Alternatives for TBI and PTSD

Ox here…PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) (and Operator Syndrome, PTS, PTSI, CPTS, CPTSD, CTE, etc.) are a frequent topic of conversation in my circle of friends.  Especially how military medicine, including the VA, kind of has their hands tied as far as doing much besides treating symptoms.  In addition, warriors don’t want a temporary issue to create a permanent record or to take them off status, which limits who they can talk to about what they’re going through.

I’m going to share some things with you today to look into on your own and with your healthcare provider that could not only help yourself or a loved one with TBI and/or PTSD, but may help you sleep better when you’re facing high stress periods of your life, like financial issues, relationship issues, parenting challenges.

I’ve got to start this by saying that I’m not a doctor, medical, or mental health professional. I’m not giving advice on what you should do…at most, I’m suggesting a few topics to talk about with your healthcare provider.  These are all things that have worked for me and for friends of mine dealing with TBI and/or PTSD, but that doesn’t mean you should assume that they will work for you or a loved one.

My interest in this topic is beyond passing.  I’ve had 15+ concussions where I lost time that my mom, wife, and I can remember…and most of my friends have had either more or more severe concussions than me.  I’ve gone through multiple certifications/trainings and in one case, I’ve even flown out of the US for week-long training/certification class to understand the topic better.  In every case, these trainings and certifications have allowed me to communicate more effectively with true professionals, but I don’t want to overstate anything…I’m on the board of a medical research charity for PTSD, but I’m not a medical or mental health professional and you should talk to one about any of these ideas that interest you.

For the rest of the article, I’m going to talk about TBI and PTSD. You’ll notice that most of what I talk about is also worth talking with your healthcare provider about the next time you’re going through an extremely stressful time. In other words, I’m talking about TBI and PTSD, but it applies to everyone.

Here’s the gist:

  1. We’re going to look at TBI and PTSD as primary issues. These primary issues cause secondary issues…namely sleep loss and brain/body chemical and biological imbalances. These secondary issues cause symptoms that both mimic PTSD and sometimes TBI symptoms and prevent the primary issues from healing.  In many cases, PTSD is a symptom of TBIs and not even a root issue…which is why treating PTSD as a root issue only works some of the time.
  2. 100% is a relative term. Some injuries/damage won’t heal for some people.
  3. Holistic solutions that address the body as a complex, interrelated system tend to work better than short term fixes that simply address symptoms.
  4. False hope is cruel. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you it’s all going to be better. I’m not a doc. I don’t know you. What I’m going to share with you has worked for a LOT of people, but it may not work for you or your loved one.

That being said, I know of people who have gone from being completely non-functional (mentally and physically–close to vegetative) from a TBI and written off by the VA as not having any chance of getting better to walking, talking, and using their hands again in a few short months of non-VA care that focused on their gut and brain/body chemistry.

Please understand that I’m not bashing the frontline people who work at the VA. No matter how good individual people may be, they are hobbled, hindered, and held back by overwhelming bureaucracy and red tape. Oftentimes, they’re reduced to only being able to placate symptoms without having the tools to try to fix underlying problems.

I want to start by describing a little of what goes on for some guys returning from high intensity combat deployments.

For most, it was either the best or worst time of their life. Sometimes both.  In either case, the rush of combat takes a toll.

More than that, the inevitable major and minor TBIs that happen during deployments due to impacts and overpressure from breaching and other explosives, Carl Gs, crew served weapons, and even personal weapons.  Modern helmet design, which includes weight, temperature, chin strap placement, and neck fatigue all add to and amplify these effects.

Aspects of combat are simple and allow the mind to focus on a single goal with fierce intensity. “Now” is all that matters. Living in this mode, in and of itself, can make returning home to relationship issues, money issues, household chores, simple traffic, lines, and other stuff infuriating and cause them to yearn for the simplicity of combat, regardless of whether they actually want to return to combat.

I know guys who used to need to take sleeping pills almost every night between deployments, but slept like a baby when they were deployed. Go figure.

