Numbness, emotional

PCP is an addictive drug, both mentally and physically. This means that regular users can find it difficult to stop taking the drug. Physical symptoms of withdrawal from PCP include depression, anxiety, belligerence, tremor, cold sweats, stomach upset, and numbed emotions. 

A wide variety of perceptual, cognitive, and emotional experiences may be encountered after the use of PCP. Abusers seek euphoria, which develops within minutes after smoking and is accompanied by a sense of warmth and numbness, as well as unusual delusions and hallucinations. 

About 23% of regular users of hallucinogens report experiencing flashbacks. These have been classified as perceptual (visual effects), somatic (numbness), or emotional (reexperience of a disturbing emotion). Many theories about their causation remain unproved. Usually they fade with time, and no specific treatment is needed (49). 

Benzodiazepines. These agents, particularly alprazolam and clonazepam, have been widely used in the treatment of PTSD, despite little evidence to demonstrate their effectiveness. The few studies exploring the effectiveness of benzodiazepines for PTSD suggest that they provide modest relief for anxiety in general but offer no benefit for the core symptoms of PTSD, namely, intrusive recollections and emotional numbing. Furthermore, a small controlled study investigating prophylactic treatment with a benzodiazepine in the immediate aftermath of trauma exposure failed to protect patients from the subsequent development of PTSD symptoms. Consequently, we do not recommend benzodiazepines for the routine management of PTSD. 

Symptoms of poisoning include numbness and tingling of the lips, hands, and feet (paresthesia) ataxia dysarthria concentric constriction of the visual fields impairment of hearing and emotional disturbances. ... 

Where do children fit in so arid a landscape The emotional numbness that this parent describes has received relatively little attention and yet it is how this translates into an emotional unavailability that seems, by the accounts of parents and their children, to be most damaging. Drugs become so absorbing that they reduce parent-child relationships to being seen as burdensome obligations such that it is possible for a parent to say it s funny you don t really realize they re there... (Ariana). Even those parents who considered that their drug problem was sufficiently under control not to compromise the safety of children had a sense of the emotional distance that drugs put between them. 

They [pills] made me different. I couldn t feel emotions. They just made me feel numb. Thirteen and fourteen it was scary. No other people my age are dealing with that yet. They are just happy riding bicycles in circles down the street. It is just really weird taking medication at that age. I couldn t talk to my friends about it because they have no idea what I am talking about. (Ashley, freshman, aged 16)... 

Barber, Charles. Comfortably Numb How Psychiatry h Medicating a Nation. New York Pantheon Books, 2008. The prescription of 230 million antidepressants each year gready concerns the author. He argues that pharmaceutical companies first created the need for these drugs and then rushed in to fill the need. Drugs remain crucial for treatment of severe mental illness but now are used to treat the normal sorrows and problems of life. Further, the excess reliance on prescription drugs to treat emotional difficulties displaces the use of nonpharmaceutical or traditional therapies. 

SCHIZOPHRENIA A medical condition that falls under the category of psychotic disorders. People with schizophrenia suffer from a variety of symptoms, including confusion, disordered thinking, paranoia, hallucinations, emotional numbness, and speech problems. 

In a 6-week double-blind study, subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder who had failed to respond completely to fluoxetine alone (43 adults and one adolescent, mean age, 37 years, 26 women) received either fluoxetine + olanzapine (n = 22), or fluoxetine + placebo (n = 22) (70). Olanzapine was begun at 5 mg/day and titrated upwards to a maximum of 10 mg/day by as early as the second week. There were seven dropouts because of adverse events —five with olanzapine + fluoxetine (weight gain and shakiness) and two with fluoxetine + placebo (increased anxiety and emotional numbing). Mean weight gain was 2.8 kg with olanzapine + fluoxetine and 0.5 kg with fluoxetine + placebo. 

In the disillusionment phase, however, depression and hopelessness may become more prominent, as the reality of how life has changed postdisaster becomes ever more apparent. The enormous drain of reserves— physical, financial, and emotional—takes its toll. Adults may experience physical reactions such as headaches, increased blood pressure, ulcers, gastrointestinal problems, and sleep disorders. Emotional reactions may vacillate between emotional numbness and expressions of intense emotion. Anxiety and depression are common emotional reactions, as are anger and frustration— sometimes displaced onto relief workers when anger about the disaster seems less rational. The reconstruction phase gradually becomes more apparent as intense emotions are replaced by a sense of acceptance, increasing independence, and emotional reinvestment in relationships and activities of daily life. 

Phase two includes a stage of Denial. Denial may occur directly following Outcry or may come on the heels of a period of intrusion. As noted earlier, denial is a state of emotional numbness people often feel nothing. Other symptoms during the... 

The earliest clinical deficits include numbness and tingling sensation of the lips, hands and feet, joint pain, narrowing of vision, hearing difficulties, a widely based gait, and emotional disturbances. These symptoms arise from whole-blood concentrations of mercury that exceed 200 pg Hg 1 of whole blood (normal concentration, 1-8 pg Hgl ). The progression of symptoms includes incoordination, difficulty in pronouncing words, deafness, emotional disturbances, and ultimately, death. 

In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (15), a characteristic set of symptoms develops following exposure to an event that induces extreme fear or terror (e.g., war, rape). These symptoms include a persistent and intrusive reexperiencing of the event through flashbacks or nightmares, and an intense distress at exposure to cues that are reminiscent of the event. The sufferer deliberately avoids such stimuli and may become detached, withdrawn, and emotionally numb. Additional symptoms include insomnia, impaired concentration, and unprovoked anger. Prevalence... 

In that light, Fritz Haber s rush back to the front lines, into the devouring frenzy of warfare, seems less an act of callousness than of emotional numbness. The world was filled with death. One expression of emotion survives—a letter that Haber sent by military mail from General Command Post 17 to his former mentor in Karlsruhe, Carl Engler. Haber wrote the letter in June 1915, six weeks after Clara s death. 

Anxiety and dissociative symptoms (e.g., sense of numbing or absence of emotional responsiveness, derealization, depersonalization, inability to recall important features of the event) emerging within 1 month after exposure to a traumatic stressor are classified as ASD. Symptoms of ASD are experienced during or immediately after the trauma, last for at least 2 days, and resolve within 4 weeks. The age of onset and course of PTSD are variable. PTSD can occur at any age. The presentation is not predictable because symptoms are related to the duration and intensity of the trauma, the presence of other psychiatric disorders, and how the patient deals with the trauma. The average duration of symptoms in patients in treatment is about 36 months. In those not receiving treatment, symptoms can last for a mean of 5 years. About one-third of patients with PTSD have a poor prognosis for recovery. About 80% of patients with PTSD have a concurrent depression or anxiety disorder. Over half of men with PTSD suffer from comorbid alcohol abuse or dependence. About 20% of patients with PTSD attempt suicide. ... 

---