I have been catching up on all that has been posted here for a week or so as I can.
I went back into the older post and read a couple of peoples remarkes about not being able to keep a job..
Thought I was the only person that was that way..It hurts me to think that my ex- wife drove me into the ground about it and didnt understand that I seems to be powerless about it. She couldnt understand that some days I couldnt get out of bed in time to go to work or hurt all over or just didnt give a crap about anything ..well at leat i finally figured out about not caring was depression but still working on the rest ...any one else like that with jobs please reply thanks for reading and hope it all makes since to you cant seem to keep a clear thought....

your not alone my friend, this illness has now taken two careers and am now once again out of work, just so you know, you arnt alone,

I want to re-assure you that there are so many of us veterans out there just like you. The only difference is our level of understanding Gulf War Illness and how it dictates EVERYTHING else in your life.

I'm so sorry it cost you your marriage. It almost cost me mine, even though he and I both understood what is going on. The depression itself is debilitating and everlasting. OVERWHELMING! at times. But you must understand that depression is not directly causing your malaise or inability to go to work. The depression is caused by very real pathogens (diseases, manmade or weaponized), which in turn cause malaise or inability to function in society.

If you can read up on some of my other replies to postings within this website, I think you'll find a way to get some medical treatment. Sadly enough, you can kiss your dreams of a career good-bye. Once you've started on the treadmill of running through jobs like I have, you have to get really creative just to find another. I am a laid-off telecommunications paralegal with a lot of home medical training (that's three different career fields in most employers' eyes).

I've been out of work for more than a year. My health will not permit me to venture into fields that require physical exertion, as I did when I was a soldier.

I don't know what your military career was like. If you don't have much active time in, it will be rough. But if you can clinically prove that your debilitation is caused by your service, you can get some help through the V.A.

I think the best advice I can give you is to rely on family members. Is your wife really gone? Or was that just an answer to a short-term problem? Are your parents interested in your lack of self-confidence? Have they read about Gulf War Illness? Do you keep in touch with the people you served with?

Do you have a doctor? Do you know a nurse or lab tech? Do you know service members who could direct you to someone outside the V.A. who would listen to your stories about agonizing pain upon waking that keeps you from moving upward and onward? Or agonizing pain that keeps you from getting any refreshing sleep? Maybe chest pains and shortness of breath? Pain in your internal organs? Headaches that make you think you could easily swallow a bottle of aspirin without any relief in sight? Nose drips or nose bleeds that make you feel like the first day of a really bad flu-bug? A feeling like somebody hooked the back of your eyeballs and is trying to suck them through the back of your head? Sunken "raccoon" eyes? The feeling that you got in a fist fight the night before? The feeling that you got rotten, stinking drunk the night before, but had not even a drop to drink? Swollen throat and sore salivary or lymph glands? A feeling that you spent the entire night in a cigar bar, even though you don't smoke and never go to the bars at all? Have you had chronic infections: urinary, upper respiratory, kidney, ear, eye, skin rashes?

I'd love to hear back from you. Action is the best remedy for depression. Talking about it is the first step into action. And it's the best way to get somebody who can help you into your life. And it's hard! Take it from a mid-40s soldier with an early 30s face and body, but a mind and musco-skeletal system that feels 80. I guess the hitch in my get-along is about 60-ish.

hey Beckie,

Your 7th paragraph (just above) is describing me to a "T". I would like to hear more of what you have to say. Do you have a way someone can read all of your notes or thoughts in one place?

If I could I would. Believe me.

Good news! I may not be able to give you my entire illness history in one place, but I have discovered a way to request permission to post links on this topic board.

I'm awaiting some help from one of my other veteran friends. In the meantime, you can read up on my plans: Go back to the main menu. Look at the General Topics menu until you find the topic: Suggestions for New Forum. Read through there on types of links that can automatically be posted, and the moderator's instructions on how to get links approved to post on individuals topic boards.

Then, come back to this site where it lists Resource Links. You'll notice there currently are no requests or unanswered requests. I'll see what I can do to fix that. It would do all readers a world of good if they could see that I'm not just spouting off opinion. My words are backed by laboratory tests and valid documentation scattered across the web.

Stay tuned. And I'll try to share the research that has been my life story. (Well at least the last 11 years of it, anyway)

hi, i hope that this reply will help you and others...
i was an air force bomb loader in southern saudi during the gulf war, and since i was far from the frontlines, i don't feel that post traumatic stress disorder can account for the variety and severity of the symptoms i have experienced since returning...these have included crushing headaches that would appear as patches of pain and sensitivity on my scalp that actually varied in size and location...my teeth felt loose, and my eyes felt like they were being pushed out from the inside, and in general, my head felt like it was splitting in two down the middle...it was agonizing...the asthma i experienced was unbelievable, and literally felt like i was drowning...i managed to only catch one breath every 10 to 20 tries...it brought up a panic reflex like i was suffocating and had to fight to take a breath...i also suffered from insomnia that would last for days on end, then i would sleep fitfully for 3 or 4 hours and then be up again for days, restless, exhausted, and generally worthless...i had a horrible time keeping jobs, and i was on the edge of homelessness all the time...i was so depressed and worn out that i was beyond caring what happened to me...i was fortunate enough to meet a woman who recognized that i was ill and not a loser, and she stayed by me through the worst times imaginable...my stepmother, who is a nurse recommended that i try colloidal silver for my symptoms...i had never heard of it, and i was naturally skeptical, but at my wife's insistence we made a trip to visit my dad and stepmom, and after only 3 days of drinking colloidal silver 3 times a day, i was amazed to sleep through the night, and when i woke up, i had NO HEADACHE for the first time in years...i had forgotten what it felt like to not have my head hurt...i could also breath much much better, and that has improved to the point where i breath normally, deeply and comfortably now...i have no headaches (although occasionally when i stop drinking silver for several days, the sensitivity will return as patches that feel like my hair hurts...weird, although the pain is nowhere as intense as it was in the past, and disappears once i drink silver again consistently)...i feel like a giant weight has been lifted off of my chest, i am myself again, and i can even do physical labor such as working in a warehouse without discomfort, something i could never have done a couple of years ago...please just try colloidal silver if you or someone you know suffers from gws...it gave me my life back...i pray this will help you and others