ptsd Newbie To Forum And Looking For Help

[ssg_rw_brown]

My husband got out of the military in 05. He spent 12 years active duty with a total of 21 eyars with his reserve and guard time. he spen over a year in Iraq in from Feb. 04 to March. 05.

He initially received a rating for a knee injury he recived from and explosion in Iraq but several months later after passing out (I thought he had a stroke!)at our dinner table and being hospitalized for over a week, and numerours testing he was diagnosed with "neurocardiosyncope". Told him nothing he can really do just make sure he eats 3 meals a day , drinks a lot of gatorade, avoid stress, caffeine, and plenty of rest. Then to make a long story short we ended up at the Va and not sure how it happened but he was finally diagnosed with " mild traumatic brain injury". this was kind of a releif because we now had and answer. They did a tilt test there, and sent him to speech class to help with the memory loss.

From my prospective I had noticed a change in him since the day he returned from Iraq...I chalked it up to the war and things he had seen and done...never sleeps, when he does its on the coach because any moves in the bed wake him up, personality change, irritability, forgetfullness, changes in taste, wanting to stay alone or just with me and the kids (antisocial behavior) little subtle things that I knew were different but never occured to me what or that it was a brain injury.

Fast forwarded he received rating for 10 % for the brain injury. So total he gets 10% knee, 10% tintinus, 50% PSD, 10% Mild Tramatic Brain injury.we have put in claims for different things that came up but were denied. Chronic back pain, tried to increase the knee because of the chronic pain but they say it's nothing and he has full range of motion so no increase. Vision problem, he had 20/20 vision his whole life with no problems and now needs glasses which they say is probly from sun exposure (focusing problem and light sensitivity). I have just stumbled across this site and read with interest the new changes with the brain injury. he was rated for the TBI in September of 2008 and when we received that rating I thought it was crazy. He has a combined rating of I think 60 or 70 percent (we get like 1200 per month with 3 kids under 18). Recently we received a letter saying they were decreasing his compensation to 900 because at his last compensation visit they felt he was "improving" (PTSD) which I thought crazy because he's on meds! that's why he seems better! so i talked to a VA guy and he said to send in a letter to say we were appealing it which I got a reply last week that said because it was only a "proposal" they were not accepting it and that now since we hadn't sent in evidence to contradict these claims it was now official and if we wanted to appeal it we coud. I'm so frustrated! I don't feel that we can find any help to wade through these VA paperwork. I really feel like he should be getting more compensation but not sure how to go about it.

We did talk to a VA guy a month ago who felt he should be getting 100% and pushed him to try, and told us the form to submit but yet i'm at a loss what else to do. I feel that there should be someone to help him wade through his medical papers and find out what he needs to send in and what claims he needs to file. So far we have submitted individual claims in the past for the passing out, back pain, vision problems but all got denie....but I kind of feel that maybe it should be compiled because basically I think it all goes back to the brain injury. He passes out for no apparent reason, we never know when it is coming on but i can usually trace it back to heat, stress, pain, didn't eat that day. he passes out and then when he comes around the first time he thinks he is back in Iraq, and needs a medic, he says he has sand in his mouth and needs a drink...then he starts to cry and without going into detail goes through a lot of guilt ...eventually he will pass out again and the 2nd time he comes around he's back in the real world....i worry he will do this driving or somewhere that he will get hurt so I have always felt he should be getting more compensation but just am at a loss on how or what do do to obtain it. He does not do good with people and public situations, to much anxiety and gets very agitated very quickly but the main fear for me is the passing out. I know this is getting very long and there is so much more I would love some input on but don't want to bore everyone but plese could someone give us some advice on what do and how to go about it. Thank you for listening.

[carlie]

Hopefully I have merged these two topics together properly.

carlie

[ssg_rw_brown]

Yes I did get a reply to it and I do thank you for it. I actually printed out all the replys so Ic ould go over it more throughly and make note of the action I took.

I certainly responded to this post days ago-in a lengthy reply that I felt was very helpful - regarding this vet's numerous residuals and his obvious 100% disabling situation.

and wondered why there had been no reply to the board since then-

I will try to find the post I made-

I looked for the original post and apparently it was moved and maybe the reply was lost somehow.

[ssg_rw_brown]

Thank you so much! I have redone it and rmoved the link to just that one...the new link is

May 22 2009

Hi Mrs. Brown,

I'm sorry you and your family are going through rough times. I pray things will get better for you and yours real soon.

I also want you to know your husband's Social Security number was left on the May 22, 2009 document. I wish I could tell you how to fix it but I can't. Maybe, one of the moderators can help. Take Care!

[timetowinarace]

Thank you all for your much needed advice. We went to the C & P today one was for TBI and the other for his knee. I was rather disappointed with the TBI doctor he seemed to ask a lot of questions and write a lot of stuff down but at the end he said I don't see and increase in your symptoms and he discounted a lot of the symptoms and said he felt they were associated with the PTSD and not the TBI and that he definately had PTSD bad (this is the same doctor who helped reduce his PTSD because he said he seemed to be doing better). The memory loss, the change in his taste (he said was just a change in his appetite not anything to be associated with the TBI, even though this is a symptom), sleep disturbances, ect, everything I was armed with and told him about he felt were all the PTSD and nothing to do with the TBI!

