... there was a statistical trend toward higher mortality in the ICU for patients with PTSD. Veterans with PTSD require more sedation when treated at ICU Oct. 19, 2015 - Researchers suggest that making adjustments to treatment earlier could improve patient care and outcome.
While not being able to address the treatment issue in ICU's because I'm not a doctor I would point out a problem that I found immediately in the cited article. The VA is only reporting the number of cases being actively treated annually by the VA and not the overall percentage of those that suffer from combat related PTSD. As a long time sufferer of PTSD from the Vietnam War I went untreated and undiagnosed for about 40 years. Based upon anecdotal knowledge in talking about our personal lives with other combat veterans I'd estimate that the number of cases where mild to severe PTSD exists is above 90%. People that have not experienced a war first hand simply don't seem to understand how horrific war really is and the fact that the combat veteran can't simply make the memory of war disappear. It's an incurable mental disorder that, at best, a person learns to live with. PTSD adversely effects the lives of virtually all former combat veterans as well as the lives of those around them.
Stimulants might increase vulnerability to PTSD... Pentagon Study Links Prescription Stimulants to Military PTSD Nov 19, 2015 | Stimulant medications used to treat attention deficit problems and keep service members alert during long stretches of combat might increase vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study suggests.
I don't suffer from PTSD but when I did find myself in the hospital they gave me morphine. Nice rush. So they asked me to describe the pain from 1 to 10, ten being the high end. Even though I wasn't in any pain I told them my pain was #9 so I could get a larger dose of morphine.
Shiva--TD, did someone convinced that you were suffering from combat PTSD ? I know about a half dozen of my friends who filed VA PTSD disability claims. None are suffering from PTSD, they are fraudalent claims for free money. They asked me why I don't do the same ? I think most of us Vietnam vets did as our WW ll fathers did, buried our experience, just forget about it, don't think about it. How many decades was it before we started talking about the Nam ? When we were in our 50's or 60's ? But what's with all of the PTSD claims being filed today by Afghan and Iraq war vets ? Even non combat vets. What's with all of the pogs and REMF's who are filing PTSD claims ? There's one airmen a few years ago who has never left the CONUS who filed a PTSD claim with the VA. Here's what I'm getting at. General Mattis, yep the the same Gen. Mattis who was just recently fired by Obama because he wasn't a yes man but a warrior.
Not being a medical professional I was unaware of even the existance of PTSD until after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq when it finally reached the news. The VA recognized it as a combat related mental disability in around 1980 from what I understand but they certainly didn't broadcast that fact to the veterans from the Vietnam War. It was very much like Type 2 diabetes that they denied for years as resulting from the use of Agent Orange. Like most veterans the denial from the VA immediately following the Vietnam War left us to believe we weren't suffering from a problem, physical or mental, related to the conflict. We didn't keep 'up to date" so many years passed before we became aware of the problems we suffered. I was unaware of the fact that you were a mental health professional that can diagnosis PTSD in your friends cases. Yes, there are some that file fraudlent PTSD claims but the mental health professionals actually can distinguish the difference between those that actually have combat related PTSD and those that don't. Of course not all forms of PTSD are combat related and I'm only addressing combat related PTSD because I've learned that it is basically unavoidable in those cases where a person was subjected to the mental conditions of combat over an extended period of time. Combat is like winding up a clock spring too tight and over time that harms the clock. I've tried to explain to people the extremely hightened awareness of a person in combat to no avail but the person is so mentally strained for so long, just like the clock spring, that they come out of the experience significantly changed even if they're unaware of it. I've learned that PTSD is incurable because the mind cannot really forget the experience. We learn to cope with the disorder even when we don't realize we're affected by it. Yes, we try to move on and not think about the experience which is why many of us have never talked to anyone about our Vietnam experience but the mind doesn't forget. All we're doing is covering up the problem by trying to ignore it but it still affects us. In fact it affects us more because we don't understand how it affects our thoughts and our actions. When I returned from Vietnam I became extensively involved in both drug and alcohol abuse in my attempt to bury the thoughts of Vietnam and to some degree that works but it was escapism that never addressed the problem. The escapism had significant negative effects on me personally that I could have avoided with treatment where the disorder was addressed professionally. It took me over 20 years before I could finally overcome the substance abuse and it was only because of the help of my wife that didn't even know the cause for the substance abuse. I don't know why she helped me because she also suffered from the effects of my PTSD such as irrational outbursts but without her help I would have self-destructed many years ago. Many vets don't have that kind of support and they do self-destruct. Once again I only address combat veterans and even if a person isn't literally shot at if the possibility of being shot at exists they can endure the same strain mentally that a person actually being shot at experiences. War is a life or death situation where the threat exists and that can cause severe mental strain that is the source of the PTSD. Being physically wounded isn't what harms the person mentally but it's the mental trauma of war that results in PTSD. I was slightly wounded in combat and that never bothered me. It was the 14 months and 2 days of mentally strain in facing my imminent destruction in a combat zone that resulted in the PTSD. As for General Mattis he's an (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) that apparently never cared about the troops that served under him. No one has tried to convince me that I'm "damaged goods" although many in society that don't understand PTDS believe we are. Additionally PTSD has absolutely nothing to do with whether the combat was based upon a just cause or an unjust cause. Audie Murphy, the most decorated US soldier of WW II, is the poster child for PTSD and I don't hear anyone saying that WW II was an unjust cause. General Mattis can take his opinion on PTSD and shove it up his rectal cavity. I have absolutely no respect for him as either a military officer or a person whatsoever.