The way that memory works is strange…we we remember frames and still photos and the brain fills in the gaps between those photos. Sometimes accurately, usually not. Most memories of events you experienced degrade 50-80% in the first year…they change. It can be disturbing if you realize memories change. It can be disturbing to have gaps. And sometimes if you’re filling in memory gaps 6-12 months later and aren’t in a good headspace, you may create a memory that was worse than and different from reality. <<< This is NORMAL.

Next, some people feel “dead” or “numb” inside when they return and just want to feel SOMETHING…anything again. With one close friend and climbing partner of mine, it was because he’d over-taxed his adrenal system and was running on hormonal and brain chemistry vapor…he had no gas in the tank.

He did progressively more and more risky things in an attempt to feel SOMETHING. He’d rush packing his chute, hoping he’d have a failure and have to pull his spare and other similarly stupid stuff just to feel something close to how alive combat made him feel. I even had to save his life once when a stupid stunt went wrong. He got stuff straightened out, had a couple more good deployments, and is good to go 10+ years from that time.

Others aren’t so lucky. They get motorcycles and ride fast enough to feel like they’re on the edge of life and death again…and go over. They do the same in cars. Or they find drugs that give them one or two good trips before getting addicted and auguring in.

So, here’s the thing with stress, TBI, and PTSD. You’ve got the problem, and then you’ve got the 2nd and 3rd degree problems.

A typical scenario is for someone who’s having trouble sleeping to self-medicate with alcohol to get to sleep.

This became an even bigger problem a few years back when the VA realized they had an opioid problem and cut guys off cold turkey…many of whom suddenly had to figure out how to deal with both pain and addiction.

Normally, alcohol helps someone get a few hours of “sleep”, but not the recuperative REM sleep or deeper sleep needed for rejuvenation and clearing out toxins from the brain. In addition, it sets off a blood sugar roller coaster that usually includes a shot of adrenaline a few hours after going to bed due to blood sugar dropping off and a fitful rest of the night.

Using alcohol as a sleep aid causes another problem…magnesium deficiency. What happens when you don’t have enough magnesium? Fatigue, confusion, irritability, muscle twitches, memory problems, delirium, hallucinations, and more.

Keep in mind that REM sleep is important. You can die in as soon as 5 weeks if you’re sleeping but not getting ANY REM sleep.  You can be described as “off your rocker” in just a few days.

Lack of sufficient REM and deep sleep also can cause many of the same irritability and short fuse symptoms that PTSD causes…in effect, amplifying the PTSD. The lack of sleep oftentimes leads people to excessive use of stimulants during the day which also increases irritability and short fuse symptoms as well as overtaxing the endocrine system in general and adrenals in particular.

The stuff used to sleep, stuff used to stay awake, and many other things in the modern diet ravage the gut…which oftentimes contains novel parasites contracted overseas.  This leads to less serotonin & dopamine being produced and less nutrient absorption from the food we eat…all of which means our brains have less of the raw materials that they need to feel good and heal.

See why this whole 2nd and 3rd degree thing is important? Someone gets TBI from an IED, comes home, can’t turn off the demons to go to sleep, so they zone out watching TV and have several drinks to get to sleep. They’re not getting good sleep and some of the side effects mimic PTSD. They take too many stimulants during the day and some of the side effects mimic PTSD.

They may be able to handle the PTSD or the TBI, but the combination of that and sensory mismatch causes unwanted stress, anxiety, and behavior.

They fatigue their adrenals and some of the side effects of low adrenal output mimic PTSD. They run low on Magnesium and some of the side effects of low magnesium mimic PTSD AND TBI. These 2nd and 3rd degree problems become problems in and of themselves and make it very hard for the body to heal & recuperate.

So they go to a counselor who gets them to talk through their problems but the 2nd and 3rd degree issues make it seem like the problem never goes away and they may not have the raw materials they need for their body to heal. The counseling doesn’t work because it’s only one part of the issue and one source of the symptoms, so they stop counseling and figure “that’s just the way things are going to be.”

Even worse, if they start taking anti-anxiety medication to address the symptoms without addressing the 2nd and 3rd degree issues, then they may or may not improve and you’ve got the side effects of the anti-anxiety medication to boot…plus their impact on the gut and nutrient absorption.

