Many Veterans Not Getting Enough Treatment for PTSD

Many Veterans Not Getting Enough Treatment for PTSD

www.sciencedaily.com

Although the Department of Veteran Affairs is rolling out treatments nationwide as fast as possible to adequately provide for newly diagnosed PTSD patients, there are still significant barriers to veterans getting a full course of PTSD treatment. The study is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

(visit the link for the full news article)

As a veteran I have to salute the VA for its new treatments for PTSD and its push to get veterans into it. Would they have done the same for our Vietnam Vets.

While it is almost like apples and oranges PTSD can destroy a life far more completely than the worst physical injury...and that is not to discount physical injuries...just a fact. Many Vets fight their physical injuries and rise above them to develop a new life...PTSD haunts your mind and dreams.

The problem is follow-up. While the new treatments work many PTSD sufferers...especially men are so ashamed of their problem (and you have to thank the military for that) that they remain in denial even when its obvious and they know.

Also there is the old bi-polar problem...not that PTSD are bi-polar but many bi-polar sufferers take their meds...feel better then convince themselves they don't need the meds anymore so go off them and get worse.

The same thing is true with many PTSD sufferers. The treatment works but you need to be persistent and of course the VA can't force you to take the treatments.

www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

S&F for your thread matey, Not enough is done here in the UK for PTSD suffers, that includes fire police prison officers and military personnel, Talking to an old buddy the other day who had "issues" and he summarised it up for nicely, The big doctor doe not like treating injuries he cannot see,
Especially guys with firearms training, So the doctor IMO see a liability issue rather than a medical one.
Good thread iMacFanatic

I am glad the VA here is finally getting more proactive about it myself. For years it was up to the Vet to make their case and when the military makes it like you are a wussy if you complain about problems...well then it becomes an invisible problem.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


the other possibility is that they don't diagnose it as ptsd, but instead as depression, thereby alleviating having to pay full disability.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by iMacFanatic

 

the other possibility is that they don't diagnose it as ptsd, but instead as depression, thereby alleviating having to pay full disability.

Exactly. I started a thread on this some weeks ago. Unfortunately, it attracted little attention. I hope this one will get the attention it deserves. For that matter, I'll quote my post:
________
How America treats its soldiers - Jeans Cruz: The Ditched War Hero



This is a documentary that I watched in January last year. Although it's been more than a year since I have seen it, it is one of the stories that I still remember very well. Probably because this story is so shocking, sad and outrageous and decided this needs to be known. Specifically, because I have the idea that American TV seems to be censoring such stories.

It is the story of Jeans Cruz, a war hero who was part of an elite squad that captured Saddam Hussein. After his return home, he has become very suicidal, he is suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder.

After a medical examination by the army, he was told that his mental wounds had been caused by a personality disorder that he had always had. They refuse to admit he is suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the traumatic experiences he encountered during the war. By doing so, the army is not required to pay him a benefit. Henceforth, panic attacks, depression and chaos control his life. He is barely able to nourish his family.

And he's not alone. Approximately 22,500 other American veterans have been honorably discharged without receiving a benefit. The reason: Supposedly, they all suffer a personality disorder.

It is a disgrace that veterans who risked their life for their country are ill treated like Jeans Cruz. Is this how the American government reward its veterans?

Jeans Cruz: The Ditched War Hero



[edit on 12-2-2010 by Mdv2]

reply to post by undo

They used to this is true but they have also gotten more responsible about it in recent years and more proactive.

Which is what I am saluting. If you read the article in question it is specifically about vets who are in treatment for PTSD and the results of them dropping out...not about the VA and its classification behaviour.

well it gets even worse. i'm one of those people that caught the dreaded gulf war syndrome from my hubby when he came home from first war with saddam. yes, it's contagious. i'll explain.

it put me in a coma on total life support. they thought i was a goner. when i miraculously woke up from the coma, the military insurance man was there, trying to convince hubby to have the machines turned off that were keeping my otherwise dead body, alive. docs said they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. that they couldn't isolate a bacteria or virus that might've caused it but that it presented itself like brain stem encephalitis so that's what they were going to call it. not terribly satifised with that answer, after many years, i decided to do a little research myself

it appears that the guys and gals, were given an experimental vaccine for japanese tick borne encephalitis as part of their inoculation series for the gulf war. the tick carries a little particle called a mycoplasm. many who suffer with LYMES disease, have the exact same infection.

mycoplasms have no cell wall of their own. instead they invade your body's cells, take over the function of them like a command center, and reprogram the DNA to self destruct the cells. like a little army in your body, taking over hostile territory.

these mycoplasms target neurons, which are nerves that control all your body functions, including the release of hormones, immune system function, and etc. this has an accumulative effect, which tends to exhibit a vast array of symptoms, thus leading to the belief that gulf war syndrome was no specific thing but many things.

