The reservist's appeal to Dr. Ilan Rabinowitz/screenshot
In my previous war columns I invited each of you to contact me personally with any question related to my field of expertise.
I receive many inquiries and usually reply directly to those who contact me on WhatsApp.
However, this week I received a question the answer to which may be of interest to many of our soldiers, who have returned from the battlefield to the normal routine of life, and in many cases to academic studies, and discover that the drugs they took for attention disorders are no longer as effective as they were in the period before the war.
Here is the answer to the question of a reservist (see above) who contacted me on this subject.
Dear soldier,
first of all, you are the salt of the earth.
Thanks to you and thanks to your fighting friends we live here.
So first of all thank you for everything and who you are.
Since October 7, I have been living in the clinic 24/7 and am thrilled by the generation of young people imbued with vision, Zionism and personal sacrifice and am amazed every time again by their powerful spirit.
I am fascinated by our people who preceded their leaders and understand, today more than ever, that our strength is in our unity.
And now to your question: First, remember that sometimes weakness is human strength, sensitivity is strength.
110 days of fighting in a combat unit leaves a deep mark on the strength of the fighters as well.
Comrades-brothers-in-arms are injured, people you knew and became family with an eternal blood covenant - are killed.
In this war, you young people are exposed to sights not created by Satan.
We are the '73 generation, the Yom Kippur war, and we always hoped and prayed that you would not be there.
But here, you are there, and at much crazier levels than we experienced.
Returning from the battlefield to the academic classroom is an almost impossible switch.
Like returning from death to life, from hell to the lecture hall.
An abysmal and not simple contrast that requires a complex adjustment period for each person.
The sights of the war may also affect the effect of medications we took before.
A reservist returned from the battle/ShutterStock
Concerta, like the drugs from the Ritalin family that contain methylphenidate, have side effects that can manifest in anxiety, depression, stomach and headache pain, sleep disorders and loss of appetite.
When the person suffers from a problem that affects him such as symptoms of anxiety or depression as a result of a situation he was exposed to, one of the common things that happens is a loss of concentration.
So sometimes, the concert that came to bless, turns out to be a curse and can even worsen the difficulty in concentration.
I can safely tell you that you are normal and normative.
I get to meet fighters who came back with impaired concentration and preparations that worked great for them in the past, stopped helping them now.
Idan Amadi was able to explain well, in words that came from his heart and entered the hearts of all of us, what "pain of warriors" is.
Those who were not there, on the battlefield, will never understand.
It is likened to depressed elderly people who are mistakenly diagnosed as having dementia, when in fact they suffer from pseudodementia (a dementia-like disease), which is part of the symptoms of depression and must be treated.
When they receive the appropriate treatment, their cognitive condition improves greatly.
The difference is that the person with dementia (as in Alzheimer's disease), will not complain of impaired memory and will easily call his daughter by a different name, but a person suffering from pseudodementia as a result of depression-anxiety will complain severely of a decrease in concentration and memory.
Another thing, sometimes people who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (so-called OCD) are sometimes mistakenly diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, because their heads are thinking all the time, they check each line several times and as a result are not focused during the diagnosis.
But the source of their problem is anxiety in general.
On the other hand, to complicate matters, many times attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADD or ADHD) goes together with anxiety disorder in general and obsessive compulsive disorder in particular - and both must be treated at the same time.
As a matter of fact, there is no escape and you need to make an appointment with a specialist psychiatrist as soon as possible.
You may need to be transferred to treatment with amphetamines, a psychopharmacological family that treats attention and concentration problems but does not contain methylphenidate.
In this group you can find drugs such as Etnet, Vivans or Adderall, which in the right dosage for each patient raise the mood and stimulate initiative, in addition to improving concentration.
Many people in your situation have symptoms of stress, or intrusive thoughts that raise the stress threshold, sleep problems, appetite disturbances, flashbacks from fights, low stimulation threshold and sometimes also uncontrollable outbursts.
In such cases, it is recommended to start the treatment, preferably one hour earlier.
The absence and postponement of treatment may only worsen the situation.
In addition, if such disorders are not treated, a cycle of stress begins to form as a result of the lack of concentration, difficulty in studies and fear of failure in tests.
These will only worsen the difficulty of attention.
Therefore, it is highly recommended that you seek professional therapeutic help.
Dr. Ilan Rabinovitz is an expert psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Any questions about depression, children's anxiety, sleep disorders, attention and concentration disorders during wartime, the third age, intermediary information for children and more can be directed by text messages or text messages only by phone: 054-4693068
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Dr. Ilan Rabinowitz