Depending on the cocktail of prescription drugs, in addition to the “regular” side effects, in many cases some of them bind with minerals that the body needs for various processes, interfere with digestion, or out-and-out ravage the digestive system.

To make matters worse, several of these drugs create balance issues and increase the threat of falling.  People either fall more, move less, or waste a lot of energy compensating for the balance challanges that the medication is creating.

So I’ll tell you what I’ve done and what friends of mine have done. This is not medical advice. Keep in mind that anything that actually does something in the body has a possibility of interacting with other medication you’re taking in a bad way and you need to work with a professional.

So what I and my friends have done is broken up into a few categories:

Sleep

Nutrition, supplements, and chemistry

Mental

Sensory Integration

Spiritual

Let’s start with sleep:

Everyone knows that they suffer if they don’t get enough sleep. A handful of nights with only 3-4 hours of sleep per night causes the same mental processing problems as being legally drunk. You may get used to it and be a “functional drunk” but a lack of sleep has cascading issues…from immediate mental acuity to long term healing, recuperation, and immune function.  If you want to learn anything, you REALLY need 6.5 hours of restful sleep per night where you’re hitting REM stage.

But how do you shut off the demons long enough to get good, quality sleep?

For sleep:

I’ve got a 1 hour presentation on this that goes into detail in Upgraded Shooter…way beyond what I can cover in a paragraph.

Ask your doc, but here’s what I have taken:

Melatonin
Zinc
5HTP
Phosphatidyl Serine
Magnesium
Grass Fed Butter
Honey
L-Theanine
Gaba
Ashwagandha
Kava
Adrenacalm

to help with sleep, but never all at the same time. Too much melatonin or taking 5HTP can cause a “sleep hangover” if you’re low on magnesium and don’t get bright light exposure first thing after waking.

I don’t have that problem with phosphatidyl serine or adrenacalm, but if I use too much adrenacalm, I have sore joints the next morning…presumably from not having enough cortisol. If I take phosphatidyl serine when I’m not stressed “enough” it keeps me up at night.

Work on breathing…specifically a series of 5-10 breath cycles where you breathe in quickly for a 2-3 count and out for a 10 count followed by holding your breath for a 5-10 count.  As you repeat this, your breath hold time may increase 2-4X.  (There are about half a dozen different breathing patterns I teach that calm the limbic system…this is just one of them)

Eliminate blue light, screens, LED lights, and florescent lights from your environment 1-2 hours before bed…this means clocks, indicator lights, phones, TVs, etc.  Blue light at night completely jacks with your circadian rhythms and the natural release of melatonin. If possible, go all submarine mode and use red lights before bed, use blackout curtains, and tape over any lights in your sleeping area.  I travel with black electrician’s tape for this exact purpose.

Take a warm/hot shower 1 hour before going to sleep.  Your body cools down 1 degree when you go to sleep.  You can trick it by warming your body up with the shower, creating a new baseline, and cooling down 1 degree from there can help with sleep.

Establish a routine…a power-down routine…to train your mind and body to know that sleep time is coming.

The next three are a crossover between sleep and mental.

EFT: EFT looks crazy and my mind tells me it shouldn’t work, but it’s worked every time I’ve used it for almost 20 years and it has worked for millions of other people. Essentially, it is the process of tapping meridians on the head torso, and hands in a specific sequence.

In practical terms, it will take something in the mind that has an intensity of an 8-10 (memory, fear, anxiety, etc.) and bring it down to a 2-3 in 5-10 minutes without drugs, equipment, rehashing the experience, or anything else. Oftentimes, this, in and of itself, can calm the mind enough to go to sleep without chemical aids.

In my opinion, EFT has been hijacked by people who aren’t firmly grounded in reality. It’s not a series of magical buttons, it won’t give you unlimited potential, and it won’t attract riches to you. Just because it’s been hijacked, doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work or is as wacky as some of the people who are using it.  Since nobody knows the mechanism of how it works, the effectiveness may all be a placebo effect.  I’m fine with that.  You may not be.