my personal belief is that it all can be originally attributed to the japanese tick borne encephalitis vaccine, which in some cases had live virus and in some cases, did not. in either case, the live or dead virus wasn't the real culprit. the real threat was the mycoplasm, which then allowed the live virus or any other lurking issues to be even more damaging and acute due to the overwhelming stress the mycoplasmic infection puts on the body's control centers.

for example, to this day, my hypothalamus (body's thermostat) is sluggish. if i get cold, it takes a really long time to warm up. if i get too warm, it takes a really long time to cool off.

you might find this also of interest. i had to go in for chemotherapy for breast cancer many years after the coma. i was still having problems with depression and anxiety from the coma (which was probably the worst thing i've ever been threw, since before i went in the coma, i slowly went insane from the infection in my brain tissue. NOT FUN! wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy!).

the breast cancer was exacerbated by an overabundance of estrogen, which had first developed during the onset of the encephalitis, manifesting as a libido that was literally off the charts scary. so i connected the breast cancer to the malfunction of the nerves controlling my pituitary gland, releasing massive doses of estrogen into my body, creating some type of toxic environment in which the cancer would later grow.

following the chemotherapy, which i'm fairly certain killed the mycoplasmic infection and quite a few other things (like my hair, which all fell out), i SUDDENLY (i mean OVERNIGHT!) developed diabetes. insulin is, of course, a hormone. my theory is that the nerves necessary for controlling the flow of insulin, had been infected but were still in significant enough numbers and working well enough to sustain my blood sugar levels at close to normal. soon as the chemo killed them, whammo! i immediately had the worst diabetic neuropathy you can imagine. i resolved all this by doing more research and now control the blood sugar with a powerful antioxidant and the neuropathy with methyl b-12.

all theoretical of course. but i went from having 20-20 vision to not being able to read a label on a soup can the day after my last chemo treatment! so yeah.

anyway, the military guys and gals had these shots. so that could also be an underlying condition contributing to the problem as well.

www.maps.org...

FDA recently allowed these guys to continue the study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans of war.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


I have a problem with the VA. The meds they gave me totally screwed my life except for Zoloft. Zoloft worked with diminishing returns. I stay away from the VA now and through the use of hemisphere synchronization while praying to God, I have removed the majority of any anxiety I have had to the point of being calm even when someone threatened to run me over at a crosswalk. The only downside is I have to use it fairly consistently. If I go longer than a week without using it, I feel the difference. For the record I am totally drug free at present.

From my personal experience the VA has been largely incompetent and uncaring.

reply to post by LuxFestinus


I have had the exact opposite experience. I have been treated quite well by the VA Hospital system which is of course a totally separate entity from the administration that deals with benefits.

Undo I am so sorry to hear of that. My heart goes out to you and yours.

I always thought the best guess for the cause of Gulf War Syndrome was over exposure to all the depleted uranium that they put in ammo these days.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


yeah there's a doctor in california that had so many patients come in with it after the war (his clinic must've been close to a military base), that he decided to find out what was causing it and he narrowed it down to a mycoplasm. at the time, mycoplasms were somewhat theoretical. it takes a special test to find them. most labs still don't have the proper tests to identify them in blood samplese and you have to ask to have the test done, separately.

here's an interesting excerpt on it:

Identification of Mycoplasmal Infections in Gulf War Illness Patients and their Family Members:

Scientists at The Institute for Molecular Medicine have found that slightly under one-half of the very sick Gulf War Illness patients in a pilot study with the signs and symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia Syndrome have chronic invasive infections involving certain uncommon mycoplasmas, such as Mycoplasma fermentans.

This has now been confirmed in a large Department of Defense - Department of Veterans' Affairs clinical trial. Staff at The Institute for Molecular Medicine have recommended that these infections can be successfully treated with certain antibiotics, allowing the recovery of patients who have been long-term disabled.

Similarly, in ongoing preliminary studies on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibomyalgia patients, we have found that a subset of patients have mycoplasmal infections that can be successfully treated with antibiotics, allowing patients to recover from their illnesses. These chronic bacterial infections can spread to immediate family members. In a recent study we found that spouses of veterans with Gulf War Illness and chronic infections, such as M. fermentans, were at high risk for the infection.

We also found that the children (aged 2-11 years) of Gulf War veterans with Gulf War Illness and a positive test for mycoplasmal infection (mostly M. fermentans) often were diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Upon examination of the ASD patients we found that over 80% had the same infection as their veteran parent. The onset of ASD (after the veteran returned from service) and the presence of the same infection suggested transmission of the infection and its involvement in ASD.

www.immed.org...

interestingly enough, the methyl B-12 treatment that i'm using to ward off the diabetic neuropathy, was originally discovered by another doctor to treat children with autism. it had the pleasant side effect of reversing diabetic neuropathy in older autistic patients.

you can see his site here: www.drneubrander.com...

[edit on 12-2-2010 by undo]