RBinCountry said...
I guess this disease strikes a lot of us veterans - a lot of us are right at that age.
I am also a Vietnam veteran, Army, in country 07/68 through 09/69. I was a volunteer on an Agent Orange task force for almost 20 years. The incidence of prostate dysfunction and prostate cancer is extremely high among Agent Orange veterans and, until most of us reached our 60s, was the leading cause of death among Vietnam vets. With increasing age, heart disease and other maladies of aging are skewing the mortality tables.
I've suffered from a chronic prostate condition for almost 40 years; commencing within a year of leaving Vietnam. The V.A., for years, denied any correlation between Agent Orange and prostate illness, but about a decade ago, the statistics became undeniable. Anyone who has prostate dysfunction, including diagnosed prostatitis and, of course, prostate cancer should immediately get to a V.A. hospital.
My non-V.A. urologist says it's a miracle that my prostatic condition hasn't become malignant. The general nature of my prostate is that I typically have from a low level to a raging & painful infection. But, it's a condition that requires constant monitoring and frequent dosages of doxycycline hyclate.
FYI for those who wonder how Agent Orange may have entered their prostate. Much of the water ground troops drank in Vietnam was stored in uncovered, make-shift cisterns. When Agent Orange, consisting of dioxin and vehicle, was sprayed, it was via non-discriminatory application. The planes flew overhead, sprayed the defoliant, and if there was an open water storage unit, Agent Orange was sprayed into it as the spraying plane flew overhead. Of course, it was unintentional, but deadly, nonetheless. The vehicle, for the lack of a better description was an inert liquid plastic. Once the vehicle entered the human body, it settled in the prostate gland, much like a sink trap.