Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Spc. Ivan Lopez And PTSD: Is There A Link Between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Violence?
International Business Times ^ | April 3, 2014 | Howard Koplowitz

Posted on 04/05/2014 4:59:28 AM PDT by don-o

snip

Secretary of the Army John McHugh told Bloomberg that Lopez was prescribed drugs for anxiety, sleeping problems and depression, but a psychiatrist’s evaluation last month found that he was no threat to himself or others. There’s no indication that he was diagnosed with PTSD before his death.

(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fthood; lopez
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-75 next last
To: TMSuchman
Again, he was faking a head injury.

You have actually suffered one, and confronted the effects of a real trauma head on, and have courageously met the challenges.

I respect and admire your character.

Ivan Lopez was a malingerer and a coward.

21 posted on 04/05/2014 6:09:22 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: don-o
The whole thing looks like Ivan set it up to look like it was a little battle about leave.

The deaths of the relatives was months ago.

He bought the gun at the same place that Hasan did.

He was at Fort Hood for two months....the same time as Hasan.

Sorry...the guy was a closet Muslim. And the whole government take is a coverup for just another muzzie.

Then there's the story two days earlier that the FBI was looking for someone who was going to pull off a "Hasan". They said it was a different guy...but I believe they knew...and let him ride because he was a MUzzie.

22 posted on 04/05/2014 6:15:30 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: don-o

Remember, suicide for the cause is a good thing in the world of Muzzies.


23 posted on 04/05/2014 6:16:48 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: don-o

I took it once, given after major surgery in the hospital. Best way to describe it would be an LSD trip, I guess. Complete unreality, horrible.


24 posted on 04/05/2014 6:46:24 AM PDT by Eagles6 (Valley Forge Redux)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sacajaweau

Good observation about time frame and source of the gun. Ft. Hood and military commanders in general better get their s*** together.


25 posted on 04/05/2014 6:59:59 AM PDT by healy61
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: don-o

Might want to look at recruiters telling enlistees to NOT mention they are taking meds and have been treated for psych problems BEFORE they show up for duty.

Might want to forward this to an investigative reporter to dig into how many recruits have had psych disorders and stopped meds prior to enlistment on advice from recruiters.

Just may be easy to find by visiting base hospitals and chewing the fat with emergency room doctors treating lots of patients with stress and anxiety disorders that are recent recruits.

Cause if you go in crazy, the Army isn’t going to help that.


26 posted on 04/05/2014 7:30:57 AM PDT by Dick Vomer (democrats are like flies, whatever they don't eat they sh#t on.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dick Vomer

I am surprised that this matter seems to not have garnered attention in the media. The he was medicated is pretty much a throwaway line in a lot of articles.


27 posted on 04/05/2014 7:35:09 AM PDT by don-o (He will not share His glory and He will NOT be mocked! Blessed be the name of the Lord forever!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: don-o

Youtube search for ambien hallucinations. I watched one where a guy chased a dragon around his room. This stuff is s doctor prescribed LSD trip.


28 posted on 04/05/2014 7:37:18 AM PDT by SpeakerToAnimals (I hope to earn a name in battle)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mercat
You're kidding, right? Physical therapy and massage to heal PTSD? You and I must be on different planets. PTSD, as I understand it is the mental reaction that veterans and some others have to severe mental shocks and sustained fear. Everybody I ever knew who served in combat had some degree of PTSD - it's only natural. The only thing that comes close to healing is time and loving family relationships.

Physical therapy? Maybe if it comes with a happy ending.

29 posted on 04/05/2014 7:37:34 AM PDT by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Hot Tabasco
Ambien itself is a very powerful drug and if I'm not mistaken, it should not be taken for longer than 14 days.......

But a lot of doctors prescribe it for daily use for years. Too many doctors ignore the recommended limits on drugs and in the process create drug addicted patients that keep coming in every 30 days to renew their meds.

30 posted on 04/05/2014 7:38:14 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Dick Vomer
Might want to forward this to an investigative reporter

Good idea. Tweeted Sharyl Atkisson.

31 posted on 04/05/2014 7:47:47 AM PDT by don-o (He will not share His glory and He will NOT be mocked! Blessed be the name of the Lord forever!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Chainmail

I only share my personal experience. If you think that physical danger and harm are only reflected in the brain and can only be cured/treated with psychotropic medication, then go for it. I’ve seen my family member before and after deep tissue massage therapy. I myself found myself crying after a deep tissue massage that I got a couple of months after my brother died. That was a minor trauma. Twice a week at first was a minimum for my family member. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.


