From the Ranch

From the Ranch
Showing posts with label PTSD symptoms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PTSD symptoms. Show all posts

Saturday, September 6, 2014

I Had A Conversation With A Veteran On Stars And Stripes


Sometimes I visit military.com or Stars and Stripes to read articles of interest to the military and their families.  I always encounter what I believe to be Veterans who have become disillusioned.  They have just seen and lived too many things.  Some things a man or woman should never behold, but they do, because in our world evil has been loose a long time.  It began when Cain slew Able.  Well actually it began with that fruit... and when her hand first touched it after she determined that it was beautiful, and probably tasty, and God didn't know what He was talking about.  

Before I begin my little tale, I watched a thunder storm come up across the field last night.  It settled my heart.  My old Soldier is always under fire, because just like me, he still believes in honorable service, and as always has been the case, that brings stuff down on him.  My heart is always troubled when he is standing in a gap somewhere.  So before, or after you read this blog post enjoy the pictures of the storm, and know He is still on the throne, His promises are still the same, and true.  I am so blessed, we all are in this country.  Never forget, the blessings of liberty are ours because there are those who serve.  They are the best among us for the most part.  We truly live in the land of the free, because of the brave.  Here are some of the words I shared with a Veteran.

As the storm first approached it was still day light, but then the moon came out.  I captured the lightning as well.



My Comment: Our world is coming apart at the seams. In all the thousands of years we have been here, we haven't come one bit closer to humanity solving
the problems perpetrated by the violence and evil. I am sure everyone here is familiar with the quote of our being able to sleep peacefully at night because of men being willing to commit violence in order to protect society from the self consumed thugs of the world who love and serve violence and evil. Those who do so pay such a price, so do their families, and they are never valued as they should be by the rest of us. Just ask anyone who has needed something from the VA recently.

  



His Comment:  Our world is coming apart at the seams.
What the..................? Over-react to mainstream media propaganda much?
In all the thousands of years we have been here, we haven't come one bit closer to humanity solving the problems perpetrated by the violence and evil.
And that's a surprise to you?
I am sure everyone here is familiar with the quote of our being able to sleep peacefully at night because of men being willing to commit violence in order to
protect society from the self consumed thugs of the world who love and serve violence and evil.
Still no WMDs in Iraq. No ties to 9/11. None of the 9/11 hijackers were from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Try again please.
Just ask anyone who has needed something from the VA recently
The govt doesn't care about the troops. Never has. Again, please tell me this doesn't surprise you.




My Comment:  My opinion that the world is coming apart at the seams is based in my age. I am old, I've seen a great deal. In my opinion, the world is coming apart at the seams. I won't go through all the places in the world where this is happening, or talk of the economy of China or Europe, ISIS, Russia, South Africa, even a simple google search will provide endless reliable sources. However, like you I don't put much stock in main stream media, I like Stratfor, and other intelligence gathering agencies which I trust, as does the government, (which really isn't a recommendation either.) I grew up and raised my family in a different world than I know today. My oldest will be 41 in November. As I say, it is just my opinion.


On your second response, no, it is not a surprise to me, but the wicked are more freely and despicably wicked than they were 50 years ago. Again, that is mostly personal opinion. WWII was filled with horrors, just as the conflict today is. Until the Lord returns, this world will always have despicably wicked, who have given their minds over. Our military, and the military of other countries, laws, and efforts at the control of despicable evil exist because it WILL overcome all the world if it is not kept in check. The despicably evil are never content...
The Taliban actively trained in Afghanistan. When young lions attack, destroy and kill, it doesn't do any good to just kill the young. You have to go to the den and kill the two which are producing the young lions.
No WMD, surely you personally know a Soldier who will tell you of finding a cache. Read the Wikileak documents. Old Bradley isn't just in prison for 30 years to get his sex change operation taken care of at government expense... Those are very real documents of the DoD. I don't understand the politics of it, why it is still denied, but they still deny things about WWII and WWI. After all Patton was promoted and allowed to lead even after he gave the order for those 70 Italian pow's to be shot because they would "eat too much." They were not prosecuted because it could not get out that Patton had given the order. His portrait hangs very prominently in the White house. Go figure...
He was a nut job Nazi sympathizer who wanted to keep the Jews in the concentration camps... and he is hailed as a national hero... If you choose to believe there were no WMD, it can't be because the information is not readily available. I think that when the first yellow cake dirty bomb explodes in this country, people will rethink the WMD of Iraq. You can fool some of the people some of the time....


