OMG make it stop Hormone injection test at VA for PTSD

[Monkeyman]

V.A starts testing of stress hormone on veterans with combat-related post-tramatic stress disorder.

After UT southwestern study,Dallas VA will test hormone on vets with PTSD.

Please make it stop my head hurts now. First the VA study claim no Gulf War Illness,they do a study that claims veterans are fakers with PTSD. Now again we will give you a shot and make it go away.

Link to story
http://www.vawatchdog.org

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Maybe It Will Help

The VA actually does a lot of good research.

[babylonsister]

2. They're being used as guinea pigs-great.

And you're right, Monkeyman, this is messed up. The story changes as it suits their agenda.

[politicat]

3. Um... read the study. That may be a very VERY valid treatment for anxiety

disorders.

The underlying cause of anxiety disorders is an imbalance of the several stress hormones - norepinephrine, cortisol, and several others. What seems to happen in anxiety disorders is that, after prolonged exposure to external stress, the body basically gets stuck, rather like the accelerator on a car getting stuck.

If supplementation to return the body to hormonal balance will work, that will give the client the emotional stability to work through the events in talk therapy so that it can be, not just ameliorated, but treated.

What would you rather, hundreds of thousands of stressed out, terrified vets wandering around and jungling up and dropping out because they can't stand the memories of their war, or those same hundreds of thousands living lives that don't revolve around when the next attack is going to hit?

I'm married to a Gulf War vet and I have two brothers who are Iraq II vets. All of them have some level of PTSD, though, thank all the gods that ever were, they're functional. But if I could have them back the way they were before they had to go fight a war, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

And yes, the VA denied GWS for years. Yes, they've been utter shits about treating it. But at least they're looking for a treatment NOW. (And by the way, GWS and PTSD are not at all similar. The latter is probably related to Valley Fever or other sand-bourne parasitic diseases. PTSD is a biochemical disorder that is related to prolonged stress without adequate returns to homeostasis coupled with severe events of danger or trauma.

[Monkeyman]

5. I agree with the study its the changes

First they claim PTSD is being faked by veterans. I do hope the study works believe me. Its the changes they keep pushing. Like the claim now no Gulf War Illness thats pure bull and a cover up like they did until the 1980's on Agent Orange. Depleted Uranium dust is very real. My head hurts with the changes just to suit their agenda

[politicat]

11. It's not PTSD that they claimed was faked; it was GWS.

GWS had so many vague symptoms that were so hard to cohesively diagnose that they didn't recognize it as an actual disease.

The VA hospital in Phoenix actually recognized GWS as a manifestation of a sand-borne parasite or fungus (they're still not certain which) in 2001. The only reason they managed to recognize it is that they had been treating Valley fever (coccidioidomycosis) in Phoenix for years, and some smart intern in epidemiology recognized the symptoms were similar. Since they have yet to discover the organism in the Iraqi desert that causes it, they still don't have much of a treatment other than to treat it the way they treat coccidioidomycosis with antifungals that are only partly effective.

My husband has a very mild version (including the fatigue, increased allergies, and burning semen, though a vasectomy in 2000 cured a lot of that) that responds to oral anti-fungals for about 6 months.

He also has the sleep-related PTSD symptoms, but is not currently treated for them because the sleep related drugs don't do anything for him; he's wired backwards, and so uppers put him to sleep while downers make him hyper. (Paradoxical reaction is his middle name.)

DU dust is going to be another case where medical science will have to catch up with the symptoms, and as long as the VA is critically underfunded, they're going to be stuck between a rock and a terribly hard place.

It's not the staff at the VA hospitals, I can guarantee that - they know and have been known to fudge diagnoses to get a patient the needed care. It's the PR people who (in my not so humble opinion are entirely unnecessary) at the central level and the bean counters in the accounting office who are to blame.

And like all medical science, it's not so much a change in agenda, as recognition of new medical science and understanding. There's a reason doctors practice medicine... they haven't gotten it right yet.

[Mike03]

4. Depends

Maybe this is a good thing. If the objective is to terminate the flow of stress hormones, I would encourage the study. Cortisol and some other hormones, as well as neurostransmitters produced by stress reactions, lead to intense suffering, and if there are ways to curtail the impact of those substances on the central nervous system, maybe they are positive. I take amino acids for the very same purpose. Anti depressants also help.

[Mike03]

6. Kick and Rec

for other opinions on this

[John Gauger]

7. Wow

You should all remember Anacostia Flats: Several thousand WWI veterans camped out in D.C. in their Hoovervilles. Led by Marine General Smedley Butler, they demanded a $1000 bonus that they have been promised. It was 1932, the worst year of the Depression. Hoover refused because Congress told him no. Patton, McArthur, and Ike led troops and ordered them to fire on their brothers. (the camp obviously had no plumbing and caused a cholera and typhoid problem for the capital.) They were mustard gassed. This is the repayment that our nation gave to our brave sons who fought in the European pits-of-hell.

[Monkeyman]

8. Yep and veterans are talking about marching again

You know Bush will tell them open fire if a lot show

[babylonsister]

10. Thank you for that history lesson. Scary times now. And welcome

belatedly to DU!

[postulater]

9. I wonder if the drug is manufactured

by the drug company Rumsfeld owns stock in. Another way to profit, ya know, besides bird flu.

[babylonsister]

12. Nominated for opinions. nt