john999

I think I would wait until I got the decision on DIC. If the VA denies it then maybe you ought to hire a lawyer and not just for DIC. Maybe the VA made fatal mistakes in your husband's care. Berta is the person here to ask about this. Berta Simmons is the person you want to talk to on VA malpractice. Back surgery is not supposed to kill you. Put a call out to Berta. John

Pete No, I don't think the floodgates are going to suddenly open on CUE, but you can track the progress of your CUE claim pretty easy at the CAVC. As soon as they get a document or something is decided it will be posted. John

I was treated for about 5 months by a psychiatrist at Hunter AAF in Georgia in 1971 just before I was discharged. I cannot find these records. When I send in information requests to HAAF I am told all records would be at St Louis. St Louis says they have no records. The shrink I say did say at my proposed court marshall that I had some mental problems. My military lawyer told me to just take the 635-212 because if I did not I would probably get jail plus bad conduct discharge. The only crime I committed was to deman help and tell some 1st Lt. that I was not leaving his office until I got it. I was arrested and charged with disobeying a direct order. The medical records from HAAF would show that I was on anti-psychotic meds and was pretty much out of my head. How do I find these records if they exist. I was in hospital for two weeks for some sort of lung condition and that disappeared as well at Ft Lenardwood. John

Teac My lawyer has said if we lose at CAVC we will appeal to Federal Court because of issues involved. In my case the VA allowed itself the right to exclude all evidence that would tend to demonstrate for a much higher rating. They allowed all evidence that supported a lower rating even notes from unqualified people. My rights to due process were violated at least. It would be as if you went to court and the prosecution was allowed to put on it case and you were not allowed to put on the case for the defense. If that is what CUE is about then it is just a farce. Teac My lawyer has said if we lose at CAVC we will appeal to Federal Court because of issues involved. In my case the VA allowed itself the right to exclude all evidence that would tend to demonstrate for a much higher rating. They allowed all evidence that supported a lower rating even notes from unqualified people. My rights to due process were violated at least. It would be as if you went to court and the prosecution was allowed to put on it case and you were not allowed to put on the case for the defense. If that is what CUE is about then it is just a farce.

I think the VA should consider DH for housebound.

Yes, Phil is right. You can look up you case with either your lawyer's name or your name at CAVC. I do it all the time. They get changes in posted very quickly.

Is your 1991 decision a final decision? It has to be final to be a possible CUE. Do you have your C-File? Regulations change over time. I found that out the hard way just recently when I filed a CUE and it finally got to the CAVC and they discovered the rating criteria for rating mental disorders had changed between 1972 when I filed and 1973 when the decision was made to rate me 10%. That cost me 6 months since it had to go back to the BVA. Actually, I filed my cue 6 years ago at the VARO. How exactly did the VA make the CUE?

Teac In my claim my lawyer, and my psychologist, whose report was excluded, believe that reasonable minds would find it undebateable that a two page report made on a now extinct VA medical form would not find it debatable that one line in a night log made by an attendant is somehow equal to testimony under oath by a state certified clinical psychologist. Everything is debatable otherwise except death, and that is debatable now that a person can be brain dead but be kept alive for years to harvest organs. The words "undebatable", "reasonable minds" are really concepts that could be discussed and argued about for a thousand years. Reasonable minds went to war many times in the 20th century and killed about 100 million people. That is the opposite of reasonable but they ran the world governments then and run them today.

Carlie You can go to the CAVC and look up my 2012 case under King,John. It will show you the latest BVA decision where they go into a lot of BS, but they do admit I have a valid CUE because the VA had a medical report on record that they excluded from the original rating decision. However, my claim was denied because they said I could not meet the third branch of a CUE in that I could not show it was "undebatable" that this error they made would have resulted in a higher rating. So the BVA denied my CUE and now it is at the CAVC to be reargued again. What the VA is saying now is that any claim that can be debatable can not be a CUE. If a psychiatrist with 20 years experience makes a DX and prognosis and then a VA employee who is just an nurse's aide makes a comments suce as " patient seems calm today" this make the claim debatable. So the patient may have been hypomanic for a year and all this has been documented by a shrink and it means nothing because it is debatable due to statement by someone with no credentials. John

Back in the day the military treated all mental/emotional disorders with the hammer. You had to be psychotic to be discharged as having a medical mental condition. They did not understand a host of conditions and the command would override psychiatric opinion and just kick people out.