That brings up the VA. I have no way of knowing who you are personally, but dozens of young men and women who answered the call, and went to fight a war, only to observe less than stellar leadership, have sat on my couch and poured out the same feelings. You are not alone in your estimations of all that has happened. It has really helped a great many of them to be able to tell someone other than a paid professional of the military what happened to them. Some things I have heard, I wish to God I could unhear. Maybe I could sleep better at night.

We live down in South Texas on a small ranch near Houston. I would like to extend to you an invitation to visit us. We have horses and other domestic animals, wild hogs come around too, and before I get myself labeled as a complete nut job, just do a search for black panther sightings in Austin County Texas. We have 11 coming out to shoot dove at 6 in the morning. I will make chicken fried steaks with mashed potatoes and cream gravy, some more vegetables, red velvet cake, and sweet tea. We will sit on the porch, or down on the dock and fish, or they can go take a nap in the cabins during the heat of the day, and I will cook their dove up for supper, and add a peach cobbler.
I hear the anger and disgust that you feel, and I can't imagine how you have sacrificed, but the door is always open, and you are always welcome if you find you need to get some things off your chest, My old Air Borne Ranger will sit on the couch and listen, and affirm that those wrong things that you have observed were indeed wrong things, and should have never happened... Come and visit us at Soldier's Heart Ranch. Relax and stay awhile, it is a beautiful and peaceful place set aside somehow from the world. Like the sign says on the gate, "even a Soldier needs a quiet place to rest." God's blessings on you, He loves you, the most famous of all soldiers, King David, was "a man after God's own heart." God loves Soldiers in a special way, because they are willing. 

I hope that young man will accept our hospitality... I want to re-publish a poem whose message I hope one day this Veteran comes to know personally.




Old Soldiers Sleep Soundly at Night

When they lay down their gray head old soldiers sleep soundly at night.
They have borne the battle; they have fought the good fight.

When liberty and the freedom which Our Almighty ordained,
Was threatened forever to be forgotten, and liberty to be stained.

The call had gone out for men with bold courage and heart,
For those willing to wage war, yet from honor never to depart.

He had been young then, confident, and full of vim and vigor.
Muscled and strong, he had possessed the necessary will to pull the trigger.

Soon he learned just how hard and unforgiving meeting the enemy would be.
In those moments another life would be taken, no other way could he see.

Because the enemy had been impossible by any words or reason to hold at bay,
Inside without pause he realized he could defend all he loved in no other way.

After that first battle when the stranger lay dead at his feet.
His mind had reeled in despair knowing that he had sent him his Maker to meet.

It seemed forever he was in a foreign land where all he could see was sand.
Victory  could be won only by making a committed stand. 

Years had rolled by as in service to the conflict he came and he went.
His children grew up while he was at war, the enemy would not relent.

The sparkle in the eyes of his beautiful wife had slowly died.
For too many nights she lay lonely and sad as she had cried.

They both had known that his absence had been without doubt required.
While she grieved at time forever lost, his dedication she deeply admired.

At long last he had put in his time and had come home never to leave.
For a long time what he had seen caused him deep inside to quietly grieve.

Then the years and hard gained wisdom softened the wounds of his soul.
Peacefully and never forgetting the cost of freedom, he had grown old.

The nightmares and images seared on his heart at the time,
Always he had deliberately kept in a contained corner of his mind.

Whenever the flag passed or the pledge of allegiance was said.
Love of his country and memories of the fallen caused a tear to be shed.

More than most, he knew the price that always had to be paid,
To preserve the country from those whose vanity sent them on evil crusades.

 His own answering of the call for defenders of all that we hold dear,
Was the thing that caused him to sleep without worry or fear.

