Olympic-Sized Problem:
Brain Wounding leading to Suicidal Ideation

The Veterans Administration, NFL, and the NCAA get it wrong on Concussion/TBI/PTSD, Suicide Prevention, and “mental health”

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Untreated TBI/PTSD/Concussion will cost taxpayers $4.7 trillion over forty years. Treating and helping to heal those brain wounds using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy can be done for one-half of one percent of that cost. And patients will be restored to a Quality of Life denied them under current protocols for brain wounds.

• Using data from the Brown University Cost of War Project, author Thomas Suitt of Boston University “estimates 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans of the post 9/11 wars have died by suicide, significantly more than the 7,057 service members killed in post-9/11 war operations;” some estimates are three times that number. Month after month, year after year, we learn that billions of dollars spent on Suicide Prevention should have been more wisely targeted.
• March is National Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness Month. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. June is simultaneously Alzheimer’s & Brain, and PTSD Awareness Month, and September has a Suicide Prevention Week. Yet despite the peer-reviewed science in the last decade, none of these campaigns addresses the wound in the brain, let alone the single treatment proven to help heal brain wounds as opposed to merely palliating symptoms.
• Ignoring a fundamental cause of suicide is one reason the suicide rate continues to climb. A fundamental cause of suicide is brain injury. A brain injury is a wound to the brain. Untreated and/or misdiagnosed brain wounds do not get “better.” Symptoms may recede, but the underlying injury can fester for a long time, leading to behavioral, emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual breakdowns that can lead to violence and suicide.
• Depression and suicidal ideation are common effects of PTSD and TBI. Treating PTSD/TBI with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is proven to reduce depression and suicidal ideation, and allow patients to get off almost all their drugs.
• Hundreds of thousands of concussions are reported in ERs each year; many more go unreported. Yet nowhere can you find a Concussion Protocol — not in the NFL, NCAA, NHL, FIFA, MLB, NBA, World Rugby, or any other sport –that mentions a brain wound or brain wound healing using Hyperbaric Oxygenation. Imagine a Protocol that doesn’t even talk about OXYGEN as a necessary ingredient for healing, fighting inflammation, reducing pain, fighting mental fog/fatigue/confusion. Hypoxia can kill. Concussion Protocol “specialists” must go back to school for wound healing basics.
• It is well documented that brain injury affects executive function and increases depression. Depression is present in at least 50 percent of all suicides. While antidepressants are designed to decrease the symptoms of depression, they occasionally have the opposite effect and can increase suicidal thoughts and actions, especially in children and adolescents up to age 25.
• About 70 percent of veterans who commit suicide do not use VA facilities. The recidivism rate for those who do use VA facilities in unreasonably high given the hundreds of thousands of “treated” veterans who remain disabled with a negative to degenerating quality of life.
• To help prevent suicide, do root-cause analysis and find out is there is an undiagnosed and/or untreated brain wound. Palliating symptoms without fixing the brain-wound is not adequate medical care. Current protocols and standard of care at the NICoE, Intrepid Spirit Centers, and the myriad mental health clinics across DoD and the VA are inadequate for treating and healing brain wounds. They do not talk about brain wounding, they do not provide Informed Consent about alternative treatments like HBOT, and they continue to insist that more money spent on research will reverse the suicidal trends — despite two decades of experience to the contrary.
• Veteran suicide rates are again on the rise. The Preventing Suicide in the U.S. Military Report still is silent on brain wound healing. Equipment maintenance is more advanced than military medicine in recognizing that when a system is broken, you fix it, not jerry-rig a solution.
• More than 6,000 Veterans, Guardsmen, active duty Service members, and Reservists die by suicide each year — more than were killed in action in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts from 2001 to 2023 combined.
• The VA reports that a veteran with a TBI is twice as likely to commit suicide.
• In 2017, 69% of veteran suicide deaths were due to a self-inflicted firearm injury, about 50% higher than the general population.
• Veterans in the throes of suicidal ideation relentlessly talk about how hopeless they feel, how little they sleep, and how death can end their pain, both to themselves and to their families.
• Veterans, active duty, athletes, first responders/fire/police, and citizens who receive a full course of HBOT therapy report a reversal of downward deterioration. Over 21,000 success stories, over 7,000 veterans, active duty and SpecOps have been restored to a quality of life denied them using current, ineffective interventions.

Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW.

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