Acesup If you submit a medical opinion and the VA does not list or refer to it in their decision that is a CUE. However, you still may not win. I have a CUE just like that at the Court of Vet Appeals for the second time. It gets very messy. Your decision has to be final, so you don't want that. I think if is grounds for an appeal at a lower level due to lack of due process.

OK Bob, Why are you growing morning glories? You know, of course, they have chemicals in the seeds that are related to what is in LSD. l bet you are boiling those seeds and taking "trips" that don't involve the airlines. How about magic mushrooms out your way? I wondered about the heading of your page. Do the names "The teachings of Don Juan" and "A separate reality" sound a familiar note? John

If you were going to forward bases where there had been combat injuries and you were hauling injured back to hospital and some died on the way that is enough for PTSD DX I think under new rules and maybe under old rules. I went to some small hamlets in Nam when I was killing time as in Civic Action squad at LTN and I saw bodies of dead VC laid out due to fire fight previous night.......... mission cancelled for the day. I thought we would never make it back to the main hyw and Captain called base and got some gunships to fly around overhead. I was feeling fine until I saw those dead VC and interpreter told us "big fight last night, many VC, they try and blow up school you helping to build."

Joluby If you are not working apply for TDIU yesterday. I had a GAF of 50 and was on SSD and I got 70%. I had to appeal to get TDIU. GAF scores mean little. Sometimes you just have to hammer them with evidence over and over to get them to do the right thing. How old are you now? John

Pete is a steady hand and a real brain, but he would never admit it. He is the kind of guy who would have been a platoon leader in Vietnam and waited to crack up until after he got home and his men were safe. I have been telling him for years he knows the "inner mind" of the VA better than anyone. Now he is probably embarassed. John

My sleep doctor said my studies showed I had heart arrhythmias while I was having the apneas during sleep. This is why we all want to treat sleep apnea as a very serious disease. I have really struggled with mine. I am going for the nose nozzle now since the full face mask irritates the bridge of my nose so bad it is bright pink in the morning even if I sleep well. My doctor says people die all the time from unknown causes that are really apnea. They fall asleep while driving and crash. They have heart attacks at night and die. They die while having naps during the day.

Your VA claim denial sounds like Commander Bob's. You have plenty there for a PTSD claim. Bob got his leg blown off in Nam and the VA says he never complained about PTSD while in Vietnam so they denied it.

If you are working I think you are in the 50% range. If you are not working I think 70%. This is a guess. Do you have an IMO? I got an IMO that said I had to be poured into my clouthing every morning and had the GAF of a jelly fish and I got 70% and TDIU and I was already on SSDI. Whatever they grant you go out and get an IMO to rebutt it and get more. John

When you are in an organization where brutality is considered a virtue and where hatred of authority is also considered a virtue you might be describing a maximum prison or a combat unit in Vietnam. That can get you a PD DX before you readjust to a normal world.

Just remember you don't have to have PTSD to get 100% for a mental condition from the VA. You can have depression, panic disorder, anxiety disorder, depression etc. You don't even have to have been in combat or in a combat zone.

You know a Fee Base Office employee at James Haley VA Hospital threw away my claim for expenses more than once. The office knew he did it. There was major flack about it within the office. After six months and many calls to the Fee Base I went there and asked what was going on with this claim. The boss was embarrassed. He actually told me what was happening. My claims were granted after much more trouble. The Boss of Fee Bass eventually told me that the employee was disciplined. What does that mean? Did he get a promotion? Is he now the boss of Fee Base. He should have been fired, of course for destruction of government documents. People are always telling me "Thanks for your service" when I wear my Veterans Hat. Little do they know how we are being thanked by the VA. We are being thank with the wrong end of a broom handle.

Back about 45 year ago it was the same way. You got two pages of reasons why you should be satisfied with 10% for being unable to work, and by the way don't bother us any more.

I got this booklet. It is to show you how grateful you should be for what the VA has bestowed on you already and to shut the hell up. I disagree with the premise of the book.

I think it is enough for the VA but a cheap IMO if you could get it would not hurt. It never hurts to get more evidence that states the connection in bolder type.

Berta You should write a book on DIC. I drill my wife on DIC that she should never accept a final "NO" for an answer. I still don't think she understands what she may be up against. John