For more information on EFT, I suggest going to eft.mercola.com.

A GREAT and also time tested technique to use with EFT is deep breathing. Stomach breathe (make your stomach go out instead of your chest when you inhale) in deeply for a 2-3 count, exhale fully for a 10 count and hold with empty lungs for a 5-10 count. The simple act of increasing CO2 and fully oxygenating the body can help many people can go from having a frantic mind to sleeping in less than 5 reps of this.  Breathing out longer than you breathe in prioritizes the parasympathetic system over the sympathetic.

The ideal breath pace for MOST people to maximize relaxation and heart/lung/mind coherence is 4.5-7 breaths per minute.  Mine is 3-4.  This, in and of itself, can calm the limbic system and slow down or stop an over-adrenalized state.  Shift your breathing so you’re breathing out longer than you’re breathing in and it can amplify the effect.

Alpha, Theta, and Delta brainwave states: Alpha, Theta, and Delta brainwave states are slower brainwaves than what people primarily have when they’re awake. These brainwave states are associated with healing and recuperation—both mentally and physically. You can get to these states with intense focus, self-hypnosis, “meditation”, trans cranial electric stimulation, trans cranial magnetic stimulation, and other tools. Natural birthing & pain control techniques use these states and sometimes just visualizing your “happy place” with enough focus, detail, and intensity, will let you slow down your brainwaves.

In short, if you can still your mind, it’s much easier to get to sleep.

Many Christians won’t touch these techniques because of how their use has been abused by bad people in the past, and religions built around the alpha, theta, and delta state experience. I’m a Christian—in fact, I’m the wacky kind who actually studies my Bible every day. Fact is, this is not supernatural to focus or relax unless you ADD a religious component to it. It’s how God made us. Deep relaxation and focus, in and of themselves, are inert, but can be used for good purposes or bad.

In many ways, deep relaxation and focus are similar to sex for Christians—stay with me on this. God made us in certain ways. We have predictable responses to certain stimuli. In and of themselves, deep relaxation, focus, and sex are not good or bad. All of them have been used in evil ways. Religions have been built around the experience you get from each. And all of them can detract from God. But all of them can be a part of a healthy Christian life when used in the proper context.

We go in and out of these states to various degrees all day long. If you’ve ever been “in the zone” in sports or work (and tried to get back to that state) you’re familiar with flow/gamma state and the quest for it. If you’re comfortable with deep relaxation and focus, go for it. If you’re not comfortable, don’t. If you’re on the fence, dig into it and come to a conclusion.

SGB/DSR:  Stellate Gangliion Blocks Dual Sympathetic resets have become one of the most recent go-to’s for warriors dealing with PTSD or for others dealing with PTSD who are at the end of their rope.  In it, between 1-4 local anasthetic injections are made in the neck…similar to an epidural for birth, and it has the effect of turning the volume down on an overactive sympathetic system.

For many, it has been the difference between being on the edge of suicide and being willing to continue to work on things.

One clinic outside of an Army Base full of high-tempo units performs this procedure 1,000 times per year.

In some cases, this is enough to allow for long term healing.

In other cases, it’s similar to placing a piece of tape over the check engine light or loading up on ibuprofin for a sprained ankle and continuing normal activities without allowing it to heal.

When that is the case, the shot has been nicknamed the “asshole” shot, because when “the asshole” comes back, wives know it’s time for them to go get another injection.

But, if the respite provided by the injections is combined with all of the other things that I mentioned, it has provided an incredible opportunity to do the fundamental things (sensory integration, nutrition, mental, sleep, & spiritual) that the body needs to do to heal.

Nutrition:

One of the things that I tell my boys is that every cell in their body is made up of what they put into their mouth. I know it’s a little more complicated than that, but the truth in the message holds. As Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” The better fuel you put into your engine, the better it will run. In the case of a body dealing with TBI or PTSD, the better it will heal.

Sometimes, even with good nutrition, months or years of stress add up and it takes more than just food.

