MeRT for PTSD: Your Step-By-Step Guide on What to Expect

Would it surprise you to learn that 70% of adults in the United States have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, to say nothing of the millions of kids who have also been exposed?

From domestic violence to natural disasters, trauma comes in many forms and some people struggle to move past the experience and develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). By the numbers, the lifetime prevalence of PTSD is an eye-opening 6%.

At Braincare Performance Center - Cardiff, our team isn’t at all surprised by these numbers as we’ve seen many people come through our doors looking for solutions for PTSD — and we have a great one. We’ve had considerable success using magnetic e-resonance therapy (MeRT) to release the hold that PTSD has on the lives of our patients and we feel confident we can do the same for you.

Here’s how MeRt works to address PTSD.

When you have PTSD

If you’re reading this, you’re likely fully aware of the impact that PTSD can have on your life, but we want to quickly review this condition to summarize the scope of the disorder.

With PTSD, you experience ongoing symptoms of distress after witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event. These symptoms fall into four different categories associated with the disorder, which include:

Intrusion: intrusive thoughts and dreams
Avoidance: steering clear of all reminders of the trauma
Changes in cognition and mood: often includes depression and memory issues
Arousal and reactivity: you become jumpy, irritable, and reckless

These symptoms can get worse over time and they can last for months, if not years, without treatment.

Treating PTSD with MeRT

While psychotherapy and certain medication can help with PTSD, not everyone responds the same and many people are resistant to antidepressants. Still others find the side effects of these medications to be cumbersome.

This is why we’re pleased to offer noninvasive MeRT therapy, which targets neural activity in your brain to get it unstuck from the trauma.

With MeRT, you come in and we first map out your brain’s electrical activity with a quantitative electroencephalogram and an electrocardiogram. These tools allow us to identify the dormant areas in your brain that can benefit from stimulation to help reopen healthier neural pathways.

Then we get started on the MeRT treatments, during which we place a coil over your head that delivers magnetic pulses into the dormant and malfunctioning areas we’ve identified in your brain. This stimulation promotes healthier brain activity that will help improve your mood and release you from the unhealthy brain activity associated with your PTSD.

In most cases, we recommend daily MeRT treatments, which are pain-free with no downtime afterward. Every two weeks, we run some more quantitative tests to check your progress and make any tweaks necessary.

Most of our patients benefit from a six-week series of MeRT treatments, which is typically long enough to reset your brain activity. After this intensive start, we typically turn to maintenance MeRT treatments that keep these healthy neural pathways functioning well.

If you’d like to explore for yourself whether MeRT holds the key to helping you move past your trauma and PTSD, please call our office in Cardiff, California, at 858-306-1070 or schedule an appointment online today.