The following links will trasnfer to sites that provide more info on both Gulf War Veterans and Gulf War Syndrome:
Posted on 12/09/2002 5:39:13 AM PST by SAMWolf
The following links will trasnfer to sites that provide more info on both Gulf War Veterans and Gulf War Syndrome:
Soliders returning from the Persian Gulf War in 1991 are experiencing a wide variety of symptoms from asthma to sexual dysfunction. The collected wisdom of the medical world is hard at work to solve the dilemma. They have taken the necessary first step, which is to identify the problem in all its various forms, give it a name, and collect as much information as possible. The next step is well under way--to analyze the data. While the cause and a cure are being pursued, victims are receiving the best treatment currently available. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs vows to "leave no stone unturned" in its investigation of this illness.
Description
Warfare is unlike any other human experience. Those who have not lived it first hand cannot comprehend the magnitude of deviation from everything that comes before or follows after. Soldiers returning from war are forever changed. They reliably bring back with them symptoms that have a similarity stretching at least as far back as the Civil War. They are tired; they have trouble breathing; they have headaches; they sleep poorly; they are forgetful; they cannot concentrate. Such is the situation with veterans of Operation Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf War.
Causes & symptoms
There is much current debate over a possible causative agent for Gulf War Syndrome other than the stress of warfare. Intensive efforts by the Veterans Administration and other public and private institutions have investigated a wide range of potential factors. These include chemical and biological weapons, the immunizations and preventive treatments used to protect against them, and diseases endemic to the Arabian peninsula. So far investigators have not approached a consensus. They even disagree on the likelihood that a specific agent is responsible. There is, however, a likelihood that sarin and/or cyclosarin (nerve gases) were released during the destruction of Iraqi munitions at Kharnisiyah, Iraq.
Statistical analysis tells us that the following symptoms are about twice as likely to appear in Gulf War veterans than in their non-combat peers: depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic fatigue, cognitive dysfunction (diminished ability to calculate, order thoughts, evaluate, learn, and remember), bronchitis, asthma, fibromyalgia, alcohol abuse, anxiety, and sexual discomfort. PTSD is the modern equivalent of shell shock (World War I) and battle fatigue (World War II). It encompasses most of the psychological symptoms of war veterans, not excluding nightmares, panic at sudden loud noises, and inability to adjust to peacetime living. Chronic fatigue syndrome has a specific medical definition that attempts to separate out common fatigue from a more disabling illness in hope of finding a specific cause. Fibromyalgia is another newly defined syndrome, and as such it has arbitrarily rigid defining characteristics. These include a certain duration of illness, a specified minimum number of tender areas located in designated areas of the body, sleep disturbances, and other associated symptoms and signs.
Researchers have identified three distinct syndromes and several variations in Gulf War veterans. Type One patients suffer primarily from impaired thinking. Type Two patients have a greater degree of confusion and ataxia (loss of coordination). Type Three patients were the most affected by joint pains, muscle pains, and extremity paresthesias (unnatural sensations like burning or tingling in the arms and legs). In each of the three types, researchers found different but measurable impairments on objective testing of neurological function. The business of the nervous system is much more complex and subtle than other body functions. Measuring it requires equally complex effort. The tests used in this study carefully measured and compared localized nerve performance at several different tasks against the same values in normal subjects. Brain wave response to noise and touch, eye muscle response to spinning, and caloric testing (stimulation of the ear with warm and cold water, which causes vertigo) were clearly different between the normal and the test subjects. The researchers concluded that there was "a generalized injury to the nervous system." Another research group concluded their study by stating that there was "a spectrum of neurologic injury involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems."
Diagnosis
Until there is a clear definition of the disease, diagnosis is primarily an exercise in identifying those Gulf War veterans who have undefined illness in an effort to learn more about them and their symptoms. The Veterans Administration currently has a program devoted to this problem, which is gathering data and analyzing it intensively and continuously.
Treatment
Specific treatment awaits specific diagnosis and identification of a causative agent. Meanwhile, veterans can benefit from the wide variety of supportive and non-specific approaches to this and similar problems. There are many drugs available for symptomatic relief. Psychological counseling by those specializing in this area can be immensely beneficial, even life-saving for those contemplating suicide. Veterans' benefits are available for those who are impaired by their symptoms.
Alternative treatment
The symptoms can be worked with using many modalities of alternative health care. The key to working successfully with people living their lives with Gulf War syndrome is long-term, ongoing care, whether it be hypnotherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy, nutrition, vitamin/mineral therapy, or bodywork.
Prognosis
The outlook for war veterans spans the spectrum. Gradual return to a functioning life may take many years of work and much help. Even in the absence of an identifiable and curable cause, recovery is possible.
Birth of Tha SYNDICATE
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Perhaps, in fairness to the discussion, you might post a copy of the Government statement of a few months ago that indeed the military had exposed men deliberately to medical experiments several times in the past. Of course over the years, everything was denied.
In such context, posters would perhaps form a more balanced judgement.
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