I work with Tom and Kristy Incledon on the nutritional aspects of mental and nervous system performance for shooting. (Causenta.com 480-883-7240) Tom’s not an MD…but he’s got more advanced degrees than anyone else I know and has a staff of docs who work for him.

Tom’s approach…on professional athletes, executives, and guys with TBI/PTSD is to test the body. If there’s stuff in there that shouldn’t be, like viruses, bacteria, fungus/yeasts, parasites, etc., get rid of it. If there’s stuff missing that should be in there, figure out how far up the line the problem is and get the levels corrected.

Take an example of a guy who was in one of the Stans and gets a TBI from an IED and gets shipped home. There’s a decent chance that he has one or more novel bacteria/parasites in his system from the tour. There’s a decent chance that the good bacteria in his gut (which is relatively weak) got wiped out from antibiotics he received and from ongoing medication. There’s a good chance that his adrenals are stressed and his brain chemistry is off. There’s also a good chance that some of the prescription medication and diet soda that he’s taking will deplete the body of minerals and other nutrients that it needs faster than he can replace them and there will eventually be 2nd and 3rd degree problems as a result.

So, Tom starts by doing testing to make sure that the gut has enough good bacteria, and that there are no parasites, fungi, yeasts, or bad bacteria living in the body. If anything is missing, he fixes it. If anything is there that shouldn’t be, he fixes it.

Why?

80% of the body’s immune function comes from how effectively the gut is working. If the body is wasting too much energy on immune function because of an inefficient gut, it’s not going to heal as effectively as it could.

Also, if your gut isn’t breaking down food properly and can’t extract the nutrients that your body needs, those nutrients are going to end up in the toilet and your body isn’t going to have the tools that it needs to function, heal, and rebuild.

Next, Tom does an extensive blood panel to see where vitamin, mineral, amino acid, fats >FATS<, and other nutrient levels are. There’s no one magic supplement that helps everyone…If you’ve got plenty of vitamin C, taking more won’t help and could give you digestive issues. If you’ve got scurvy, taking more vitamin C could save your life.

With brain issues, it’s vital that you have enough high quality fats in your diet…omega 3s in particular.  If you’re eating processed vegetable oils or poly-unsaturated fatty acids, margarine, foods fried in pretty much anything other than lard, etc., you’re stacking the deck against optimal brain healing and optimal brain function.

Some nutrients will lower cholesterol and increase testosterone levels…if you’re low on those nutrients, you could have high cholesterol and low testosterone. If you take drugs to lower your cholesterol and supplements to increase your testosterone, there are oftentimes 2nd and 3rd degree problems that result. This is the case with several systems in the body and why it’s so important to test and address problems at the source and take a holistic approach rather than simply trying to address symptoms.

When you get rid of stuff that’s parasitic to the body and give the body the raw materials that it needs and combine it with ongoing nutrition and adequate sleep, you create an environment where any healing that MIGHT occur has a much better chance of happening. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s not overnight. And your idea of where full recovery should be may not mesh with reality—it may fall short of where you want it to, or it might go way beyond that. But helping people with TBI and PTSD is one area where I pull out the stops and try to stack the deck as far in their favor as possible…to the point where, if it were a game, it would be cheating.

If you want to go this route, you can work with Tom or someone local. I know Tom, trust Tom, and recommend him to friends, but work with whoever works best for you.

Also in the chemistry department is a VERY controversial treatment…using low dose psilocybin (mushrooms) to treat PTSD.  This is incredibly illegal if done on your own and I don’t know of any current human trials that are open to additional participants, but psilocybin has been shown to basically calm the mind and stop PTSD symptoms for up to 8 months from a single dose.  It’s not a solution…it’s like taking pain medicine when you break a bone to calm things down…but in some cases it can calm things down enough to bring other brain/body systems back online and it may be worth talking with your doctor about this, ketamine, or MDMA.  Whatever you do, don’t do them on your own…you could die.  In addition to being incredibly illegal outside of professional medical care, there are certain genetic types that react violently and immediately to some of these.

