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ABH1

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Everything posted by ABH1

  1. Your right! Think I played this all wrong. Yes, was a used beamer:) Doubt she calls me back. I think she figured that I may cause her some grief if I were to tell her supervisors what she was doing. This unfortunately may not help my claim get done sooner, most likely pro-long it. Waited 770 days thus far...
  2. Thank you for all that good info! Well, my C&P was back in March 2011 and was not doing injections at that time. My injections (intralesional, which means they inject direct into my hands where my eczema is located) began in Dec 2011 to date. Since my claim has carried on so long, I hope that the raters look at the current info that is available in the VA hospital. As I understand, they do according to the regional office whom I visited about 6 months ago. Claim so far is at the 770 days mark. Crazy... Thanks so much Berta!
  3. Happy New year fellow vets:) Have had a claim in since nov 2010 and still waiting.... Oakland RO is a little behind... See this thread for more fun info Question, I have had intralesional injections monthly for treatment of my eczema using corticosteriods (kenalog 10) for over 12 months now with daily use of steroid creams under occlusion every night. Does this constitute near constant use of steroids or systemic therapy? Am getting all kinds of different answers on this one so any help is greatly appreciated. Respectfully, Danny
  4. Update: Still waiting for VA Regional in Oakland, Cali to finish "review of evidence', only been three months:) it was in "prep for decision for three months before that but then I heard that Oakland Regional office was shut down for 6 weeks for "re-training" of it's raters. So far my initial claim is over 2 years and waiting. My VS rep has no power to assist. Funny thing happened yesterday.... I work for BMW North America in SF bay area. I get an email that this person ( won't say her name ) who is interested in a BMW convertible in the 23k range. I see that her email is a "VA.GOV" email account. So i email and call her direct, left her message. Her number is located in Sacramento area. Come to find out it is the "satellite VA office" in Sacramento. She calls me back and we are talking BMW stuff. I ask her what she does for the VA. She says she is a something specialist, not sure exact term she used? So I say, "are you a rater? She says, how did you know that? Told her I have a VA claim in the system since Nov 2010? She says she is sorry.. Tells me about the re-training for 6 weeks was due to the error rate at the Oakland RO was too high n many Vet claims. She says that she is being paid "overtime" since re-training and that the airforce and something else are being released soon and the job will get much more backlogged. She tells me that my file is most likely sitting on her desk.....somewhere... We proceed to discuss more BMW.... ( I think she realizes that she is speaking with me while she is supposed to be working on VA claims...) She wants to get off the phone now. So I ask her, "would you mind telling me where my claim is located"? She asks for my last two digits of my SSN. I guess this tells of location??? Tells me that it is located their at her office.... After some thought after our discussion. Was she on break? I sent her an email direct and she said she was looking at her computer. So she was at her desk. Was she getting paid overtime to search for BMW cars? Was she on break? This conversation was at 1:36pm in the afternoon by the way. This bothered me a bit... Not because my claim was sitting at her location for over 760 days not completed but rather, the cavaleer approach of the errors that were made by the Oakland regional office. There was no sense of urgency or want to help the vet with a claim. Am I reading this all wrong? If I am, please let me know. I tell my wife this incident and she goes nuts over it and tells me that I should have asked for special favor.... I don't feel comfortable and happy to wait my turn as many vets have been waiting a long time as well. Thanks for letting me vent that out. Respectfully, Danny
  5. Hi Folks, Need some assistance from the many vets here:) Here is the original posting: Update my fellow vets: Still waiting for RO in Oakland to complete the "review of evidence" per the ebenefits website. Since then, have been to the VA hospital for treatment 8 more times. I asked my VSO if I should send in additional evidence for my SC eczema but he says they will automatically investigate. Is this true??? Question I have: Been receiving corticosteroid intralesional injections under my skin in my hands since December of last year. Does this constitute "systemic" therapy for VA standards? Received injections once per month with "kenalog 10", a corticosteroid. Currently rated at 10% for eczema of the hands and stuff is much worse. Sent in request for increase on 11/2010 I noticed on the ebenefits website that the last evidence received was fro 4-2012 and have sent much more via my VSO. Should it show everything after 2 months? Do you recommend me stepping over my VSO and go direct to regional office and request my "C" file copy? Maybe adding in manually all the latest data from the VA local hospitals? Here is what the ebenefits website mentions below: The ebenefits website displays in the header: Claim Received: 11/10/2010 Claim Type: Compensation Original Estimated Claim Completion Date: 12/13/2011 to 07/03/2012 Your claim is being processed by the Regional Office. We generally process claims in the order received. We recognize that your claim has exceeded the projected completion date and remain committed to completing our review as quickly and accurately as possible. Thank you for your patience. Any help is always appreciated:) Respectfully, Danny
  6. Update my fellow vets: Still waiting for RO in Oakland to complete the "review of evidence" per the ebenefits website. Since then, have been to the VA hospital for treatment 8 more times. I asked my VSO if I should send in additional evidence for my SC eczema but he says they will automatically investigate. Is this true??? Question I have: Been receiving corticosteroid intralesional injections under my skin in my hands since December of last year. Does this constitute "systemic" therapy for VA standards? Received injections once per month with "kenalog 10", a corticosteroid. Do you recommend me stepping over my VSO and go direct to regional office and request my "C" file copy? The ebenefits website displays in the header: Claim Received: 11/10/2010 Claim Type: Compensation Original Estimated Claim Completion Date: 12/13/2011 to 07/03/2012 Your claim is being processed by the Regional Office. We generally process claims in the order received. We recognize that your claim has exceeded the projected completion date and remain committed to completing our review as quickly and accurately as possible. Thank you for your patience. Any help is always appreciated:) Respectfully, Danny
  7. Thanks! Have a copy of every record from my military service, including all medical/dental records. Is this what you are referring Pete?
