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Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

nytimes.com

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Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#91

Post by WalterBright »

User23 wrote: post #48
jrmg wrote: post #46

Artillery crew members who fired thousands of rounds in combat came home plagued by hallucinations and psychosis Could this problem also be affecting civilian gun enthusiasts? Or is the order of magnitude of the exposure just wildly lower compared to the military, even in the most enthusiastic?

The difference between small arms and artillery is absolutely enormous. Handguns and rifles make loud popping noises. Exploding artillery shells are concussive bombs that produce brain rattling blasts.

In WW1, they called it "shell shock" for soldiers incapacitated without obvious injury. In WW2 it was called "battle fatigue", and now TBI.

It seems the WW1 doctors got it right the first time.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#92

Post by dghlsakjg »

ein0p wrote: post #69
munificent wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? Why not both? One of the key challenges with taking care of humans is that we rarely have the luxury of having only a single problem at a time.

Because if we are to address this problem we have to identify the primary cause.

Multivariate problems can often fail to have a “primary cause”.

It can be the case that two easily treatable conditions combine to make a condition that is very hard to treat.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#93

Post by _yb2s »

reginald78 wrote: post #36
ohialehua wrote: post #34

I didn’t read the article. I mainly come here for the commentary and the backdoor links. But! Hormone replacement therapy is a game changer for a lot of men who have CTE. I’m a clinical social worker. I’ve worked in emergency medicine, correctional medicine, and now outpatient psychotherapy. I used to think HRT was for ego lifters and old ladies. But I have seen first hand the value of HRT for CTE patients. I’ve seen…

What do you think the mechanism behind this is? I wouldn't intuitively think HRT would help much with a damaged brain, unless the damage itself somehow caused a hormone imbalance.

Low testosterone in adult men causes pretty severe fatigue and depression that resolves quickly with treatment. You become almost unable to experience joy or desire, so you go through the motions of life with as little effort as possible.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#94

Post by DoreenMichele »

In many cases, doctors treating the injured troops give them diagnoses of psychiatric disorders that miss the underlying physical damage. Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts.

I've said for years that people who are suicidal typically have very serious, intractable personal problems but get dismissed like it's "mental" or emotional. They need actual help for actual problems, not "attaboys" and not empty assurances that "Someone cares."

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#95

Post by magicalhippo »

djmips wrote: post #74
mlindner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns don't make shockwaves that damage your brain. Damage your hearing without ear protection, sure, but they're not sending shockwaves through your skull.

And how do you know that?

I'm into sports shooting, and during winter our club has an indoor range that used to be an old bunker. So we're in this 25 foot by 60 foot concrete tunnel, that's about 8 feet tall at most. Not a giant cavern by any means. And closed doors, so just (forced) ventilation open to the outside.

I've shot .357 magnum and shotguns in there. It's loud, yes. I wear ear plugs and ear muffs when doing that.

But not by any means do they rattle my brain, and I can't imagine it's anything close to what you see around an artillery when firing.

I mean look at the ground towards the camera in this[1] shot, clearly a powerful shock wave going out in all directions.

[1]: https://youtu.be/Ny0h_G3VkhE?t=77

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#96

Post by joegibbs »

munificent wrote: post #45
vunderba wrote: post #4

This was a really well-written article. I think for years I had naturally thought that traumatic brain injury as a result of explosives basically caused the brain to rattle so hard that it smashed against the skull causing contusions, but apparently this is something different. The way it's explained in the article is that this is actually a result of the blast energy wave bouncing off of differently dense brain tiss…

This would also explain why accounts of "shell shock" and PTSD rose so dramatically during WWI but were less common in prior wars where explosions were less common.

That's interesting that at the time, in WW1, it was assumed to be a physical injury to the brain caused by the shockwave of exploding artillery shells (hence the name). A few years later a consensus evolved that it's a psychological problem caused by the stress of combat, which was the prevailing opinion for about 100 years. And now it's looking like it might actually be a physical injury caused by shockwave damage to the brain.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#97

Post by ambicapter »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #94

In many cases, doctors treating the injured troops give them diagnoses of psychiatric disorders that miss the underlying physical damage. Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. I've said for years that people who are suicidal typically have very serious, intractable personal problems but get dismissed like it's "mental" or emotional. They n…

Your comment doesn't reflect what you're quoting, you call it "personal problems" which implies extrapersonal problems occurring in their life, when the quote describes actual physical damage done to their brains.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#98

Post by palad1n »

snakeyjake wrote: post #5

I was an infantryman in the Army for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, and deployed three times, twice to Iraq, Encounters with IEDs were common, especially during the surge. So many of my friends have died to suicide or have killed themselves due to drugs and/or alcohol that it is hard to keep track. Now that primadonna seals are dying maybe someone will pay attention. Thankfully the only lasting effects of my deploymen…

[flagged]

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#99

Post by AYBABTME »

ein0p wrote: post #8
snakeyjake wrote: post #5

I was an infantryman in the Army for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, and deployed three times, twice to Iraq, Encounters with IEDs were common, especially during the surge. So many of my friends have died to suicide or have killed themselves due to drugs and/or alcohol that it is hard to keep track. Now that primadonna seals are dying maybe someone will pay attention. Thankfully the only lasting effects of my deploymen…

Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? I've read it's often the latter in military men, especially the ones that really believed in the mission and experienced highly stressful life or death situations. They come back and they're taken aback by the mundane bullshit that our lives are in comparison to what they've be…

This feeling doesn't last forever though. It fades relatively quickly, all things considered.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#100

Post by DoreenMichele »

ambicapter wrote: post #97
DoreenMichele wrote: post #94

In many cases, doctors treating the injured troops give them diagnoses of psychiatric disorders that miss the underlying physical damage. Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. I've said for years that people who are suicidal typically have very serious, intractable personal problems but get dismissed like it's "mental" or emotional. They n…

Your comment doesn't reflect what you're quoting, you call it "personal problems" which implies extrapersonal problems occurring in their life, when the quote describes actual physical damage done to their brains.

Health problems are real problems. They're personal problems and can impact how your mind works.

The quote says they frequently get psychiatric diagnoses but new research indicates it's brain damage, not something talk therapy will help.

I'm saying the same thing: Suicidal people have real problems that need real solutions, not talk therapy or emotional encouragement.

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