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  4. I have a client who has PTSD from a dog attack three years ago. Nightmares are an issue. Wondering how she can get a good night’s sleep. She wakes up noticeably stressed. Anything specific you can suggest?
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  4. I have a client who has PTSD from a dog attack three years ago. Nightmares are an issue. Wondering how she can get a good night’s sleep. She wakes up noticeably stressed. Anything specific you can suggest?

I have a client who has PTSD from a dog attack three years ago. Nightmares are an issue. Wondering how she can get a good night’s sleep. She wakes up noticeably stressed. Anything specific you can suggest?

Dr. Amy Nett:  PTSD, I would think about doing some therapies like EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. You have to find an EMDR practitioner who fits well for the patient. Tapping is another practice that works well for some people, but for PTSD, it would probably be thinking a little bit more initially about—especially there’s a specific event, doing more of a therapeutic you know technique or a therapeutic approach to help the patient sort of process or work through that prior trauma. Otherwise, you’re dealing with certainly HPA axis disruption. You can look at the cortisol curve, and you can see where is their cortisol disruption. Is this a hypercortisol or hypocortisol case? And then, you can certainly do supplements that are going to be a little bit more targeted towards addressing cortisol, but in PTSD, where you have a more specific event, I would think about you know a therapeutic approach to try to help the patient work through the PTSD a little bit more.

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