Sensory Integration:

When we move around during the day, our brain uses the images from both of our eyes, the input from both of our inner ears, and body awareness to keep us from running into things and falling.  When one or more of those are inaccurate and unsynched, EVERYTHING that we do has a higher metabolic cost (we use more oxygen & glucose and create more waste.)  It’s very common for these systems to have issues due to injury, illness (like Covid) or medications.  For many people, other treatments cover up the problem, but addressing sensory integration allows them to make great leaps forward in healing and performance.  For me, figuring out sensory mismatch and sensory integration after way too many concussions was like taking 10 years off of the clock.  I told my story of recovery from way too many concussions at the USCCA Concealed Carry Expo, recorded it, and you can watch it at https://VisionTraining.com

Spiritual

I’m not going to go into depth on this, but it’s an important part of life in general and trials in particular. God can give you peace when nothing else will. He’s not a jack-in-the-box and I don’t pretend to understand Him 100%, but He can give peace that passes all understanding. Ask Him. Talk with Him. He’s awake when no one else is around to listen.

Conclusion

To summarize all of this, if you give the body what it needs to heal, it can do incredible things with horrible mental and physical trauma.

As an example of what “non-traditional” treatments can do after military and VA medicine have hit the wall, look at what Carrick Brain Centers have done for Marcus Luttrell. He was admittedly in a REALLY bad place mentally and physically after a TBI and has been able to have an amazing recovery.

Thoughts? Questions? Let me know by commenting below.

 

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11 Comments

  • Kevin Glenn

    Reply Reply November 12, 2023

    This is an excellent article. I want to share a natural supplement that also may be helpful. It is Lion’s Mane:
    https://draxe.com/nutrition/lions-mane-mushroom/

    I have been taking Lion’s Mane for almost two years. It has dramatically improved my mental health, sense of well-being, and memory recall. These traits are essential in my job as a police officer; I am a 19-year patrol officer for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC.

  • Sid

    Reply Reply June 3, 2017

    I was in country (Vietnam) from 66 to 68. I have trouble sleeping at night. Sometime I have a good night and get 4 hrs usually less. Events I’ve had I relive and it bothers after all this time. I have heart problems, diabetes, and other problems because of agent orange. Am disable by VA but don’t get treated for PTSD because the VA said it was mental health problem and is required to report it. They said you couldn’t have guns with mental health problems. I have a machine to help me sleep, not much help. Have medicine to help me also. One of them made it worst so I stopped taking it. Thanks for your article, maybe I can get some help and some rest.

  • John D

    Reply Reply May 29, 2017

    As always, Ox, thank you for your deep insights and ideas. I had some incidents during a deployment that had plagued me for over 45 years. Most were the sources of either nightmares or flashbacks. While both VA Individual Therapy and VA Group Therapy helped, I needed something more. I did a series of EMDR sessions at a Vet Center with certified EMDR Therapist.

    From Wikipedia: “Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro that emphasizes the role of distressing memories in some mental health disorders, particularly post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is an evidence-based therapy used to help with the symptoms of PTSD” Also “The goal of EMDR is to reduce the long-lasting effects of distressing memories by engaging the brain’s natural adaptive information processing mechanisms, thereby relieving present symptoms. The therapy uses an eight-phase approach that includes having the patient recall distressing images while receiving one of several types of bilateral sensory input, such as side to side eye movements. EMDR was originally developed to treat adults with PTSD; however, it is also used to treat trauma and PTSD in children and adolescents.”

    While I will never forget what happened, doing these EMDR sessions has allowed me to finally process these incidents in a completely different way and to resolve them. Now, it’s like I can go down the hall, open a door and see a library of memories. These incidents are now like books I can take down and open but they are not either plaguing me or haunting me like before. I recommend EMDR to any Combat Veteran.

    On this day and every day, to all my brothers and sisters who Served, I salute you.

  • Gordon in MO

    Reply Reply February 10, 2017

    A thing that has helped many veterans with PTSD and TBI is hyperbaric treatment. This is using a pressure chamber similar to what the Navy uses to treat the bends using pure oxygen.

    The VA does not approve hyperbaric treatment but it has proved to be effective in treating TBI and PTSD. Masking symptoms with drugs is not a curative, it just postpones things. Like most medical treatments, not everyone responds the same to hyperbaric treatment.