PTSD treatment gettin' better... Psychologist: Headway Made on Treatments for PTSD Dec 14, 2015 | Before he launched into his lecture on the long-term consequences of "the blast," Alan Peterson, a clinical psychologist, took a moment to pay tribute to his subjects -- and to get his audience's attention. See also: Photo of Injured Military Dog With Purple Heart Goes Viral Dec 14, 2015 | A military K-9 injured in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan along with his military police officer partner now has a lot of support after a photo of the dog wearing a Purple Heart Medal in a hospital in Germany has gone viral, the Killeen Daily Herald reports.
Uncle Ferd says, "Hey, if it works - it works... Veterans are Using Pot to Ease PTSD, Despite Scant Research Mar 22, 2016 | A growing number of states are weighing whether to legalize marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. But for many veterans, the debate is already over. They're increasingly using cannabis even though it remains illegal in most states and is unapproved by the Department of Veterans Affairs because major studies have yet to show it is effective against PTSD.
There is a bad record of the VA in regards to healthcare, it is not enough to prescribe narcotics in high doses to patients with mental illnesses ie PTSD etc. It is necessary to have qualified psychotherapy by qualified Psychiatrists as well as not over medicating patients as is the tendancy in the V.A. Medical facilities, hence the respitory issues and resistance to ever increasing doses of Narcotics. Over prescribed narcotics have been causal relationship to many patient suicides and overdoses of patients in V.A. care.
Oh, yes, there is much documented evidence that cannabis based medications are effective in treating many stress related illnesses, treatment by a competent Psychiatrist is still required for anyone diagnosed with PTSD and other related mental health conditions. Cannabis is preferable or more desirable when compared to narcotics in treating many mental illnesses, due to the inherrent dangers of Narcotics. Especially patient induced overdoses and combining narcotics with alcohol and suicide attempts.
PTSD dog program bein' called into question... VA Study of Service Dogs for Vets with PTSD Faces Questions Apr 21, 2016 | Army veteran Joe Aguirre opens a restaurant door, then steps aside to let his golden retriever take point. "Clear," Aguirre commands, and 3-year-old Munger pivots right, left, then right again, sweeping the room for potential threats.
Hey, as long as it works... Alternate PTSD Therapy for Vets Ruffles VA Feathers, but Shows Results May 31, 2016 | Even before she left for Afghanistan, Katie Helmer knew she was going to have trouble when she got back. As a member of the Minnesota National Guard, she was assigned to monitor casualties at a military hospital at Bagram Airfield. From a previous deployment in Kuwait, Helmer knew the psychic toll the ordeal would take on her. See also: Schools to Begin Monitoring Students from Military Families May 31, 2016 — Schools across the country are preparing to formally track students from military families, monitoring their academic progress as they move from military base to military base and state to state, under a new provision in the federal education law.
Veterans with PTSD can contact their senator to appeal a bad discharge... Senators Want to Help Troops with PTSD Appeal Bad Discharges Jul 19, 2016 | A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday sought to revive a proposal to make it easier for veterans to upgrade "bad paper" discharges wrongly handed down for behavior resulting from PTSD or sexual trauma.
