Dogs, Not Drugs
PTSD is something we all hope to never experience in our lives. But for the people who do experience the pain and suffering that comes with it how do they cope? Medications is probably the first answer anyone has to reduce symptoms of any illness, these medications consists of pills that affect mood and energy levels and even pills to help with sleep and anxiety. PTSD veterans may take up to 4 different pills just to get them through their day and this pill consumption can lead to another bad thing to add onto the PTSD, and that’s addiction.
Pills and medications aren’t always the best way to treat everything, especially PTSD as many veterans get addicted to the pills and later on turn to hard drugs to help self medicate. To stop this addiction and PSTD symptoms service dogs are something that has been suggested to many patients with PTSD as it helps them lower their symptoms and lower their medication use. The specially trained dogs help veterans cope with PTSD same as any medication or pill in the world. Service dogs are already one point better as once you get the dog you don’t have to keep paying for it as you do with pills, which is why many PTSD vets turn to drugs as they are cheaper then the medication they get and easier to purchase. National Library of Medicine completed a research study on how service dogs affect military veterans medicine regime. They took a group of veterans that currently have service dogs and veterans that are on the waitlist for service dogs and examined them day to day on how they change their medication usage and regime. It was said that most veterans with service dogs decreased their medication usage or removed some medicines from their regime. Many vets on the waitlist had no changes to their medication and some even added a medication while owners of a service dog had 30 members out of 67 remove a medication and another 25 decrease the dose of their medication. Kerri Rodriguez, one of the people who helped create the study, says “Many individuals with PTSD who respond to evidence-based treatments in the short-term do not reach stable remission over time” showing how medicines may not be the best choice for PTSD symptoms. Rodriguez always stated that “In addition, common comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety, traumatic brain injury, or substance use disorder can make treatment for military veteran with PTSD more difficult”.
Table 1.
Descriptives statistics and group-level analyses on responses to the question “Since getting a service dog/getting on the waitlist, has your doctor made any changes to your medications? Select all that apply.”
| Waitlist (n = 62) | Service dog (n = 67) | Group difference | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| n (%) | n (%) | χ2 | p | |
| No changes | 31 (50%) | 19 (28%) | 6.354 | 0.012 |
| Increased dose | 22 (36%) | 11 (16%) | 6.149 | 0.013 |
| Added a medication | 17 (27%) | 19 (28%) | 0.014 | 0.905 |
| Decreased dose | 1 (2%) | 25 (37%) | 25.503 | < 0.001 |
| Removed a medication | 7 (11%) | 30 (45%) | 17.652 | < 0.001 |
Medication has its benefits but it also has it downsides, and in this case lots of downsides. Most PTSD vets are given a handful of medications which mainly derive from antidepressants, which are known to have plenty of side effects. Some known side effects of these medications are suicidal feelings, decreased alertness, sexual problems, and much more. Addiction is obviously another huge problem with PTSD medication as it is very hard to get off the pills and to stop taking them especially if you have been taking the medications for a long time it will be even harder to stay away from them. Service dogs offer a much more hopeful road to recovery from the symptoms of PTSD. Service dogs help create a bond between man and animal and that bond becomes unbreakable and helps to destroy that feeling of helplessness and loneliness that comes from PTSD.
More and more places are offering a program to sign up for which will help you get a specially trained service dog for PSTD patients. K9’s for Warriors is one of the biggest programs in America for helping locate and find the right dog for all veterans in need of a dog to help them. K9’s for Warriors specifically chose to train shelter dogs as they are also going through a trauma and this can help make the bond between a PTSD vet and shelter/service dog even greater. When both companions are in pain and traumatized they can work together to better themselves and in this situation the dog and the veteran can help each other with each of their symptoms and benefit being around each other.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8204643/
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
This is sloppy, Thad. Your first sentence makes no sense, always a bad sign. You’ve asked a banned Rhetorical Question almost immediately, one that serves no purpose. I’ll say no more about how much polishing this draft will need, but I hope you have the time and inclination to revise it. You asked me some specific questions.
As for your citations, I appreciate the links, but they don’t comply with the APA guidelines for References. I’ve provided several models and resources for making in-text citation references and for building the References list at the bottom of the essay.
Regarding the chart, it tells the story better than you do. It’s a useful bit of evidence, but you could more successfully prepare readers to see it with different emphasis in your preamble to it.
All you really want readers to concentrate on is the impressive claim that 50% of vets who got a dog reduced their medication. And a full 75% either reduced meds or did not add a new medication. For nuance, if you want, you can claim how commonly vets add meds, which helps seeing “no change” as a win.