Coming Tuesday: Live chat on sleep issues and PTSD

America has been hit with chemical weapons. My fiancee and I try to outrun the gases billowing toward us. We climb into protective suits and strap gas masks over our faces. We take over an abandoned house and I work desperately to seal it up. The world is coming apart.

Mitch Hood, 25, spent two tours in Iraq with the Marines. Now, like many other veterans, he faces a new enemy: sleep.

Hood has nightmares nearly every night, many like the one above, laced with the fear he felt when he was in Iraq. Most nights, he battles his own body's need to sleep, opting to stay awake so he doesn't fall into nightmares.

Hood knows he is not the only one with these problems. Sleep and wakefulness issues are the most common health problems described by recently returned soldiers, researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center found in a study published last year.

A Times reporter and videographer stayed up all night with the former Marine and his fiancee to witness his struggles. The print story will appear in Tuesday's newspaper. A video of the vigil, plus interviews with Hood and other veterans, accompany the story on the Web.

Join us for a live Web chat at noon Tuesday to discuss the influence of war on sleep and how physicians try to treat the problems. We will be doing a question-and-answer session with Dr. Thomas C. Neylan, director of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) Program at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Steve Woodward, director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the VA's National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Palo Alto.

Mark your calendars and set your bookmarks -- the chat happens right here Aug. 5 at noon Pacific time.

-- Jia-Rui Chong

Comments

[Wiliam Brion]

I wish to offer Mitch a possible solution to his nightmares that haunted me while going through three months of Chemo for testicular cancer twenty-one years ago. At the time, I had to go through one week in-hospital IV treatment and then two weeks at my home to recoup from the treatments only to do it over and over for three months. For some unexplained reason, exactly four days after going home, I would have horrific nightmares without fail. After three straight events I started to try to stay awake in order to avoid the nightmares I knew were forthcoming. A nurse at the hospital suggested I try Benadryl because they use it to help the elderly get to sleep. I tried it and the nightmares disappeared completely for the remainder of the treatments. I cannot promise results, but, obviously, it did something to my brain to get rid of the nightmares. It won't hurt to try and I wish you the best in your search for peace of mind.

[Jane]

I am so sorry I missed the discussion - didn't calculate the time-difference. One thing that is good about a bad thing(not being able to sleep) is that it becomes clear that there are many forms of insomnia and that it might not be helpfult to see it as a disease. Diseases dis-empower and you have to surrender to meds and their providers to get better. That is not good for PTSD and its nightmarish associations with helplesness. Did anyone refer to gayle Greene's book: Insomniac? Or the workbooj she recommends: I Want to Sleep - Unlearning Insomnia? I understand there is a podecast coming up (psychjopurneys?) with that author. (siegfried haug)