immunoexcitotoxicity (TBI, PCS, PTSD)

[Lemuel]

How do I submit an article?  Or get someone else to help research and flesh it out?

Basic start:

Berta, Bronco, and other primaries, if you are listening, get your crew to contact NIH and help do an article on this.  (immunoexcitotoxicity)

The primary source or beginning is a concussion, even mild ones.  Could be from a fall as a toddler or at any time in your life.   So, PTSD is simply a symptom of a Post-Concussion Syndrome.  Started harping on the organicity of PTSD in 1987 along with the writing off simple PCS as adjustment disorders.  Did a fast on the Mall in DC in 1995.  Was visited by a group of neurologists led by an NIU neurologist, during the American Neurology Convention, who said NIH would look into it.

If the military didn't pick up anything in those induction scores or if they accepted you for duty and subsequently, because of military exposure your condition is aggravated to the point of interfering with daily life including employability, the VA owes you compensation.  That is the reason Yale has won the Discharge Review Case and is on the verge of winning a class action case on claims more than a year old.

Between 1995 and 1998 the number of PCS studies in the NIH Library more than quadrupled.  She, (the NIH neurologist) was good to her word.  Must have said something at the convention to get it started.

But look at the inertia of getting something done.  2008 an article in a newspaper cause Congress to finally recognize and compensate PCS calling it TBI.  But PCS also happens in just exposure to a blast.  Repeated outgoing heavy artillery brought a lot of vets into the PTSD groups I attended between 1984 and 1995.  PTSD was the only peg they could hang their hat on.  Even mild, moderate and severe TBI had found themselves in the "Adjustment Disorder" diagnosis and couldn't find any peg to hang a compensation claim on other than PTSD between 1980 and 2008.  Before that they just had to accept adjustment disorder.  There is no difference between being close to an improvised explosive and an incoming RPG (simply rockets in Vietnam) But the VA appears to be on the bend of recognizing only improvised explosives, not incoming heavy artillery or continuous exposure to outgoing from your enclosed turret on a ship or camouflaged field howitzer.

Well, yes, PCS causes an adjustment disorder.  But as long as you are treating it as a behavioral problem instead of an adjustment to an organic problem (immunoexcitotoxicity) the necessary adjustments won't be made to even have a semblance of a normal life.  And an organic treatment has no chance of being appropriately directed.  

It is easy for physicians to see that diabetes is an organic problem that will never cure.  It can only be maintained and controlled through continuing care.  But they cannot recognize that with PCS or even that it is PCS they are dealing with.

Cerebral malaria also brings on immunoexcitotoxicity with the exact same problems of PCS.  But those victims from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia and the current wars are still "adjustment disorders" or hanging their hats on PTSD.  

The present pressure of having therapists put an "end date" on therapy simply doesn't recognize the problem.  Some epileptic drugs help.  But you won't be given them unless you get an EEG that shows something.  For me the 2015 Rx for Keppra was life changing.  At 74 I became more employable than I was at 34.  All of my friends and family noticed a huge difference.

And the VA doesn't want to confirm temporal lobe seizures (the center, I believe, for immunoexcitotoxicity) because it is a situation like diabetes, requiring continuing care and, often, ultimately compensation because of progression.

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Lemuel
clarity

[Lemuel]

IT problem.docx

[Lemuel]

Now I have a dialog box that isn't covered by an upload banner.

Thanks Bronco.  I did try a phd but not a neurobehavioral psychologist and couldn't get one to do it because they weren't qualified or were prevented by VA Regulations from doing anything that would smell like an "expert witness.

But your post brought to mind a solution.  Now that I can afford it I can look for an "expert witness" to provide me with an affidavit to present to the court in my TBI/medical malpractice case to show VA intent.

Tried to contact Nils R. Varney, who is no longer connected to the VA but didn't get a response.  Might have to travel to his office in Iowa.  I know, from his testimony, that he would tear it apart.  Might try that next month when the snow flies go into hibernation.

[Lemuel]

How to get rid of the "download banner" overlaying the "Answer Box".   Sign out and resign in.  Problem solved.

For those who want more to understand immunoexcitotoxicity use this link.  Long difficult read from NIH:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157093/