Former Navy Seal With Ddd Needs Help.

[Mark C]

Greetings everybody, I need a bit of advise here. I did 5 years active duty with SEAL Teams in the 80's, I got out in 88.

In 2000 I was at work and helped my boss pick up to move a heavy parts box, as I did so I felt a pop in my lower back followed by enormous pain.

I went and had an MRI done, and the pop I felt was L5-S1 herniating. But what the MRI also uncovered was a well established case of degenerative disc disease with dessication, on every single level of my lumbar spine.

I've been waiting 3 years for my appeal for service connection to be heard, and just today I get the brown envelope and they're remanding my claim to my local VA for them to make a decision, so I'm right back to where I started.

It would seem to me that the training we went through would be an obvious possible cause for degenerative disc disease (beach runs with telephone poles on shoulder ect...) but what can I do to get my VARO to see the light?

Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers,

Mark

[Mark C]

check this link http://www.hadit.com...r_va_claim.html

Thank you very, very much Berta and Tbird. That's excellent information.

[JustPLS]

There is also this, from 38 CFR:

§ 3.159 Department of Veterans Affairs assistance in developing claims.

(a) Definitions. For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) Competent medical evidence means evidence provided by a person who is qualified through education, training, or experience to offer medical diagnoses, statements, or opinions. Competent medical evidence may also mean statements conveying sound medical principles found in medical treatises. It would also include statements contained in authoritative writings such as medical and scientific articles and research reports or analyses.

Good luck!

[Mark C]

There is also this, from 38 CFR:

§ 3.159 Department of Veterans Affairs assistance in developing claims.

(a) Definitions. For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) Competent medical evidence means evidence provided by a person who is qualified through education, training, or experience to offer medical diagnoses, statements, or opinions. Competent medical evidence may also mean statements conveying sound medical principles found in medical treatises. It would also include statements contained in authoritative writings such as medical and scientific articles and research reports or analyses.

Good luck!

Boom, there it is! Thank you very much JustPLS. that's exactly what I needed to know.

You folks are super!

[carlie]

Mark C,

I think your putting the cart before the horse.

" Competent medical evidence may also mean statements conveying sound medical principles found in medical treatises. It would also include statements contained in authoritative writings such as medical and scientific articles and research reports or analyses."

Only my opinion here from what I have personally seen and experienced.

Medical treatises and authoritative writings found in medical and scientific articles and research reports or analyses,

that are submitted to VBA will be given considerable weight WHEN and IF a doctor relates those articles directly

to the claimant and their disability.

In all the claim issues I have seen, when a claimant just submits these types of Information on their own behalf,

the decision maker, (the person with the authority to assign weight to the evidence) does not consider these submissions

as Evidence - they consider it as Information.

Again, this is only my opinion but I do not feel at all, that with you submitting this,

"Cumulative occupational lumbar load and lumbar disc disease – results of a German multi-center case-control study"

for consideration, will help to bolster,support or bring in the application of the benefit of the doubt,

on your claim for service connection. This study is "general information" and not at all specific to you, your

active duty and your medical problem's.

I feel you will need a very strong IMO stating the doctor has reviewed your SMR/STR's that show

XXX on XX/XX/XXXX, and that your current diagnosis of DDD is at least as likely as not, a direct residual

effect of that active duty injury.

This maybe particularly true since there is no evidence of record to support an opinion other than this.

Also, keep in mind that the VBA will more likely than not request to see some evidence of continuity

of care and will likely, in my opinion deny the claim on this bases.

Please don't shoot the messenger here - I am only making comment from how I see -

the VBA will see and respond to this.

[sharon]

The task you face now is to seek an expert physician who will review your complete medical records and write a letter stating that it it his or her opinion that your injury (condition) today is related to the military service. While medical evidence obtained on the internet is good, you must show how it relates to you. Otherwise it will carry little or no weight.

3.303

(b) Chronicity and continuity. With chronic disease shown as such in service (or within the presumptive period under 3.307) so as to permit a finding of service connection, subsequent manifestations of the same chronic disease at any later date, however remote, are service connected, unless clearly attributable to intercurrent causes. This rule does not mean that any manifestation of joint pain, any abnormality of heart action or heart sounds, any urinary findings of casts, or any cough, in service will permit service connection of arthritis, disease of the heart, nephritis, or pulmonary disease, first shown as a clearcut clinical entity, at some later date. For the showing of chronic disease in service there is required a combination of manifestations sufficient to identify the disease entity, and sufficient observation to establish chronicity at the time, as distinguished from merely isolated findings or a diagnosis including the word Chronic. When the disease identity is established (leprosy, tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, etc.), there is no requirement of evidentiary showing of continuity. Continuity of symptomatology is required only where the condition noted during service (or in the presumptive period) is not, in fact, shown to be chronic or where the diagnosis of chronicity may be legitimately questioned. When the fact of chronicity in service is not adequately supported, then a showing of continuity after discharge is required to support the claim.