Battlefield Scars Often Carry Over To Bedroom, Troops Find
Wounds and mental disabilities of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq can mess up their sex lives too, health experts said Wednesday. But those wounds often go untreated because the topic is taboo and has gone unstudied.
Whatever the reason, failed sexual intimacy can contribute to higher suicide and divorce rates among returning troops, specialists told a seminar sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on health issues.
They said the latest U.S. wars have brought more attention to psychological wounds such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and depression, and should now include sexual problems.
“The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have taken steps toward helping soldiers with mental problems, but we are very concerned for those who have problems with their sexual intimacy,” said Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. surgeon general and now principal investigator at the Center of Excellence for Sexual Health at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
“This tends to be a neglected area and people deal with it silently,” Satcher said.
Although the problem seems widespread on the basis of anecdotal reports, there are no studies of its prevalence, according to sex therapists who have worked with troops and veterans. Some VA centers offer treatment for sexual health issues, but to varying degrees and without national coordination.
“The VA is at the preliminary stages of conducting a survey to measure the incidence of this problem,” said Linda Mona, a psychologist at the VA’s health care center in Long Beach, Calif.
Psychologists from public and private centers said they increasingly treat wounded troops for sexual problems.
“They have to deal with their changed bodies, self-esteem issues,” said Mitchell Tepper, associate director of Morehouse’s sexual health center. “They have concerns of whether they are a lovable and capable partner, and it takes time before they adapt to this change.”
Tepper, who was paralyzed by an accident in his early 20s, said he knows how hard it can be for a disabled person to establish a healthy sexual relationship.
Last week, when the sexual health seminar began to be publicized, Tepper said he got dozens of e-mails at his Web site, www.sexualhealth.com, from wounded troops with sexual problems who didn’t know where to turn.
“A soldier sent me an e-mail that said: ‘I hope you are the right person to send this e-mail to, otherwise this will sound strange. I was blown up in Iraq in 2004 and that resulted in sexual dysfunctions and problems in that area with my wife. Can you help me?”
Iowa National Guardsman Robert Jackson, a corporal who lost both legs below the knee in Iraq, told the seminar that one of his first worries was whether his wife, Abby, would still love him.
Abby said she worried, too, because her husband showed no interest in sex. When she asked a doctor how long it would take before they could be intimate, she recalled, the doctor said only “it would take time.”
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