His own debt for the privilege of life in our country whose truth is self-evident.
Had been paid and he knew that his final sleep was growing eminent.

Sometimes good men must do dreadful things in order to pass on to those they love,
The benefits and opportunities of that great precept from above.

When they lay down their gray head, old soldiers sleep soundly at night.
They have borne the battle; they have fought the good fight.











Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Lonely Soldier

As Randy and I have worked with Warriors and their families, we have found that when Warriors experience dark things in combat which haunt them to a degree that it is life interrupting, they often find themselves reluctant to tell anyone what they are going through.  Especially in the case of Military Sexual Trauma, the tendency is to hide from everyone what has happened.  There are varied reasons why Soldiers do this, all the way from feeling as though they are failing their unit,  or from fear of reprisal, or from fear of ridicule, to efforts to protect their loved ones from knowing how deeply they are suffering.  There are many more reasons as well.

Human beings are a herd or flock species.  We have built into us the need for relationships with others of our kind, and of communicating to them both our triumphs and our tragedies.  In the midst of the very physical bondage of PTSD, (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,) I would say a person is more in need of that human communication than at any other point or stress in life.  Isolation seems to be a part of the sufferings of Soldier's Heart, which is what PTSD was known as during the American Revolution and the Civil War.

This condition was around even for one of the mightiest warriors of them all.  King David wrote many of his psalms from a place of deep pain and suffering, obviously finding himself affected by depression.  It can follow any Soldier home from the battle field.

When as human beings, we sometimes lock down our fears and try to hide them even from ourselves, when we put on our false faces, and put every effort into keeping secrets that are ripping us apart inside, it will be to our detriment.  That is when a feeling of profound isolation can begin to steal into our beings.  In a crowd we can experience feeling totally alone and abandoned.  Even when, if they only knew, our families and friends would rush to our aid, due to some circumstance that seems to the individual insurmountable, Warriors will hide their pain, their fear, and their suffering.  The feelings of total isolation that result eat at what mental health they have, causing even more problems. 

If you know a Warrior, or a family member of a Warrior whom you suspect to be suffering from PTSD, please, resist the urge to ignore it in hopes that it will resolve on its' own, most likely it will not.  There are many military programs in place to help those struggling, however I have observed that sometimes there exists no experience of a real human connection in these programs, rather the Warrior feels the treatment provider doesn't understand, or care either.  Their "services" appear to them to be just how these individuals make their living, and the very people endeavoring to provide help leave them feeling even more alone and misunderstood.  Sometimes a service person's negative feelings are grounded in accurately assessing the provider, some do only reach out in order only to get a paycheck.  The needed genuine human compassion is just not there to be had.  That tends to outweigh any benefits the particular treatment might actually yield, in spite of the worth of the treatment itself. 

The huge government bureaucracy that we know as the Bureau of Veterans Affairs, fails some Warrior somewhere every day, actually probably it fails many each day.  I can tell you from personal experience, it can be overwhelming, confusing, frustrating, and that many just give up without ever receiving the benefits owed them.  All of these factors can contribute to feelings of isolation.  The feeling that no one understands or cares grows, and the results of those feelings can be catastrophic.  

So again I urge all of you who love a Soldier, do not hesitate to tactfully reach out, you will never regret your efforts made in compassion and gratitude for service given by these men and women.  While on the other hand, there exists the possibility that in failing to act you will carry a burden the rest of your life, that might have been prevented.

In the poem which follows, I have tried to express feelings which sometimes occur, that have been described to me by those affected by PTSD.  Hopelessness, and helplessness are words that are often used to describe these feelings of being disconnected from family, friends, and the world in general.  So read my dark words, and perhaps get a glimpse of the place some of our 'Soldiers find themselves when they come home.  They experience a loneliness we cannot understand.



            The following are links that can be a start when searching for help.




