Air Force Vet Overcomes PTSD and Sleep Disorder With Medical Foods
(NewsUSA) – After serving four years in the Army and six in the U.S. Air Force, Christi J. Cook of Harbor Beach, Mich. left the military the same way many service members do — proud and dutiful, yet struggling with a wrecked body and a civilian life she had never known.
For Cook, joining the military was the plan since adolescence, the desire to serve embedded in her genes dating back to her ancestors in the Revolutionary War. But she wasn’t prepared to face the condition of her body once she left the military.
While in the Air Force, Cook suffered a hit from a scud missile overseas that resulted in exposure to an unidentified toxic nerve agent. The physical consequences were widespread for the young woman in her mid-twenties: heart arrhythmia, memory loss, bladder irregularity, gastrointestinal issues, arthritis, migraines, severe insomnia and unbearable muscle pain.
After years of physical therapy, antibiotics and prescription medication that provided little to no relief, Cook couldn’t sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time, sit in a car for prolonged periods or enjoy a day without debilitating pain. It wasn’t until a year ago that she finally found an effective way to cope with her symptoms.
“I was on a lot of antibiotics, a lot of pain killers, and none of it really worked. A lot of it masked the pain, but it was just like a boomerang. It came back and it usually came back worse,” explained the 42-year-old, now a mother of two. “I tried so many things, and then when I started taking medical foods Sentra PM and AM, it was the first time in decades that I had any energy.”
Sentra PM and Sentra AM are FDA-regulated, prescription-only medical foods that provide the precursors to the neurotransmitters needed for restorative sleep, while reducing fatigue and managing the increased nutritional requirements of fibromyalgia, respectively.
Medical foods, like those developed by Targeted Medical Pharma, Inc., help patients meet the increased nutritional requirements of chronic disease, including pain syndromes, peripheral neuropathy, hypertension, obesity and sleep and cognitive disorders.
By the time Cook discovered a solution, she was battling multiple diagnoses: post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), minor depression, fibromyalgia, traumatic arthritis and migraines.
“I get hyper-vigilant. I don’t like to be in a crowd, I kind of panic in a crowd. Even going to church or grocery shopping was extremely difficult,” Cook said, describing her PTSD symptoms, many of which only grew worse.
But Cook’s insomnia was the most challenging — until she found medical foods. In less than a week, Cook said, the tension began to ebb away. Now, it’s the only thing she takes, and she recommends it to everyone. Learn more about Rx-only medical foods at www.targetedmedicalpharma.com.
Air Force Vet Overcomes PTSD and Sleep Disorder With Medical Foods