  8. This is my first post here so please forgive my most likely many errors in writing this and being long winded:) Have used the great information provided here on many occasions to assist. Thank you for all the vets on this site for making his happen, bravo zulu!! At present, I am in a sweet spot in providing VA with the last "evidence" they need for my service connected eczema increase which got rated in 2009 at 10% and received another 10% for tinnitus. My Background in brief... I was a Aviation Boatwains Mate handler ( ABH ) 1st class, worked on the flight deck with helos and jets on carriers and last station before leaving the Navy in 1995 was Camp David in Thurmont Maryland for the Pres. While stationed there, had some eczema noted on my service record on my left hand. Which has now spread to my right hand knuckles. VA granted me Tinnitus but denied me hearing loss for both ears even though the C&P examiner noted loss in my left ear but VA stated "There was no objective medical evidence to associate hearing loss to my military service, so they denied service connection. I understand that my MOS, was on a fast letter with a "high probability" of connection. ( I learned this from this great forum later ). So I let 1 year pass as I not the type of person to complain and moved on. Keep in mind, I can been out of the Navy since 1997, I claimed eczema and hearing loss with tinnitus 14 years later as these things are getting worse. My wife drives me nuts about the tv too loud, whatever.:) So in Nov. 2010, I requested an increase in my eczema due to spreading and getting worse. I come to find out thru Had it the WARMS info that there is criteria that must be met. So I have been using "topical" corticosteriods creams daily for about 2 years now wrapped in bandaids over noght to keep the redness down. By the way, my current occupation is a BMW Fleet manager who works with clientele. This eczema bugs me to death with constant intching and super redness and image is everything in my business, so I am very embarressed about this issue. I understand that in order for me to get increase, I need to be on either a pill/injections systemic corticosteriods, or imunosuppressant for at least 6 weeks. Wish I had knew this info long ago... Let me back up. When I first submitted for my first claim with VA in 2009, had AMVETS represent me or have power of Attorney. Well, the guy was very nice but retires without contacting anyone. I basically had no guidence what so ever. I call and call for help but no one calls me back. I send emails but no answer to AMVETS regional. No guideance at all. Maybe they are busy, who knows. SO I find a County VSO guy, he says, dude, you need to do this and your original denial was a mistake and you need to get that "reopened" as they made a mistake. Alright!!! Now we have a guy that knows what is happening! So he has me sign a form to re-open the file without a Notice of disagreement because at this stage with VA it will take about 4 years to get this done. So Feb 2012 rolls around, received a call from Satellite office in Sacramento Cali, very nice guy and he says, you will have your case worked next in line and will have everything done in 1-2 days.... Wow!!! Okay... Three days later on 2-28-2012, letter in mail from VA, stating need additional evidence...They say, no objective medical evidence to associate my left/right hearing loss to miliary service. Even though I have service entry ear exam, and three ear test from Navy ships showing loss of hearing and threshold shifts. Hmmm. Commuicated this is my new VSR and he said it means VA wants new hearing tests. So I just finished a hearing test with Kaiser and then this past Friday a VA hearing test with the same C&P examiner back in 2009. I told him VA denied my hearing loss and he said it was most likely due to loud noises on the flight deck in the military. So hopefully I am set to send both tests to VA with explanations on there 21-4138 forms. Any suggestions before i send the final info? Apologize for sounding like an idiot to everybody. Back to Service connected eczema: I have for the last two years been using daily all topical corticosteroids provided by Kaiser and VA. Have been seeing the VA since 2009 and all they give me with little result is creams. I finally went to Kasier in December 2011 and saw a Certified Dermatoligist and he gave me injections in my hands, Kenalog 10, a corticosteriod. He also filled out for me a VA form "skin diseases disability benefits questionnaire" which stated that I have been using corticosteroids by injection and topical therapy "constantly" for the last 12 months. he signed it and I sent to VA at end of December 2011. VA came back and said, they want treatment records now, which I have now in hand to send. I also went to same Derma on 2-27-2012 and received another injections on my hands. This by the way has helped BIG TIME. Okay, now I am ready to send everything to Oakland Regional office via my VSR. Question, should I do anything else at this point? Any additional input I should say on evidence forms they provided? Am I missing anything? I received a call from VA saying they have a bad mark on the National list due to my length of claim since Nov 2010. This seems hard to believe as I have heard that many people wait years and years for info. Thank you fellow vets for your valued input! Cheers, Danny
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