daughter getting railroaded

[mamamarti]

What is the name of your state? missouri

My daughter has been in the Navy for 12 years (4 active, 8 reserves)
The Va doctors put her on an antidepressant to relieve panic attacks. She had been having unbearable pain in her abdomen for a long time and this was making her pretty nervous. Anyway, they recently found the root of the problem and did some surgery to correct it. Now her command has put her on medical hold, have restricted her from testing and from reserve duty and are reviewing her case to possibly discharge her because of these drugs they put her on. She is much better since finding the cause of all the pain. Anyway, she needs some advice about proceeding. She wants to stay in the Reserves. You can't tell me that in all the US Navy, this girl is the ONLY one on any kind of antidepressants!! And in fact, she is not taking them anymore.

Thanks for the help

[rmet4nzkx]

We need more information to provide advice.
What medication?
How long? Service related? What type of surgery?

[mamamarti]

Thanks for the interest. I believe the med is Lorazepam and neither the anxiety or the surgery is service connected. The surgery was done to clear up Endometriosis and scar tissue from a previous surgery. She went around and around with the VA Hosp, trying to get to the bottom of the pain. She knew what it probably was, but they kept doing one test after another (unrelated to the actual problem) until they finally hit on real problem. She's been back and forth with the VA Hosp system for a couple of years. I don't think she's been on the Lorazepam for more than a year. Every time she had an attack of pain and got no answers from the doctors, she ended up having a kind of panic attack. One doctor actually told her this was a mental thing. She was scheduled to deploy at the end of Jan, but the surgery was 3 weeks prior and she was not healed enough to go. However, she was in Bahrain in October, while already under the doctor's care and taking the Lorezapam.

[Qfrank]

Lorazepam also known as Ativan is a benzodiazepine, the same class of drugs that include valium (diazepam)

These are pretty strong drugs that do have side effects the most common being sedation.

If she needs to take this drug while on duty it would certainly limit the kinds of jobs she could do. For example it would be a bad idea to operate heavy machinery or drive a vehicle while medicated.


However if she is no longer on the medication than it should be a non- issue. As far as the surgery for endometriosis (which is a relatively common problem) that shouldn't limit her ability to perform her job, unless she has had complications from the surgery.

Regardless of all this she is allowed to go to a medical board and plead her case.

hope this helps