San Francisco Clinic Eases Veterans' PTSD With Acupuncture

SF Clinic Eases Veterans' PTSD With Acupuncture


BAYVAC: Bay Area Veterans' Acupuncture Clinic
VA Study on PTSD, Insomnia, & Acupuncture
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs

"People in the military are taught, suck it up," explained Army veteran Marshall Perry. "Get over it. Don't go to sick call. Don't ask for help. Man up."

So that's Perry did, suffering alone with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"I get everything from my muscles seizing up and my body twisting like a pretzel to associated depression," he explained.

"He was limping and he used a cain. And he wasn't smiling," reported Carla Cassler, an acupuncturist with 25 years experience.

Cassler met Perry when he finally found help at BAYVAC - the Bay Area Veterans' Acupuncture Clinic.

"I focused on general relaxation with the ear points and then I did some neck work and some massage work on his neck and back and jaw," Cassler said.

In January, Cassler helped launch BAYVAC to provide veterans with a PTSD treatment that compliments the primary Western focus of drugs and therapy.

"The reason alternative medicine kinds of treatments are being looked at is because drugs and therapy haven't really resolved the problem completely," she explained.

Patients sit together in a community room while volunteer practitioners place needles at critical points in their ears, heads, and faces. Perry found he slept better after just one treatment.

"We know that acupuncture helps with pain," Cassler said confidently. "We know that acupuncture helps with the brain chemistry regulation and it influences the neurotransmitter system in the body. And this is really what you're working with when you're working with things like PTSD."

"I wasn't tired anymore," Perry said. 'I was also much more relaxed. I wasn't feeling that anxiety."

It's that kind of success that has the Department of Defense paying more than a million dollars to fund a study on the use of acupuncture to treat Gulf War Illness. And it has Perry committed to keeping up his treatments.

"I'm going to continue coming here as long as I have a problem and as long as it's available."

As many as 91% of PTSD sufferers report insomnia. Another study by the Department of Veterans Affairs is looking into acupuncture to relieve that symptom. Click here for more information.
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