Friday, May 4, 2012

PTSD Information You May Not Know


 
 When my husband came home from service with the Army in the Middle East among the prophylactic drugs he had been given was "fish oil."  The Army being what it is, he wasn't told why he was being given the "fish oil," it was just, "here, take this once a day."  He thought he was being given this supplement for “heart health.”  Another medication he received was to prevent Malaria.  Seems there might have been an alternate reason for that fish oil.  Fish oil is one of the sources of Omega 3; it is also found in flax seed, and walnuts, along with a few vegetables, but the vegetables do not offer significant amounts.  There are studies that suggest that Omega 3 is preventative for the condition known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  While certainly more studies are needed, this information should be known by not only those serving in the military, but by everyone.

I vaguely remembered from nursing school that Omega 3 had to do with heart health, but when I began doing a research paper on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and its association with TBI,(Traumatic Brain Injury) I came across the true significance of this essential nutrient that the human body does not have the ability to produce on its own. I will cite the article I found most informative and user friendly at the conclusion of this blog.  The first fact that kept me glued to the entire work was the information that 40% of the brain is made of the fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid, (DHA,) Eicosapentaenoic acid, (EPA) and Linolenic acid.  These acids make up what is known as Omega 3.  Linolenic acid is also a part of the bilipid membrane in every cell of the human body.

 I have had Ankylosing Spondylitis since I was fourteen years old, and I had noted that Omega 3 is an anti-inflammatory and began taking it myself about four months ago.  I am nearly sixty years old, and I have never felt this well.  Long ago I had become accustomed to the chronic fatigue, and what the clinical description of Ankylosing Spondylitis notes as "chronic moderate to severe pain."  NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin or Motrin,) a group of drugs including Sulfasalazine, Methotrexate and Corticosteroids, and as a last resort, TNF Blockers, such as Enbrel, Remicade and Humira, are the drug interventions available for treatment of this disease. I won't go into the side effects, but one does not submit to any of these courses of treatment lightly.  I can tell how reduced the inflammation is in my body since I began taking Omega 3 by the reduction in pain, plus my CRP levels, (blood test indicating inflammation in the body,) are lowered.

This function of reducing inflammation is one of the attributes that makes Omega 3 vital in the treatment of brain injury. From the articles I have read, there are major benefits involving function and the healing of injuries to the brain produced by Omega 3.  Not only are they a part of the brain itself, these elements act in the neurotransmitter system.  That is significant in TBI and PTSD both, which our Soldiers are suffering from in staggering numbers. Their exposure to repetitive explosions, which produce TBI, by deduction makes education concerning Omega 3 something that should be a part of every Soldier’s training.  

With brain injury, one of the reasons for cell death is inflammation and edema, (swelling.)   Omega 3 has been found not only to be a part of the cells that make up the brain, but they are converted into anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.  This function is what makes them vital in treatment and recovery after brain injury. They are also significant in recovery from injury anywhere in the body.

For all the years that I worked in nursing the kind of brain injuries I became familiar with are the kind most people understand somewhat.  These kinds of injuries can cause loss of consciousness, either short term or long term, with long term producing what is known as "a coma."  The symptoms are obvious and dramatic.  Auto accidents, falls, and other such trauma produce irrefutable evidence of severe injury, and are sometimes fatal within a short period of time.  Usually there are other accompanying injuries as well.  There is another brain injury that is often encountered in childhood, which is known as your everyday vanilla "concussion."  I can remember having a concussion when I fell off a slide and my head landed on a large rock when I was about six.  I remember throwing up, feeling dizzy, and having a headache, but I have had no after affects.  Visual disturbances such as diplopia, (seeing double,) are another symptom of your garden variety type "concussion." 

When someone sustains repetitive garden variety mild concussions, a condition can develop called Postconcussive Syndrome.  Ordinary concussion symptoms disappear in two to seven days.  In PCS, longer lasting symptoms, such as mood alterations and behavioral changes, fatigue, sleep pattern changes, and poor concentration distinguish this type of brain injury from both major traumatic brain injury and plain concussion injuries.  The syndrome PCS can not only be long lasting, creating life altering symptoms, but it can also become permanent.  Of course our military sustain “concussions” routinely from the explosions they are exposed to.  A Soldier can sustain a mild TBI, (traumatic brain injury,) and not display any signs of injury at all, and be sent right back to combat duty. 