    • Ox

      Reply Reply February 10, 2017

      Hey Gordon, I know that hyperbaric oxygen will increase mitochondrial function and I’m guessing that’s how it’s helping people (like pEMF)…do you know?

      In either case, keep in mind that it can jumpstart the system, but as with anything, if there are 2nd and 3rd degree issues going on, they still need to be addressed.

  • Samw

    Reply Reply May 25, 2015

    Most psychological treatment has been taught to substitute drugs for therapy. There is a reason there are VFWs in most every town it can serve as group therapy for returning vets. Who knows your pain like fellow veterans?

    • Ox

      Reply Reply June 1, 2015

      Hey Samw,

      I agree that it’s great to be around people who have gone through the same thing as you, but that’s only one component of the recovery process.

      I’ll give you an example…

      A guy I know got concussed a few times over a few times downrange and ended up getting out of the Army.

      He went through LOTS of counseling and did “all the right things” but still dealt with rage for almost 10 years.

      He was at a sports performance clinic that a friend of mine was putting on and they got to a segment on vision. It ended up that the guy’s eyes hadn’t been synched up for the last 10 years and it had caused frequent headaches and rage issues. 5 minutes of eye exercises and the rage and headaches disappeared and haven’t returned.

      It’s great to be around other vets, but there are things that a lot of vets don’t know about their own bodies, let alone someone else’s. How do drugs affect the brain wave patterns during sleep and how does that change recovery? How about vision issues? What about inner ear issues? What about side effects of mineral deficiencies from drinking too much coffee and/or alcohol?

      Please keep going to the VFW, but please don’t think that that is a 100% solution for everyone.

  • Casey Ro

    Reply Reply March 20, 2015

    As an LCSW who specializes in assessment and treatment of severe trauma, an former Marine, I can say WITHOUT a doubt that EFT is EXTREMELY effective in EFFECTIVE treatment of PTSD. Chris Mike Bob, check this out, I want to help bring EFT to H4TW.

  • Russell

    Reply Reply February 6, 2015

    i was first told I had major depressive disorder non-combat related so the VA has denied to approve a claim for it then I was told I had PTSD and major depressive disorder combined I am on 26 different meds daily for the mind and un-controllable major pain due to having my neck broken more than once this type treatment sounds like something that I should consider trying just wish I had a way to get my Drs to read this and think about combining it with my meds

  • Judith Heard

    Reply Reply February 6, 2015

    I have non combat PTSD. My diagnosis was major depressive disorder. They didn’t even discuss PTSD. Because I have always supported our troops I have come into contact with information about PTSD from people like “Military with PTSD”. I found they were describing many many aspects about what goes on with me. One has to develop many skills to put in your tool box to deal with it. For me meditative breathing has worked out really really well. When I feel that spin coming on I do it some days it gives me complete victory other days I have to repeat it over several times. It has given me control over myself. As for sleep I find that starting with relaxation breathing and then going to my “special place” will eventually get me to sleep. I cannot think that you can work on any of these issues without some discourse with yourself in regards to your spiritual beliefs. As this involves the whole person so does the work dealing with it.

  • Peyton Quinn

    Reply Reply February 6, 2015

    Very good article sir. There is ‘one size fits all solution’ and PTSD or TBI are not exclusive to us vets either. A woman forcibly raped will have PTSD Even an automobile crash can leave some with PTSD.

    Though I have been working with PTSD pretty successfully for many years I know my methods are effective and reasonably safe for only some cases. It is “implosion Therapy” and it can make things worse so you must know what you are doing.

    But basically you incrementally display the triggers to PTSD behavior and gradually increase the cues until the scenario is very realistic (sound, smell, etc). You will see some symptoms engaged but if you do it right you get to the point where you can display all the triggers but you see no PTSD behavior. You have reduced or extinguished it through repetition.

    It is obvious this method is not always correct and may do harm to some people. I have never engaged that though as I only use it in cases I strongly feel for reason that it will benefit the person and outweigh any risk. I have some level of PTSD myself.

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