GoldDvlDog

haha too funny lol

Once again... things that make you go hmmmm.... your right ... this is crazy.. I think they are trying out our current administrations tactic of spending our way out of debt. Just in the books alone it will cost tax payers $158 million dollars just in the cost of books.. granted they get a bulk contract discount so say like $123 million. How can you cut spending by spending more. Also you got to think about all the new I.T. cost and communications revamping costs to implement this new program. Then they have to pay to train va employees on the new system. And they say there is a lack of doctors... $158 million dollars is enough to put 1 new doctor or 2 in every va clinic around the U.S. And thats not includeing the other money they could save by not haveing to redo their entire I.T. system. So its probably more like 2-3 doctors per va clinic they could employ. In my opinion why should we have to pay for the V.A.'s mistakes in there own bureaucracy they are so back logged and under bugeted because they did it to themselves. instead of trying to find ways to avoid the inevidable (seeing patients) and hopeing vets will walk away from the system they need to DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM AT THE SOURCE! Vets in need of medical attention! Dont reschedule us, dont give us a book and say help your self, dont send us down the bureaucratic poop shoot help us! What is the US comeing to... I am a proud veteran, proud of my country, proud of my family... and its sad that I cant say the same about the V.A./government. I am a veteran with Progressive M.S. im still holding on to my current job for as long as I physically can due to private insurance. The last time I went to the va they told me all the doctors were going to be out untill October and they had to reschedule my appointment and that if I would like i could see a nurse. Now I know why. Also I got told that my local formulary does not carry my M.S. injection meds and that the main formulary told them I will have to get them from a 3rd party because it would cost them to much to ship it..... hmm more over spending.. instead of just shipping it paying the 35 bucks.. now the va will have to pay a 3rd party full price wich is over 1k a month. Hence why im still on private insurance lol.

All I can say is WOW lol really? WOW... interesting part is that they dont even know where the poor persons money is! Sounds like something Bernie Maddoff would do. Never thought of it this way before lol we pay taxes as vets right? the va is tax payer funded right??? so... they take our money... filter it through someone.. dont keep track of it and loose it... then give us back whats left of our money as a payment hmm... just thinking out loud here sorry lol

Hey there Bandit :) . Im also a OEF/OIF vet. Hang in there! you are not alone! I too am suffering from some of the same things you are.. If you feel you cant hang in there contact the Va hotline. if you can hold out for a lil bit the first step i took was going to my local Disabled american veterans office. The person I spoke with there is not a psych but a counselor. He sat me down and let me tell him my whole life story then ran a PTSD screening on me. They can put you in counseling with one of the Veterans Helping Veterans counseling groups or he might suggest some one on one counseling. Next step after that is head down to your local VA clinic and ask to speak with what ever case worker that is assigned to your group and tell them that you are in DIRE! need to speak with one of the Va psychs. the case worker will get you going in the right direction. And as far as them telling you in one visit that no your liar you dont have ptsd that is absurd. They need to run screenings on you! like Kelly said below dont take sub standard responses or care from the VA stand your ground and be firm with them. If they tell you no sorry you cannot speak with your assigned case worker ask why and when you could speak with them. If they tell you sorry we cant see you for a couple of weeks tell them that this is a DIRE! emergency and they really cannot wait that long. FIRST AND FOREMOST! SEEEEEEEKKKK HELLLLLP! them after you start getting treatment or feel you got a better hold of things then you should start on working that claim for PTSD through the DAV or one of you local vso's. Hope all is well and hang in there! and god bless if you need to talk to someone send me an email with your info i would gladly speak with you :)

thank you Berta good info :)

"We did not feel any need to reinvent the wheel," Baker said. "We have greatly increased our confidence that we can implement a very effective benefits system to the time, schedule and budget that we lay out, and that is because we are replicating what we did." To funny hes even admitting that the va is a hampster wheel... well I guess ill roll my squeeky wheel to my next point... "Another reason for optimism in reducing the claims backlog is the success of what VA is calling the "Fast Track," program, where veterans can file disability claims with the help of a private doctor who fills out a VA questionnaire." Hmm sounds all to familiar.. that is such a dog and pony show answer lol he must be reading a telle prompter. The "Fast Track" program? nothing with the VA is fast.. even with The modernization act to get the Va to expedite claims has not helped. There was new backlogs from all the new PTSD claims, and now we must not forget the Nehmer claims as well. "Fast Track" program.. who do they think they are kidding hope they dont think all of us veterans believe that.

