Since May 4th post it is estimated that 216 more Veteran suicides have taken place.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)  is not imaginary!

Copyright WebMD.
http://www.webmd.com/brain/ss/slideshow-concussions-brain-injuries
WORTH A LOOK

    Twelve days ago, on May 4^th, I posted a tribute to Junior Seau and linked his suicide with post-concussion syndrome (“PCS”) as being the same as that of our veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghan Wars experience. This leads to what is known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (“CTE”)  which is evidenced with post traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD").

    The CTE/PTSD causes neurological decay. It is linked with personality changes, impaired judgement, depression and "mental cloudiness." Domestic violence, divorce and suicide statistics are spiking among returning veterans. 

Since posting on May 4^th, it is estimated that another 216 more of our veterans have killed themselves.

    Since 2001, 2.3 million troops have served in those two theatres. The military estimate that about one quarter million of these have traumatic brain injury. Many experts believe that this number is deliberately conservative and much higher – even double. There is no way of estimating how many of the combat veterans will develop significant and permanent symptoms.

    Today’s report in the New York Times “justifies the obvious” presented in that May 4^th  posting. Worth scrolling  back to read it.

Here are excerpts from the well written and precise presentation of journalist James Dao. The ‘Times is always worth the subscription price.

Brain Ailments in Veterans Likened to Those in Athletes

Scientists who have studied a degenerative brain disease in athletes have found the same condition in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluding that such explosions injure the brain in ways strikingly similar to punishing tackles and knockout punches.  . . . 

“Our paper points out in a profound and definitive way that there is an organic, structural problem in the brain associated with blast exposure,” said Dr. Lee E. Goldstein of Boston University’s School of Medicine and a lead author of the paper, which was published online Wednesday by the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine.

Dr. Goldstein and his co-lead author, Dr. Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, assert that their paper shows that many of those veterans probably have organic brain injuries and should be given appropriate treatment and disability compensation.

The paper also seems likely to fuel a debate that has raged for decades over whether veterans who struggle emotionally and psychologically after returning from war suffer from psychiatric problems or brain injuries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us/brain-disease-is-found-in-veterans-exposed-to-bombs.html?_r=1

Sandsie’s Comment:

    A careful read of the ‘Times article already shows a wrangle between the leading “experts” No doubt some of these “experts” will come out and testify for the professional football owners that are being sued by their players for their accumulated injuries.

    Other “experts” will try to either deny veterans proper compensation for their own injuries. Or, working for bigPHARMA will seek research dollars for a pharmaceutical response. Already suggested are massive, zombiefieing doses of the beta blocker drug propranolol by using it as a memory dampener.

There has to be a better way. 

Throwing money at research groups will likely help but not soon enough. Giving to charitable groups that actually work hands-on with the veterans is a better way.

    And then of course, there is my 30 years of experience with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Promising trials are under way and . . . the good news is that America has lots of hospital grade chambers out there waiting and ready to treat sport’s injuries and PTSD veterans at a cost less than a tenth of that charged in hospitals.

Sandsie with a hospital-quality "Sands S-200" chamber. Large enough to hold a 460lb patient.

    All you have to do to find such a center is Google “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (plus the city or location in the US)""and up will pop a bundle of Centers. All you then need is a physician's prescription. All high quality non-hospital centers have an M.D. medical director for consult.