Insomnia

...ba href=/insomnia/a/b, intense anxiety and difficulty coping with work, social and family relationships.

Symptoms may appear within months or be delayed for years.

They can also persist for decades, as David Rice can attest.

Look at the time.

I should be sleeping.

The pain from the shrapnel is causing too much pain to sleep.

Even the methadone does little to stop the pain.

Hell, if it wasn’t the pain it would be the night terrors.

— An Oct.

12, 2005, e-mail from Rice.

It was sent at 2:12 a.m.

Rice graduated from high school in 1967.

He was 17 and decided to enlist in the Marines after seeing footage from Vietnam on the evening news.

“I saw on TV that the children were oppressed.

I was an American.

If you are an American, you fight for your country,” he said.

After boot camp, he was sent to Vietnam.

It was 1968 and he was assigned to an artillery unit and worked on the fire control team.

When he wasn’t plotting fire missions for the battery, he was out on patrol acting as a forward observer.

“A couple of times I was far enough out that my position was surrounded and I’ll tell you, I prayed a lot that the VC did not hear me on the radio relaying their position back to the gun batteries,” he said.

“A few times our own artillery got awfully close and I wasn’t sure if I would make it out.” Rice was in Vietnam from October 1968 to March 1969 — 5 months and 28 days.

He left in pieces.

Rice was walking across the...

...ba href=/insomnia/a/b when attempting to sleep during the daytime.Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in this first-ever clinical trial of shift-work sleep disorder, evaluated the use of modafinil (a medication approved for Narcolepsy sufferers and residual sleepiness associated with sleep apnea) for treating sleepiness among these workers.

They found that when compared to placebo, the medication improved nighttime sleep latency - the interval between the time a person attempts to fall asleep and the onset of sleep - and clinical symptoms.

However, researchers caution that while some benefits were seen, patients taking modafinil continued to experience excessive sleepiness and impaired performance at night.

These findings will be published in the August 4, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine."Shift-work sleep disorder adversely affects many working Americans.

It can compromise personal safety and significantly impact quality of life," said Charles A.

Czeisler, PhD, MD, chief of BWH's Sleep Medicine Division.

"Individuals suffering from this disorder have limited available treatments to minimize symptoms.

This study demonstrates that while modafinil can significantly improve symptoms and reduce sleep tendency during night work hours, patients remain excessively sleepy even after treatment for this sleep-wake disturbance."Individuals with shift-work sleep disorder miss family and social activities more frequently and have higher rates of ulcers, sleepiness-rel...

...ba href=/insomnia/a/b, uncontrollable crying jags and so on, all stress-related.

It's one thing to comprehend this intellectually, but the emotional reality is usually quite different." It's difficult enough for a spouse if he or she agrees with and supports the government's military efforts abroad.

How hard must it be when one is either ambivalent or vehemently opposed, yet must remain silent?

"The emotions are still the same," says Henderson, who is involved with the Key Volunteer Network, a support group for military spouses and their families.

"I talked with one spouse who very much supported the war but cried in the shower like anyone else.

Another did oppose the war, and she felt very isolated and alienated and slipped into a clinical depression.

She recovered and has begun to connect with other spouses in the peace movement.

"If we had not all gone through it, we would not feel as empowered as we do now." Open attitude That spouses would be forthcoming to one of their own may have been a given, once trust was established.

But Henderson also was pleasantly surprised at how cooperative military officials were after she decided to bring them into the loop.

"Initially, I didn't want to go through public affairs.

I wanted to speak directly with spouses.

I found most of my wives and husbands through informal channels: my personal life, my friends in the military family advocacy community.

I didn't want a military minder looking over my shoulder during these interviews.

I wanted to tell t...