you should be fine on your claim to the back injury... you got SMR documentation and that since the va has not helped you nor did they before you discharged it has now become more aggravated. As far as the MST issue might i suggest putting in a claim for PTSD. With PTSD there is a vast grey area....... With PTSD you would only need your word and clinical findings that there is some underlying mental issues. Goto you local va clinic and ask to speak with a psych doc and state its because your haveing some issues that you do not feel comfortable talking with anyone else about. Also the psych doc at the va is the one you need to goto not the local DAV counseling groups or better known as Veterans helping Veterans as this will be more a waste of your time to expedite evidence for a PTSD claim due to the VHV being a private sector group counseling instead of a Va doctor one on one IMO. This would be your best bet in my opinion since there was no record of it. The grey area of PTSD like i said is vast.. and many people esp now have abused this type of claim due to the mere fact they may have never had anything happen to them at all yet... since its all based off what you tell the psych doc at the va when they screen you for PTSD most get some kind of compensation. I know a veteran that was working at a court house with me who was also a OIF vet and he got not joke 90% for PTSD. For the people like you and I who really do have issues just watch what you say to the docs and help will come with due process dont get discouraged... good luck and god bless if you got any questions on the PTSD process just send me mail and ill respond, i am lucky i have a close friend that is an actual va psychologist.

Thank you all once again. I was able to get ahold of a lawyer that the pva refered me to in case I need to send my claim to the BVA to get an explanation on how ms is rated.. these were the results of the convo. The Rso will rate Multiple sclerosis by its self and any residuals from ms as secondary. The big misconception on MS claims is that ms is only rated at 30%.. the attorney explained that MS is 30% minimum not max.. the actual disease is Demyelination in the brain and spine. To elaborate if you have only a couple of Small foci showing on a MRI as ms plaques in the brain you might only get 30% as to where if you have multiple foci on both hemispheres of the brain,brain stem,and spine(most of the time lower lumbar or thorasic) you may get a higher rateing for the larger presence of the disease its self in the myelin. Now for the secondary conditions being incurred from the Demyelination such as spasms, headaches,numbness,pain in muscles/joints, loss of use to extremities etc etc.. shall be rated seperately and not considered to be pyramiding due to the actual disease is only the Demyelination its self. He also told me most of the cases he had handled have been relapsing remmiting ms which are not as bad as PPMS but any case of ms is still a hard alement to live with and for anyone trying to claim any form of MS with the va would be causeing more harm to themselves to not submit for all secondary issues esp. if you have relapsing remitting because the RSO's are not doctors and will not say hmm well if they have ms they must be haveing these issues as well. (even thou in some rateings i saw where the RSO dismissed a real doctors IMO) <~< things that make you go hmmmm...

Thank you everyone! Im still in the process of looking up all the info you guys/gals' have given me. Im very thankful to have found this site, you all have an abundance of knowledge that is very useful. Ms is a very complex alement to deal with and to try to get rated for. And yes! thank you Tami :) MOST people just dont under stand we may look fine but we are not. 30% for ms is peanuts... when you have random daily vertigo,chronic headaches,crazy vision problems,numbness and loss of use (temp) half your body and pain that you cant even discribe ETC ETC.... (tami knows lol) maybe the 30% rateing they give for ms is representing the 30% that they understand about it and the other 70%... they just want to argue about lol. Almost every case ive looked at from the BVA ms is always 30%, most of the time increases are granted but sometimes they are denied.