Those in the military are not the only persons affected by Postconcussive Syndrome (PCS), athletes, both amateur and professional can develop PCS.  High school football players are particularly at risk, as are boxers.  When I chat in the social medias where military folks hang out, there are always a few either active duty military, or veterans, who do not believe in PTSD.  They express, in so many words, that they feel it is really just whining Soldiers that can't cut the mustard. That really is such a display of ignorance.  What distresses me most is that some of them appear to be officers in charge of combat units. I had a technician from my satellite internet provider, who was a veteran, tell me that most of the Soldiers applying for disability because of PTSD brag about scamming the government for a hand out.  I am sure that people being people, perhaps there are some who do, but not for the most part.  I have found too much information on PTSD which proves that this condition is in part a biological injury to include  all of it in this blog entry, but I will be posting several entries sharing what I have found.  Tonight I am going to cite the articles I have read so far, beginning as I said, with the one that is most user friendly.  

 Self-education is vital when it comes to health, and that is especially true concerning any involvement in health issues with the military or the VA.  So tonight, while I am no expert on any subject I have discussed here, to me it just makes sense that if you are suffering from PTSD, the supplement Omega 3 might be a consideration for you.  I get mine in the form of Omega 3, 6, 9 from Walmart, and the cost is less than five dollars.  I am careful to choose from the brands the one that is pharmaceutical grade, which has had the mercury removed. Mercury is a problem with fish oil.  It seems our oceans are so polluted that mercury is present in fish, and can accumulate in the body of anyone eating large amounts of fish.   Since the vital requirements of the body include Omega 3, it would be a wise choice for anyone to add this supplement to their diet.  I think you will note a difference in just a matter of days.


Blast-Related Traumatic Brain Injury: What Is Known?
Katherine H. Taber; Deborah L. Warden; Robin A. Hurley
The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2006;18:141-145.

Psychiatric News   |   October 07, 2011
Volume 46 Number 19 page 22-23
American Psychiatric Association
Clinical and Research News

Hormone May Be Long-Sought Treatment for Brain Injuries
Leslie Sinclair
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=179709&RelatedNewsArticles=true

Mayorga MA: The pathology of primary blast overpressure injury. Toxicology 1997; 121:17—28

Wightman JM, Gladish SL: Explosions and blasts injuries. Ann Emerg Med 2001; 37:664—678

DePalma RG, Burris DG, Champion HR et al: Blast injuries. N Engl J Med 2005; 352:1335—1342

Murray CK, Reynolds JC, Schroeder JM et al: Spectrum of care provided at an Echelon II medical unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mil Med 2005; 170:516—520

Gondusky JS, Reiter MP: Protecting military convoys in Iraq: an examination of battle injuries sustained by a Mechanized Battalion during Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Mil Med 2005; 170:546—549

Mott FW: The effects of high explosives upon the CNS. Lecture I. Lancet 1916; 4824:331—338

Mott FW: The effects of high explosives upon the CNS. Lecture III. Lancet 1916; 4828:545—553

Fabing HD: Cerebral blast syndrome in combat soldiers. Arch Neurol Psychiatry 1947; 57:14—57

Cramer F, Paster S, Stephenson C: Cerebral injuries due to explosion waves—"cerebral blast concussion." Arch Neurol Psychiatry 1949; 61:1—20

Mott FW: The effects of high explosives upon the CNS. Lecture II. Lancet 1916; 4826:441—449

Macleod AD: Shell shock, Gordon Holmes and the great war. J R Soc Med 2004; 97:89

Mott FW: The microscopic examination of the brains of two men dead of commotio cerebri (shell shock) without visible external injury. J R Army Med Corps 1917; 29:662—677

Guy RJ, Glover MACNP: Primary blast injury: pathophysiology and implications for treatment. Part 3: Injury to the CNS and the limbs. J R Nav Med Serv 2000; 86:27—31

Sylvia FR, Drake AI, Wester DC: Transient vestibular balance dysfunction after primary blast injury. Mil Med 2001; 66:918—920

Murthy JMK, Chopra JS, Gulati DR, et al: Subdural hematoma in an adult following a blast injury. J Neurosurg 1979; 50:260—261

