PTSD - Causes, Symptoms, Treatment featuring Kathie Costos.

UPDATE THIS VIDEO IS NO LONGER UP. THEY TOOK DOWN ALL OF THEM. 

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 27, 2022

Thank you to Anxiety Commander and crew for all you do! It was a pleasure doing this video with you!

Today, our Special Guest is Kathy Costos. She is a YouTuber, the author of multiple books, the founder of an amazing organization PTSD Patrol and much more. In this video, we are going to discuss what actually PTSD is along with different dimensions of Generalized Anxiety Disorders.

In 1982, Kathis Costos survived many life-threatening events. She heard the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) back then but she didn’t have computers or cell phones to research and find out more. The only way she could learn about this was at the local library. The only books she found were clinical ones that she couldn’t understand. She had to use a dictionary to understand what she was reading in those clinical books. What dedication!

The research was all centered on war veterans. The more she learned, the more she understood that veterans and family members needed to be made aware of what the experts had found.

In 1999 She wrote her first book, For The Love Of Jack and it was published in 2002. It helped a lot of people and helped therapists gain more understanding of what PTSD does to families as well as veterans.

In 2006 She started doing videos on PTSD and started Wounded Times soon afterward because reports on PTSD were all over the country but still, there was no one source putting them all together.

She started PTSD Patrol in 2017 to change the conversation from doom and gloom to hope of healing. She believes that therapy works!

And to all the readers of Wonded Times
Remember, it's your life! Get in and drive it!
#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

1918, when the so-called Spanish flu ravaged the planet and lessons not learned

'We Haven't Learned From History': 'Radio Influenza' Is A Warning From 1918

NPR
By Neda Ulaby
April 16, 2020

The last great pandemic struck the world more than 100 years ago. But voices from that time can still be heard in Radio Influenza, a haunting work of audio art available online.

A nurse works in the influenza ward of the Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C., in November 1918. Artist Jordan Baseman evokes the era in Radio Influenza, a work of audio art commissioned to mark the centenary of the pandemic. Harris & Ewing / Library of Congress via AP

The voices are not real. They're computerized. They sound tinny and faraway as they read fragments of newspaper stories from 1918, when the so-called Spanish flu ravaged the planet. Still, these fleeting dispatches from the past are uncannily relevant.

"A man with a cold can easily throw it twelve feet by a sneeze," cautions an entry from Oct. 2, 1918. "Therefore, he must be kept at a distance. Sneezing and coughing unscreened by a handkerchief should be regarded as an assault. The sick animal who creeps away by himself until he has recovered shows an example that man would do well to follow."

Radio Influenza was created by Jordan Baseman, an American artist who works in London. He didn't want the project to sentimentalize or romanticize the past. "I wanted it to sound like a broadcast from a dystopian future," he explains. "So what we hear are artificial voices that I've manipulated to sound ... kind of real?"

Baseman started Radio Influenza two years ago to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the flu pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide. There's an audio entry for each day of that year. Not all entries are taken verbatim from newspapers.

Some are cobbled together, with a certain amount of what Baseman calls "intervention." (This is art, after all, not journalism.)
read it here

UK Military Prevalence of Anxiety, Depression, Plus PTSD

Anxiety and depression twice as prevalent in military - study says 
BBC
January 21, 2015

"The findings draw attention to the need for Defence Medical Services to continue to focus on identifying and treating depression and anxiety in addition to PTSD."

The high levels of stress that soldiers experience could be a factor, researchers say

Members of the UK armed forces are twice as likely to develop depression or anxiety than members of the general working population, a study suggests.

The King's College London research compared surveys from 7,000 military personnel with people in other jobs.

It found 18% of men and 25% of women in the forces reported symptoms of common mental disorders, compared with 8% of men and 12% of women in other areas.

The MoD said it had improved mental health services for the military.

The researchers said the study, published in Psychological Medicine, was fairer then previous studies which included results from unemployed people and those with long-term health problems and disabilities - who researchers said were more likely to report symptoms of mental illness.

The findings could be explained by the frequency and intensity of stressful events experienced by those in the military, researchers said.

Military life also required extended periods spent away from family and friends, they added.

The survey included questions such as whether the subject felt they were "playing a useful part in things".

Respondents from the military were almost three times more likely to disagree with this statement than those from the general population, the study found.
read more here

Disabled children not good enough for Marines?

