Jim Fausone
Veterans Disability Attorney
This is one of those taboo subjects you just don’t bring up in polite company. But the reality is we hear from veterans every week about their erectile dysfunction, which can be claimed as a service connected disability in many cases.
As recently reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune:
The topic is blush-inducing, to be sure. But some post-9/11 veterans received frank talk on the subject at a conference for combat veterans in Coronado last week.
“That fiery, playful sex that people have with their partners is a huge, positive buffer to all the other stuff you go through in life,” said U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs psychologist Linda Mona, who runs an intimacy clinic at the VA medical center in Long Beach. …
San Diego County is home to 39,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans — by one measure the largest cluster in the United States. About one in three are likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction or other sexual problems, according to at least two studies of post-9/11 troops.
Among people with combat stress — officially known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD — the risk of sexual dysfunction is threefold.
In other words, the chance of problems in the bedroom is “ridiculously high” compared to young people who didn’t serve, said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a urologist and surgeon who directs a monthly sexual medicine clinic at the San Diego VA hospital.
Medication is a factor. By one account, the average number of prescription drugs used by America’s veterans is 17.
Some of those medications, including antidepressants and opiate painkillers, can affect sexual function. Goldstein called most psychiatric drugs “sex unfriendly.”
So if you or your spouse is feeling alone and frustrated take comfort the problem is real and you are not alone. If you need help sorting out if you have a service connected disability contact us at www.legalhelpforveterans.com.
You can read more about this problem at:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/oct/11/veterans-sexual-dysfunction-ptsd
Legal Help for Veterans, PLLC fights for veterans rights. We fight to make sure you get the benefits you deserve from the Department of Veterans Affairs. To learn more or contact a veterans attorney, visit http://www.legalhelpforveterans.com/ or call 800.693.4800
