Blood pressure drug helps relieve veterans' nightmares

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Blood pressure drug helps relieve veterans' nightmares
By Scott Fontaine | The (Tacoma) News Tribune
Posted on Monday, December 14, 2009

The war followed Gillian Boice home from Iraq and into her dreams.

The thrashing would begin minutes after the Army officer fell asleep. She sometimes screamed out battle orders. She often woke the next morning already exhausted.

Relief came in the form of a decades-old blood pressure drug. Puget Sound-area military health specialists have turned it into a leading treatment for nightmares, after experimenting with it as a long shot.

"Prazosin has changed so, so much in my life," said Boice, a retired military police lieutenant colonel living in Olympia. "I couldn't sleep before, and it's given me my nights back."

Thousands of veterans who fought in conflicts ranging from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan are taking prazosin for trauma-related nightmares. Its nighttime use started at the Seattle VA hospital and has spread across the country.


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/nation/story/80598.html