Thanx Thor..... if it works for the military I imagine that it would then be available for anyone at some point

Some PTSD I think should be pretty easy to spot because of the person's horrific experience however some isn't as easy to see and a test like this could help a lot of people be diagnosed much sooner

Very interesting.... Big hug.....xo

Many of us do not know we are PTSD until years afterward. It is not an immediate disease and can take years to express itself. I never knew how my combat experiences scared me. We deny that we have PTSD due to the stigma. Mental health is extremely stigmatizing in the military. You lose your job, you end your career, your boss will be told, all your peers will know, it becomes part your permanent military record, and you can you lose your security clearance (a TS clearance is worth $100K/yr minimum with no skills). You get shame for something that is not cureable. So why would I say that I have PTSD in the military? Hence why we wait till we get out to really show the scars of war.

I'm sorry if this is heavy-handed. These posts are more for me than anyone else. I work through my thoughts on paper or at least the typewriter.

I hate sleeping because of this.

I hear you and I think this is wonderful.... Sadly the stigma is so strong however we're fighting it

It makes no sense that the things people have to deal with in the military should be anything but horrific.... That's what government likes to tell ya....

Government tells us all kinds of things that make no sense however they're a powerful force and sadly at times the best we've got

If a soldier comes home and reads your post it might give him the courage to reach out you know.....

Absolutely no reason to be sorry

Big hug.....xo

Thor, hopefully the military does make it more available. Those in the armed forces can slide through a written test with ease. Was training a retired Air Force Special Unit man for his next career. Had been retired a while and no overt signs of PTSD. Spoke with a friend who had highest level clearance before retiring from Air Force. He knew what this man had as his ongoing, often repeated mission. When my trainee mentioned he was going to the VA, I suggested he meet with the psych there and openly share. When he came in the next week, he said, I have PTSD.
Hopefully, the military will use the test for interventions versus ending their careers. Still recall when "Platoon" came out. After 20 years of being out of the service, many ex-military who came home seeming OK, then watched it, ended up with full blown PTSD. Families began falling apart. Theaters kept showing it.
Sorry for the rant. Hugs to all.

Thanks. I am looking to get a masters in Social Work and maybe become an LCSW or something like that. I have counseled so many and probably have more diverse experiences that most... suicide attempts, suicide completions (family, next of kin), PTSD, legal trouble (up to kidnapping and murder), divorce, personal adjustment. One time I had 550 working for me and I kept a box of tissues on my desk just like the counselors do.

The number for PTSD is 13% of those getting out of the military. I bet the number is much higher. When I first knew that I needed help or I was going to hurt myself, I found a program of counselors donating their time to military personnel - no names, no records, nothing. Went to her for two months before I needed more, and I needed someone that understands the military more.

I wish we'd had a blood test for PTSD, Thor, back in 1995 when I got diagnosed at first with bipolar disorder by mistake instead. It's not that I myself have any more or less stigma re bipolar disorder vs. PTSD. It was that for years I took lithium for a bipolar disorder I did not have.

Lithium's a salt, so it's processed by the kidneys.

I became diabetic without knowing it, misdiagnosed again, this time with thyroiditis when it was diabetes. While being treated for a thyroid condition I didn't have, untreated diabetes damaged my kidneys along with the lithium I was taking for the bipolar disorder I didn't have.

I was working alongside medical doctors as a hospital chaplain every day during all of this. I know they're only human and capable of human error on the job. It was really bad luck for me to have two misdiagnoses, and for the meds for them to cause me permanent kidney damage.

I'm not going to claim with 100% certainty that this PTSD blood test would have helped me. In truth, there's a chance it wouldn't have been administered to me without any suspicion that I had PTSD rather than the bipolar disorder with which I was misdiagnosed.

Psychiatrists in countries with recent wars on their soil do ask civilians if they've seen combat. However, since terrorist attacks have happened here but no conventional long term warfare has been waged lately on North American soil, psychiatrists in the USA just didn't ask civilians like me if we'd been in combat or not. There are civilian situations Stateside, though, that I think should be monitored for PTSD, like police. Also, I have 3 friends who are corrections officers in a state maximum security prison in my town, though, and all 3 think they may have PTSD, too.

Like a lot of combat survivors, military or civilian, combat PTSD wasn't something I was willing to bring up easily back then like I do here now. It took a very special VA doc to adopt me and get that conversation to happen. Until he initiated dialogue to the contrary with me, I also thought that as a child and a non-soldier, I didn't deserve to claim PTSD and treatment for it. That was for military adults, I thought, and he set me straight about that when he found out that I was in 6 years of close combat (what some military veterans told me could be 3 military tours of duty, I don't know) in my own house, around my neighborhood, and always for all 6 years in my city.

TRIGGER WARNING

Highlights: A car bombing. A riot involving live ammo. A torture session that ended with an attempted execution that was botched by a gun jam twice.

In therapy I found out that I couldn't have been more wrong to think that wasn't combat PTSD because I was a child and not a soldier. The developing brain of a child, he said, is even more susceptible to trauma in combat. He told me that combat conditions are the same for civilians and soldiers alike in a real war zone. Now when I see war footage from overseas on TV, what he said leads me to notice lots of civilians of all ages in the theaters of operations in those film clips, to0.

So I'm glad this PTSD test is out there. It's one more diagnostic tool that may prevent someone from going through the double misdiagnosis I went through from which I got permanent chronic kidney disease I live with today. Soldiers like your brothers need this PTSD test for sure, and then it could go on to help many others: officers Stateside, civilians in foreign war zones, lots of folks. This could be a breakthrough for many people.

Thanks, Thor, and keep us posted, ok?

I will let you know how it goes. The blood test is in the early stages of testing and it will only help those on the ground and in the counseling rooms that the patient has PTSD.

I was misdiagnosed for a year before bipolar was discussed. I was in mania when I saw the doctor that said you need to go back to your shrink today and see them. It was after that, that a lot more made sense. I twitch a lot and that might be from the drugs or me passing out too many times.

I have complex PTSD (multiple events), the main one is seeing and processing the bodies of piracy. See what they did to those women and children is something I see most nights. I try to talk about it but often it is too hard to talk about. Why do I see them all the time? I didn't do this. I did not... I work to give them the burial they deserved but still, they haunt me from the grave. why am I saying this. this is too much.

Thor, I didn't know about Complex PTSD, that multiple events kind, until I came here a few years ago. Sure did explain a lot about those 6 years I spent in combat in childhood. Folks here sent me to therapist Pete Walker's website about it, and I read everything I could about it. You probably already know about it, but here's the link they gave me, I'm passing it on.
http://pete-walker.com/fAQsComplexPTSD.html

I'm excited about this blood test, and curious as to what PTSD marker they're looker for in the blood. I have regular blood tests for my chronic kidney disease and what they're looking for is the creatinine level from my pancreas. I've collapsed and ended up hospitalized twice over it. The high level for a male is 1.3, but though I can't bring mine under that, I've managed to bring mine down to 1.4, though it briefly went as high as 2.26 this past March, which put me into the ER for a day until I got it back under control.

Having that number to focus on has helped me fight off the need for dialysis for 8 years now. I signed medical papers refusing dialysis on quality of life grounds, so I live by that creatinine blood test number. I wonder whether this PTSD blood test might offer folks in recovery that, too. By that I mean I hope that it not only becomes an initial diagnostic tool, which is wonderful enough, but also a tool for measuring and maintaining an optimal chronic level thereafter.

Looking forward eagerly to hearing more about it!