Everyone knows at least one person that has been in active military duty and many of us know someone who is still fighting a battle even though they have returned home. The assaults that occur against a service person in active duty are not just potentially lethal while serving, they can continue for years after leaving the service. I have worked with many service people suffering from PTSD, neurological illness, personality disorders and chronic symptoms that never seem to resolve. They have tried conventional therapy, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications all for very little improvement. They struggle to regain their life, their health and their place with their families, but for them, time is not healing all their wounds. 

What is the key to solving these complex cases and restoring life to these suffering heroes? It’s understanding all the core issues involved in each individual condition. These conditions have a group of common factors that are very responsive to natural medicinal remedies and therapies. These factors include: 

• Unresolved infections affecting the brain, nervous system and musculo-skeletal system including viruses, bacteria and parasites. Many of these are stealth pathogens that go unchecked by the immune system and unnoticed by conventional medical testing. 

• Severe nutritional and biochemical deficiencies. The amount of stress service people experience outpaces their reserves of B vitamins and antioxidants, disrupting neural processes and allowing for destruction of healthy tissue from oxidative stress. 

• Massive toxin deposition in tissue from exposure to heavy metals, chemicals, foreign environmental toxins and plastics that have neuro-disruptive effects. This is by far the largest contributor to PTSD and chronic illness, including personality disorders. Changes that occur from the precipitation of toxins into the crevices and tissues of the brain can cause mood swings, severe depression, hallucinations and suicidal tendencies. Psychotherapy and prescription drugs do nothing to clear these disruptive patterns and toxins. Ignoring these toxins allows living tissue to be damaged and destroyed gradually over time while the patient suffers daily without relief. 

• Scar tissue and physical injuries that create biochemical changes in the body. Complete healing requires nutritional factors as well as clearing of injured tissues. The chemicals that are released from these damaged areas create change in metabolism, glands, organs and nerves that can bring on chronic symptoms of pain, mood changes and even addictive tendencies that can last for years. 

• Emotional and psychological traumas. By beginning with a program to reduce physical aspects of infections, toxins and deficiencies, I have seen numerous patients, seen their psycho-logical effects be reduced in intensity and frequency by as much as 80% in 30 days. This makes therapies such as cognitive hypnotherapy and EMDR much more effective. 

Our conventional medical services do not understand the complexity of these cases leaving many service people sidelined from complete healing. Alternative medicine has a much more complete picture of these conditions because viewing each case as an individual condition is a core concept. It is not about diagnosing or labeling, it is about viewing the patient and the condition as unique. It is about treating each service person as a unique combination of experiences and exposures which has brought about their condition. Understanding this complexity not only heals a serviceperson, it brings them home.