Once again I can only speak anecdotally about the PTSD treatment I've received from the VA and never once was any attempt made by the providers to induce me into taking narcotics and I could be considered a severe combat related PTSD case. My current provider (a doctor with a PhD in psychology) has advised me that there is one medication, that in very low dosages, that has been relatively effective in treating some symptoms of PTSD but has never tried to convince me to use it and instead only explained it to me and left that decision about whether I wanted to use it or not completely up to me. I did decide against using it because the symptoms it treats have been, for the most part, overcome by my 40 years of past experiences in dealing with those symptoms. Of course, as noted in other posts, I became highly dependent for many years on "narcotics" which included alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and other "street" drugs. We like to talk about narcotics but remember that even that beer you have after work is a narcotic drug. I still smoke marijuana and while the VA can't recommend it (because it's against federal law) they don't discourage it because they know that it's very safe in treating some of the major symptoms of PTSD. It's still a narcotic of course but it's a relatively safe narcotic because it has no toxicity level (i.e. you can't overdose and die). I rarely drink and haven't used any other "narcotic" since 1989. None of this was ever prescribed by the VA.
You can't "Fix" combat related PTSD. It's an incurable mental disorder where only the symptoms can be treated because you can't make the stress that created the mental disorder simply go away. By analogy it's like an inoperable brain tumor where you can only treat the pain. The only way to "Fix" combat related PTSD is to not send people to war. It's preventable but not curable.
they profit from treating illness rather than curing illness, because if you find a cure you can no longer make money treating the symptoms. we have the means to fix or cure any illness, the problem is that the rich medical community and the rich politicians they pay for, make sure the laws of the land encourage the treatment of symptoms rather than the curing of illness. your experience is a good example of this in terms of treating symptoms, under federal law marijuana is illegal because if everyone could grow a plant in their house there is no way to profit from it. veterans of war with PTSD who have the privilege of using it medicinally are able to manage their symptoms with it, many others are oppressed.
No, not everything is curable, no matter how much money we spend on research. If someone drives over your head and crushes it there's no way to make it better. PTSD is an incurable mental disorder and short of giving the person a lobotomy to destroy all of their memory the mental stress that that generated the mental disorder exists forever. I wouldn't advocate a lobotomy as a cure. In many states, such as Arizona where I live, we can get a marijuana prescription card from the state and legally purchase marijuana under state law but not under federal law and even then there are problems, resulting in unnecessary costs, related to the price of marijuana. First of all a legal grower and/or distributor identifies themselves and the location of their growing and distribution to the federal government that's still busting legal growers and distributors under state laws. There was a recent bust of numerous distributors in the San Diego area this last weekend. The "busts" increase the costs to both the grower and distributor not only because of the loss of product but because of the high legal fees they incur. Next is the fact that marijuana is not being treated as a typical agricultural product under the laws. No tax incentives and most financial institutions (e.g. banks) don't want anything to do with the proceeds because the federal government can still bust them under federal law. If it wasn't for the laws then marijuana, grown like any other agricultural crop, would cost less than $10/lb for the buds that are now selling for between $200-$400 an ounce (or over $3,200 per pound!). That's one hell of a mark-up on the product and it's exclusively related to the "legal costs" imposed under the law for growing marijuana for medicinal purposes. It's actually safer for the marijuana grower to grow it illegally and selling their product illegally generates more income for the grower while the product costs to the consumer are substantially less. That's because our politicians are idiots that don't give a damn about the veterans or anyone else in society for that matter. They only care about themselves and how much money then can generate for government and how much money they can line their own pockets (or campaign chests) with.
As someone who worked in this very field (combat related PTSD) for many years, I would agree with this. Many men are never diagnosed or treated. I had some 'clients' (WWII vets) who reached their late 70's, or even later, before it was diagnosed. Primarily because they had no obvious signs of dysfunction. What was going on in their heads though, was another matter altogether. The blokes from these earlier wars were just better at hiding it.