Hello all :) My name is Cody I am new here and I have quite a long story... and a ton of questions cause I dont know where else to turn.. I'm a Iraqi veteran, did multiple overseas tours and spent 5yrs in the Marines. The fallowing is my story and I know im not alone but maybe some other people who were as lost as I am now but figured out what to do can maybe give me some insight. I started going to a va med center a few years back and had told them i thought for new iraqi vetrans my visits and meds were supposed to be free and they told me yes. When i would goto my appointments I remember it clearly to this day my appointment would be at 10am i would arrive there at about 930am but for some reason, other veterans were being seen before me and almost every time i would have to wait about 3+hrs after my appt to be seen. When i asked why there was a long wait (granted i was and am greatful for any help) the response That i would get was "oh the person we saw before you was a regular". Then after 2 months of going to the va center I got a letter in the mail for a bill.. when i went back there they told me i was mis informed that service was only free for sc alements. Even after i showed them the bill and regulation that was past for new VFW's for free service they wrote the bill off on my credit and flagged my IRS return for the money owed... after this... I HAD IT! I stoped seeing and never wanted to go back to the va. But i began to get sicker and sicker... I spent out of pocket about 10k or so to finally get a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.. first thought was wow.. im 28 and have ms what am I going to do... am i going to be in a wheel chair?, how am i going to support myself?, what do i do now... My first symptoms where while i was in iraq i started haveing what almost seemed to be really bad acid reflux but it got to the point where i would have to curl up in the fetal position from the pain and some times vomit from the internal pain.. later i learned that this was called a ms chest hug. Most people with ms dont get this but the ones who do know what im talking about, i went to sick hall and the doctor told me i was haveing throat spams... even though i repeatedly told him it was more in my chest not my throat... they blew me off. While i was on active duty i also had random hearing loss.. which the doc's had no idea what was going on lol. sometimes it was great some times it was horrible. I would also have spells of insomnia, one time my staff nco's had to force me to goto to medical because i could not even speak correctly, in 2 weeks i had only slept 4 hours.....i now found out it is most likely due to muscle spasms, I moved this past year and met another veteran at work (who i cannot thank enough) who talked me into going back to the va.. the new va center im going to now is awsome nothing like the first one i went to, i was assigned a case worker who found out the reason i was being billed is because someone at the other center was to lazy to make a simple phone call to get my combat dates entered and that its sad how i was supposed to have 5yrs of free services and its now wasted because of someones failure to make a simple phone call. She actually appologized on behalf of the va to me and she cant even fathom how this could happen. Now my next step is to get help... am getting to the point where on a daily basis i feel like my legs are in a vise and someone is crushing them and do not know how long i can keep working. So... i went to the DVA they helped me out quite a bit but the only problem im haveing is that the dav rep has never had to deal with a claim for MS. The fallowing is the list of my claims.. 1.Bilateral hearing loss (in SMR) 2.Dental Condition (in SMR. needed alot of dental but they had no time before my eas. even says on my dd214) 3.Undiagnosed Illnesses (now diagnosed MS) 4. Hair loss ( i am going bald but wasnt worried about this.. dav told me to put it in there lol) 5. Neurological Symptoms (vertigo, congnitive functioning, residual from ms) 6.breathing condition (in SMR asthma) 7. Gerd ( in SMR but as throat spasm) 8.Chronic Fatigue (2ndary ms) 9.memory loss (2ndary ms.. i have severe memory problems) 10. Joints condition (2ndary ms pain in joints) 11.Insomnia (in SMR 2ndary ms) 12.Skin Rashes (in SMR 2ndary ms.. impetigo in nose and rashes on arms and legs) 13.Headaches (2ndary to ms) 14.Sleep Disturbances (not sure and neither was dav how to put a claim for wakeing up from pain) 15.6th nerve palsy (submited from personal doctors report) 16.Osteophytes (Mri of the spine reading submited in t-12 l-1 region have multiple with thecal sac deformity) 17.Demyelinating plaque (active multiple scaring in both sides of brain and right brain stem also in T-11,T-5 of lumbar spine have mri and x-rays.. multiple mri's lol) 18. paraparesia ( in personal med reports ... this is numbness of legs lost use of left side from waist down) 19. Paresthesias ( in personal med reports.. this is numbness of the face.) there is more but after the dav sent this off i was told OMG! NO! that is a shotgun claim it will be denied.. so i didnt submit anymore for now.. lol one of my main questions is should i have put in only a claim for ms? or did i do the right thing by putting in for all that i had medical documentation for? also will they rate my symptoms seperately or will they call it pyramiding? i have seen different answers for this question but i have been told no they have to be rated seperately but no actual reg or paper showing this. I also dont know if any of the above is actually claimable! I am also being told that i should go after all the out of pocket funds i had to pay for the diagnosis.. this im completly lost on. the va clinic case worker told me no the va would not pay this back. but then i got told no to fight for it but i dont know how! also the va center i goto called the main formulary and to get me Injections for MS and they told them they would not send it because it costs to much.. WTH do i do if the va says yes we will treat you but no we wont pay for med.. the injections cost about 28k a year btw... I hope someone else has gone through something similar to me and can answer some of my questions im lost and need to be found :( Thank you if you have read this... and god bless us all.