Someone asked if we have had a neuro work up and I don't think so. The TBI doctor mentioned it last time he saw her. She said last time he was so ademate about workign that she didn't push it but now that he seems to be doing worse she felt they could move forward with it. And he was determined to work but now he knows that he just can't take the stress and dealing with people and the memory issues it just realy limits his ability to be employed. So I will look at the websites suggested and tomorrow I will try to scan and upload any documents we have from the VA to see if I can get some feedback on those. We have limited internet at home and if I try to upload anything we end up using all our internet for the month so I will do it from work tomorrow.

I am trying to stick in there because I know it is up to me to get this going but it's hard when you have 3 kids, a full time job and a depressed husband. Trying to balance all that but this forum gives me encouragement that I am not in this alone. Thank you again...

Wife of SSG_RW_Brown

Hi, I hope I can help. I'm rated 100% P%T for tbi and it was a difficult task to do.

The number one thing I harp on for TBI diagnoses/claims is neuro-psych testing. There are several reasons I believe this is the most important detail for the veteran, the family, proper health care, and the claims proccess. The first reason is for the veteran. I was aware I had memory problems and mentioned them to doctors and such. I was given the standard responce that this was a common depression, anxiaty and even PTSD problem. Untill testing, I had no idea of the true extent of my cognative problems, nor did anyone around me, including those evaluating me. The results of the testing has done more for me in explaining the problems I have than anything else before and since. For family members, it helps them 'see' an injury that can't be seen, we brain injured people look quite normal. For treatment and the claims proccess the testing is very important. In my case, untill testing, my subjective complaints of memory problems were assotiated with my depression and anxiaty and at one time I was also diagnosed with PTSD. I have all the symptoms of PTSD but no stressor-no stressor no PTSD. After I was tested everything turned around. Now my depresion and anxiaty is diagnosed as being organic(brain damage) caused by the tbi with my cognative problems a direct result of tbi. All that said, under the rating guidelines for tbi a person can only be rated a low percentage for subjective(self reported) complaints on memory and attention but can be rated higher, up to 100%, for memory and attention problems if it is seen on objective tests(neuro-psychological). So it is very hard to justify not having the tests done. To me it's a simple decision. The highest possible rating for cognative problems(memory, attention ect.) is 40% I believe(could even be lower) without objective testing under DC8045. The highest possible rating with objective testing is 100%.

Sorry for the long rant. In my years on this board, my advice for neuro-psych testing is often ignored for some reason I don't understand. I seem to be the only one that recomends it, but anyone pursueing a tbi rating must have it or be limited to a low rating.

My brain is swimming today, but I thought I would address what I think is the most important aspect. I'll come back later and see if I can address other issues.

[out_here04]

the following post from me is about the "timeliness" aspect of responding to ssg_rw_brown's post, not the details of helping this deserving veteran and his wife who is trying to stand by her husband. she is NOW getting excellent advice, per usual from hadit, and i am ecstatic to see that...

berta, carlie and all, my point was that i just happened to run across ssg_rw_brown's initial post FROM August 11 NOT UNTIL Aug 27. only THAT post was sitting in the thread. i don't usually use the "new posts" function on hadit, i open the forums i am interested in, ones i might follow regularly or if i see an interesting new one noted in the right column.

in the case of ssg_rw_brown (which his wife started on his behalf) i copied and pasted it into a new post and someone from hadit may have restarted it, jbasser or sixthcents, i believe.

yes, berta responded quickly to a "bumped" posting of sgt rw's post days ago, Aug 27, five days ago, but that was STILL 16 days after this vet's angel of a wife posted. she could have given up and came to any number of conclusions.

i personally have seen hadit members, many of you who have chimed in on her post since since Aug 27, jump all over posts and given golden information. it just didn't happen this time.

my ultimate objective is really not to finger-point that any of us volunteers, including elders, are not doing all we can, but to suggest that, in this age of technology, that posts from anyone --newbies to those of us who have been around for a while-- do not just fade away to bottom of the forum lists, as they chronologically do.

i'm not that much of a techie, but --hypothetically-- is it fathomable that all new threads could have a red flag or some other icon in a common folder visable to the elders, an appointed techie, or god bless her tbird, that when at least EVEN ONE reply is logged, that red flag goes away. if the thread gets one or a zillion responses so be it. at least it might eliminate the possibility that a newcomer joins hadit, gets not even one answer, then goes somewhere else or even worse --nowhere else-- seeking studied advice to take on the VA by themselves.

jmho

out

[out_here04]

It was posted inthe wrong forum as it shoud have been posted inthe claims forum.

It does include a TBI but it is a claim.

The TBI forum is an information forum that deals spacifically with TBI issues. All claim s should be posted into the later forum.

J

Out here, I sent the Folks a PM.

Thanks for bringing this one to our attention.

J

jbasser previously explained how this post got "buried". butting out now