Some of the ones that have been tried for PTSD are:

carbamazepine (brand name Tegretol)
tiagabine (Gabitril)
topiramate (Topamax)
valproate (Epilim).
You usually take these drugs as tablets.

Drugs have been available to treat epilepsy for years, but they have only just started to be used for PTSD. There's still not much information on how well they work, so they're not used very often. Your doctor might suggest you take an epilepsy drug if you've tried other treatments and they haven't helped.

How can they help?
We don't know if they can help. There hasn't been any good-quality research looking at whether epilepsy drugs can help people with PTSD. A few small, lower-quality studies have had promising results.[1] [2] But we need more research before we can say what the benefits and risks of these drugs are for people with PTSD.

Why should they work?
Epilepsy drugs seem to help stabilise people's moods. This may mean you get fewer symptoms of PTSD. Or, if you're less agitated and irritable, you might find your other symptoms easier to cope with.
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