Denied accompanied tour, family claims discrimination
Stars and Stripes
By Chris Carroll
Published: October 15, 2013

WASHINGTON — On Aug. 30, Marine Master Sgt. Aarond Roloson boarded a plane at Ronald Reagan National Airport for the first leg of a trip to his next assignment on Okinawa. But instead of leaving the Washington area with his wife and children on what they’d thought would be an overseas adventure — an accompanied three-year tour to Okinawa — the 38-year-old Roloson flew alone.

His wife, Christina, and their five children drove back to a motel in Fredericksburg, Va.

Now the family is fighting to reunite after a Navy medical screening board on Okinawa decided Roloson’s two oldest children, Daniel, 16, and Brenna, 13, are “not suitable for service” on Okinawa because of a recent diagnoses including mild autism and anxiety. Because of the Navy finding, the Marine Corps changed Roloson’s orders to an unaccompanied tour.

The decision is potentially life-altering for the family, which will be separated as it deals with the implications of Daniel’s and Brenna’s diagnoses, along with the military’s reaction to them — one the parents say amounts to discrimination.
read more here

United for Care to Petition for Medical Marijuana Amendment in Florida

UPDATE out of Maine
Medical Marijuana Law Changes Help PTSD Patients
WABI News 5
By Catherine Pegram
Posted Tuesday, October 1st, 2013



Mainers living with post traumatic stress disorder will soon have another option to manage their symptoms.

Next week, state law will allow doctors to legally recommend medical marijuana for patients.

“Until I found medical marijuana, I was a ticking time bomb.”

When Marine Corps Sergeant Ryan Begin’s elbow was blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, that was just the beginning of his pain.

Doctors also diagnosed him with post traumatic stress disorder.

“Any situation you see, all you see is the danger side of things. You don’t just see a street, you see a road that could be full of bombs. You see drunk drivers, you see people being unsafe, you see all of these horrific things around any daily event.”

Begin finally found relief in marijuana, then started working with advocates like Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine so others could find relief, too.

“We ran in humvees and we dealt with IEDs and stuff, so when I go under an overpass now, I still – the hair on the back of my neck, it’s still nerve wracking. But now with the use of medical marijuana, it only occurs for a brief second, a couple of seconds. It’s there and then it flows through me. It’s not just beating me in the back of my eyeballs continually.”

Supporters, like former Marine Corps Corporal Bryan King, say legally allowing patients to use pot will help anyone dealing with PTSD.
read more here

There are many conditions medical marijuana helps treat. Alzheimer's disease, Epilepsy, Multiple sclerosis, Glaucoma, Arthritis, Hepatitis C, Cancer, Morning sickness among others but the ones we should talk about here are Depression and Anxiety because they are part of PTSD.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN recently wrote a great report about how he became informed and change his mind of legalizing it.

The medications veterans are on have been more about numbing them than helping them live a better quality of life. Pot helps their bodies calm down but does not leave them feeling as if they are zombies. It doesn't freeze out their emotions. Given a choice between the side effects of most PTSD medications the VA provides getting chilled out and having the munchies isn't that bad. Then there are more that actually do not work any better than a placebo.

If you think that people will just abuse pot, think again. People abuse all kinds of things but we do not make them illegal. We put laws on them like drinking and not being able to drive drunk. They get arrested. Medical pot should not be any different just as there are laws to control the use of all medications. The other factor to consider is that veterans are very respectful of the law. They don't want to break the laws of the nation they risked their lives to defend, so even if there is something out there that helps them, they will not seek it if it is illegal.

On the flip side they end up with medications that are more dangerous to them because the drugs the VA provides are legal. Do we want to help them or not? Do we want to numb them or take care of them to give them the best quality of life they can have?

If you are still against it then think of this. Most medications are taken from plants. Pot is a plant too. Just because a pharmaceutical corporation doesn't have their label on it, doesn't mean it isn't a good thing.

United for Care to Petition for Medical Marijuana Amendment in Florida

With John Morgan leading the charge, United for Care has said they will petition Florida’s Secretary of State in the 2014 election to add an amendment to the state’s constitution that will legalize medical marijuana.

“I have the finished product in front of me,” John Morgan, founder of Morgan and Morgan and chairman of United for Care, said. “I’m going to have it delivered to the Secretary of State office by Friday or early next week at the latest.”

United for Care have solicited approx. 700,000 signatures necessary to get the item added to the 2014 general election ballot.

United for Care, a statewide organization at the forefront of the push to legalize medical marijuana in Florida, and the subgroup behind the campaign, People United for Medical Marijuana, have solicited around 700,000 signatures necessary to get the item added to the 2014 general election ballot.
read more here