Hirsch AE, Ommaya AK: Head injury caused by underwater explosion of a firecracker. J

Levi L, Borovich B, Guilburd JN et al: Wartime neurosurgical experience in Lebanon, 1982—85. II. Closed craniocerebral injuries. Isr J Med Sci 1990; 26:555—558

Povlishock JT, Katz DI: Update of neuropathology and neurological recovery after traumatic brain injury. J Head Trauma Rehabil 2005; 20:76—94

Kaur C, Singh J, Lim MK, et al: The response of neurons and microglia to blast injury in the rat brain. Neuropathol App Neurobiol 1995; 21:369—377

Kaur C, Singh J, Lim MK, et al: Macrophages/microglia as "sensor" of injury in the pineal gland of rats following a nonpenetrative blast. Neurosci Res 1997; 27:317—322

Moochhala SM, M.D. S, Lu J,et al Neuroprotective role of aminoguanidine in behavioral changes after blast injury. J Trauma 2004; 56: 393—403

Cernak I, Savic J, Malicevic Z, et al: Involvement of the CNS in the general response to pulmonary blast injury. J Trauma 1996; 40:100—104

Cernak I, Wang Z, Jiang J, et al: Ultrastructural and functional characteristics of blast injury-induced neurotrauma. J Trauma 2001; 50:695—706

Cernak I, Wang Z, Jiang J, et al: Cognitive deficits following blast injury-induced neurotrauma: possible involvement of nitric oxide. Brain Inj 2001; 15:593—612

Saljo A, Bao F, Haglid KG, et al: Blast exposure causes redistribution of phosphorylated neuofilament subunits in neurons of the adult rat brain. J Neurotrauma 2000; 17:719—726

Axelsson H, Hjelmqvist H, Medin A, et al: Physiological changes in pigs exposed to a blast wave from a detonating high-explosive charge. Mil Med 2000; 165:119—126

Gutierrez-Cadavid JE: Imaging of head trauma, in Imaging of the Nervous System. Edited by Latchaw RE, Kucharczyk J, Moseley ME. Elsevier Mosby, Philadelphia, 2005, pp 869—904
.
Mendez CV, Hurley RA, Lassonde M et al: Mild traumatic brain injury: Neuroimaging of sports-related concussion. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2005; 17:297—303
.
Hurley RA, McGowan JC, Arfanakis K, et al: Traumatic axonal injury: Novel insights into evolution and identification. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2004; 16:1—7
.
Huisman TAGM, Sorensen AG, Hergan K, et al: Diffusion-weighted imaging for the evaluation of diffuse axonal injury in closed head injury. J Comput Assist Tomogr 2003; 27:5—11

Tong KA, Ashwal S, Shutter LA et al: Hemorrhagic shearing lesions in children and adolescents with posttraumatic diffuse axonal injury: improved detection and initial results. Radiology 2003; 227:332—339
.
Taber KH, Hayman LA, Diaz-Marchan PJ, Rauch RA: Imaging of intracranial blood, in Imaging of the nervous system. Edited by Latchaw RE, Kucharczyk J, Moseley ME. Elsevier Mosby, Philadelphia,2005; 555—575
.
Orrison WW, Moore KR: Neuroimaging and Head Trauma, in Neuroimaging. Edited by Orrison WW. W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 2000, pp 885—915
.
Okie S: Traumatic Brain Injury in the War Zone. N Engl J Med 2005; 352:2043—2047

Warden DL, Ryan LM, Helmick KM, et al: War neurotrauma: the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) experience at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC). J Neurotrauma 2005; 22:1178
.
Cernak I, Savic J, Ignjatovic D, et al: Blast injury from explosive munitions. J Trauma 1999; 47:96—103
.
Trudeau DL, Anderson J, Hansen LM et al: Findings of mild traumatic brain injury in combat veterans with PTSD and a history of blast concussion. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1998; 10:308—313

Cernak I: Blast (explosion)-induced neurotrauma: A myth becomes reality. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 2005; 23:139—140

 Koelsch, S. (2009). A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy. Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences, 1169374-384. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04592.x