I don't know if it's a case of hiding it or simply being unaware of it. For example one of the symptoms I had was an inability to be involved in very close personal relationships. I only had three very close friends before going to Vietnam and when I got back I basically avoided them because I couldn't be around them. It wasn't that I stopped loving and caring about them as a person but I just couldn't be around them. Eventually I began to make contact with them, one at a time, but even today I've not been able to re-establish the close personal relationship with one of them. Since returning I've only established one "new" close friend and fortunately for me we were married 33 years ago. She's put up with my PTSD even though neither of us knew that a real problem existed but I do think and act in weird ways sometimes.
Here's the thing. A psych can easily determine the difference, and there are very specific criteria for claiming pensions for PTSD. Example. I had two guys seeking acknowledgement of their PTSD. One was infantry forward scout in a particularly bloody theatre of the war, AND had witnessed booby trapped kids sent into crowds with explosives strapped to their little bodies. I don't think anyone in the right mind would argue that this guy saw things not even the most confronting film maker could make up. Then the other guy .... Navy (anyone who knows anything about the war knows that naval personal generally didn't leave the boats. They were supply run, parked up in the harbour with tenders actually going ashore. And this particular guy never set foot in Vietnam. No brainer who gets full pension and who gets 'rejected'. Of course there are also plenty of cases where it's more difficult to determine ... but it's usually pinned down in the end, based on the all important stressor criteria. Just being over there doesn't cut it. You needed to have seen serious action, on the ground, with your own life under threat. Infantry who saw action are a shoe-in, in other words. Everyone else, not so much. Chopper guys doing medivacs and some others, but they will have needed official records of their presence during a life threatening action. The recent actions in the middle east etc have been more difficult, because so many of these guys have experienced things somewhat remotely. I don't doubt that some of them are damaged, though. Interesting follow on from the forward scout mentioned above ... he's gone now, but he ended up spending the remainder of his life in the smallest town he could find which had basic facilities. He simply couldn't tolerate crowds, of any size. This was specifically residual to the booby trapped kids. He had a grab bag of issues, poor thing. Couldn't sit with back to door, etc. Very labile, cried often during our talks. He's one of the most unforgettable examples of the damage that war did to very young men, conscripted against their will.
By hiding it, I don't mean deliberately. It was hidden under societal pressure not to be a '(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)'. It was seen as a weakness to not be able to cope with war. This thinking persisted until the 70's or 80's. Vietnam changed all that.
Yes, there has been societal pressure but that primarily related to extreme cases. We talk about PTSD but what was the actual traumatic stress that caused this disorder and some don't seem to understand that. It isn't related all that much to the actual moments that you're under attack as a soldier as those tend to be relatively rare. It's the constant stress of the threat of being under attack where your senses are on sensory overload for months at a time. I've tried to explain this before but it's a heightened sense of awareness that many experience as thrill seekers like sky divers or race car drivers but those are for very short periods of time and you can easily recover from the "thrill" after the experience. There's never a moment where the heightened perceptions of the combat soldier get a moment to take a break. Even when you sleep you're under this constant state of "super-awareness" of everything going on and it lasts for months on end without any break where you can recover. It is a weird experience that really can't be described. PTSD, that's a result of combat, basically acts in the same way. Rarely are you under the very dark cloud of the PTSD where it drives you deep into depression but you're always under an overcast sky. It haunts your every moment even though you're not aware of it. It doesn't make you a "bad person" that the negative interpretation assumes. It just means that life is a bit tougher all of the time to deal with and often the person over-compensates for the "depression" by seeking "over-enjoyment" in other ways. This is why drugs, which can provide a wonderful experience (people don't take drugs because they're a bad experience - that would be stupid), are often a choice of those suffering from PTSD. In any case we could probably draw a line representing "normal" and the average person doesn't deviate from it very much either positively or negatively. The PTSD sufferer, because their lows are so low, over-compensates in the opposite direction to retain the "average" of normalcy. At least that was what I found I'd personally been doing in retrospect once I began receiving treatment for the disorder.
Though I believe PTSD to be a real thing there are also the drug addicts and alcoholics that go to the VA on a regular basis. My experience in the military tells me that many of these either suffer from PTSD or they were drug addicts or alcoholics before they joined. I had a friend that wanted to go to Vietnam because of the drugs but he ended up in Levenworth instead.
They asked what?!... Combat Vet With PTSD Sues American Airlines for Barring Service Dog Oct 31, 2016 - An Army vet who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan claims in a lawsuit that American Airlines refused to let her board a plane with her service dog.