32 posted on 04/05/2014 7:49:24 AM PDT by Mercat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: don-o

Ambien is extremely enigmatic as a drug, and truthfully, we have no real idea of how powerful it is or its side effects.

To start with, it is well known for causing “extensive sleepwalking”. A bizarre phenomenon where people still wearing pajamas get in their car and drive a mile or two before slowly steering into a wall or tree or something, while sound asleep.

Even stranger, an accidental discovery in South Africa was that it could wake some people in persistent comas.

The brain chemical GABA determines whether we are awake or asleep. Ambien is used as a sleep aid, and yet is a GABA inhibitor. This means that it suppresses the chemical that makes us sleep, but this somehow helps us to sleep.

When you have a brain injury, your brain releases extra GABA to temporarily turn off the injured part of the brain so that it can heal, even causing a coma. However, in some people, this sensitizes their brain to GABA, so that even when their GABA levels return to normal, they remain in a coma. This is the theory of how Ambien woke up people in a persistent coma, by inhibiting their normal levels of GABA.

Throwing such a powerful drug at a normal brain is risky enough; but when it is given to someone with psychological problems, it is asking for trouble.


33 posted on 04/05/2014 8:00:48 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (WoT News: Rantburg.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wideawake

He was on Ambien, that will make anyone crazy.


34 posted on 04/05/2014 8:06:41 AM PDT by onthegulf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: onthegulf
Plenty of people take Ambien. It can cause temporary hallucinations and delusions.

If you've ever dreamt that you've won a lottery or that you asked a woman out and she said yes, and then you wake up in a good mood - and then 30 seconds later you think "Aargh! It was just a dream" - Ambien can nurture that delusion for waking hours, not waking seconds.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and think for a second that the coat rack is an intruder, on Ambien that momentary hallucination might last for a while and then recur, making you question what you're seeing and hearing for much longer than a second or two.

But Ambien does not turn a normal person into a cold, premeditated killer.

35 posted on 04/05/2014 8:22:24 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Mercat
I never said anything at all about drugs of any kind - don't believe in them. In my view, what we are calling PTSD lately is the all-but-ignored-before-this effects of putting 18-19-20-year olds into a sustained environment of stress, fear, horrific casualties and death - while everybody else enjoys the a peaceful and comfortable life at home without them.

It's ridiculous to believe that these occurrences wouldn't have a strong effect on our young people and it's also ridiculous to think that drugs/magic/massages will heal someone. Almost all of our combat vets recover fine with the help of fellow veterans and their family. It takes time - a lot of time, sometimes and getting involved with a good job, raising kids, and so on.

We've done it and we're doing it, just like we always have.

36 posted on 04/05/2014 8:23:25 AM PDT by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Eagles6
We have absolutely no idea if he had any drugs in his system...and we likely will never know because at the time of his death, the government "owned" him. No matter....they will lie through their teeth.

So these stories ....he was on drugs....he was pi**** off about leave....I believe is a line of cr**.

Like I said....closet Muslim...suicide insures him of 72 virgins.

37 posted on 04/05/2014 8:48:33 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: wideawake

ah.....”premeditated”...but...but...the government said it was because of a leave thing...yeh, right...


38 posted on 04/05/2014 8:49:53 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Sacajaweau
False dichotomy.

He came to ask for leave, planning to kill people if he was denied leave.

That's premeditation.

39 posted on 04/05/2014 9:03:51 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: wideawake; don-o
No study has ever shown that SSRIs make adults more likely to harm themselves, or that they make anyone more likely to harm others.

How do you perform a double-blind study
on the relationship of suicide and SSRIs ???
Warning
Adverse reactions are most likely to occur when starting or discontinuing the drug, increasing or lowering the dose or when switching from one SSRI to another. Adverse reactions are often diagnosed as bipolar disorder when the symptoms may be entirely iatrogenic (treatment induced). Withdrawal, especially abrupt withdrawal, from any of these medications can cause severe neuropsychiatric and physical symptoms. It is important to withdraw extremely slowly from these drugs, often over a period of a year or more, under the supervision of a qualified and experienced specialist. Withdrawal is sometimes more severe than the original symptoms or problems.

40 posted on 04/05/2014 9:41:01 AM PDT by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your teaching is my delight.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-75 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson