PTSD Drug Side Effects as a Claim?

Side efffects from meds can often be as bad as the disease.

  Can I claim any negative side effects from PTSD drugs for compensation purposes?

  The answer to that is yes.  The law was recently changed to state that drug and alcohol use can be a secondary consideration if used to tolerate symptoms of a service connected condition.

  So, that means that if a veteran has a service connection for a condition such as PTSD. If the veteran alleges that he uses pot and alcohol to tolerate his PTSD symptoms, perhaps to fall asleep or minimize nightmares, the chemical dependency may be considered a secondary condition that would actually increase the veteran's service connection rating. That is a radical departure from the traditional position that the V.A. has always taken regarding drug and alcohol use: that it was "misconduct".

  The same would follow for drugs prescribed by the VA to treat PTSD. Some drugs do have serious side effects, and if those side effect lead to a serious condition, file a claim for that condition as secondary to PTSD treatment. The best thing to do is immediately report any side effects so the doctor can change the medicine before it lead to complications. Also, always ask about the possible complications of mixing certain medicines. If you take other medicines, make sure each doctor knows what you’re taking because mixing certain drugs can cause serious side effects.

  Most Nam vets have reached the age where we all end up taking some kind of medicine for blood pressure, stomach problems, etc. Make sure to check all the side effects. If you take medicine, and you suddenly get the same medicine but it looks different, call and make sure you have the right medicine. The pharmacy can check to make sure you were not given the wrong pills by mistake or if the drug has a new manufacturer and a new shape.

  The VA contacted me by phone one time and told me to throw away a new bottle of medicine I had received. It was the right medicine, but in the wrong dosage. I’m glad they caught it because I wouldn’t have known I was taking twice the dose I should have been taking.  The higher dose could have taken me out. I’m real careful now with any kind of medicine.

The Helmet From Sudden Victims

The helmet had a brown side and a green side cover, depending on terrain.

The Helmet, a brief story from my collection Sudden Victims, is part of an unfinished novel, The Holey Grail, about my fictional character Maxwell Monk, his Vietnam War experience and PTSD. I may never finish the novel. I work on it when I get the urge, but that part of my past is hard to deal with at times. Maxwell's father wanted to name him Chip, but his mother wouldn't go along with such cruelty. That part is fiction, but because the novel involves my family history, I have been reluctant to probe the real truth behind the story.

The Helmet is based on a true incident from the day I arrived in Vietnam. Due to neglect or lack of checking equipment, the Marine passing out gear handed me a helmet with a small entry hole on one side and large blowout hole on the other side. When I turned it over, the helmet had splattered brains and blood in it from a through and through gunshot wound.  The Marine who wore that helmet could not have survived such a wound. If I had put it on my head without looking, I would have probably gone nuts right there. As it turned out, that first view of brain matter let me know that I was not immortal and in the scheme of things I was expendable and no one but my family would care that I had even existed.

So the story about the helmet does fit the theme of Sudden Victims because at that moment I did become a victim of war and the horror that would come to pass. This was just a first taste of the terror such slaughter inflicts on young warriors back in the day of the old Marine Corps.

Sudden Victims (Kindle and Paperback)