john999

Berta The PTSD reg is just a backdoor way of denying PTSD claims while pretending to make it easier. The VA does this kind of thing all the time. They pretend to open one door and slam another one in your face. The cost for PTSD was just getting too high, so they gave it to the VA mental health thugs to weed out all those personality disorders and pre-existing conditions from a PTSD DX. Expect many more "adjustment disorder" DX'es.

The VA pain clinic is putting me on Topomax. I complained that the damn fentanyl was doing nothing. They tell me that I will feel much better when they get me off the narcotics. I will feel much better when I get my hands around one of those doctor's necks. The VA is just not worth it. The care is not fit for my dog. I have been on all their pain meds and I am worse off today than when I started using the VA clinic. They lie to my face about the drugs they prescribe. I know why they prescribe this or that drug. It is just due to the cost and bad press. I am going to find a private source for pain treatments. The VA is beyond bad. The place is just a charity hospital and place for lab rats. The VAMC in Tampa is dirty and the people who work their are dirty, slow and rude. Oh, and what else, it stinks. I was there today for 4 hours and I am not going back except to see my shrink.

The exam doctor wrote this report because he is too lazy and greedy to read your medical history. How long did your exam last? If he can cram 10 exams a day he gets better paycheck. What you will probably have to do is get your own doctor to rebutt point by point this doctor's exam once you get your rating. If you raise enough hell you might get another exam before you get your rating. That is usually a long shot.

Now you have SSDI solely for SC conditions I think you will get TDIU. You have not gotten your rating yet so it is to early to speculate on appeals. If you are 80% and not able to work I see that as pretty strong evidence of TDIU. The thing the VA may try is to say you are unemployable for some NSC reason, but with a percentage of 80% I don't know how they can do that and make it stick? They tried that with me. It did not work.

90% plus 50% does not equal 140% with VA math. It would equal 100%.

The exam doctor has to say their is a connection. If the knees are connected and the doctor says the PN is secondary you are ok.

When I go to pick-up window at my VA pharmacy it is no good if I want to get a narcotic script. For that I have to wait 2 hours. The doctor can't call it in to the pharmacy. I have to hand deliver it and then wait. They go out of their way to make it hard to use.

Did the VA know you were totally disabled in 2008? If they knew they should have inferred a TDIU claim. That is something you can fight about. I am not saying you will win but you have a chance. For instance, you were on SSD in 2008 and the VA knew about it.

Get a second opinion outside the VA. I would not let the VA do a total knee replacement on me. If you want to really suffer just let the VA replace your knee. A orthopedic resisdent will do your surgery. He/she will practice on you. Do you want that?

Allan I tolerate oxycodne pretty well. Like you said no oxycontin from the VA due to cost. I did not know about the theft by VA employees. So the VA makes us suffer for their lack of security. My pain doctor told me oxycontin was too addictive but the fentanyl, morphine and methadone is not addictive I guess. I knew they were lying and there had to be another reason. In Florida the demon drug is now oxycodone. It is Satan's spawn according to the media. There are tons of backdoor clinics that will prescribe it on a cash and carry basis. No insurance accepted.

Call your PCP and the him/her that you are going to run out. I have the same problem with pain meds every month and with Crestor. With the pain meds I have to call ambulatory pain clinic. They give me just barely enough to get me though the month. Not one extra pill or patch. I am calling the pain clinic right now trying to get someone to speak to me.

We are going to federal court because the law as written denies due process. We could hope they will settle to avoid presedent. I know my lawyer wants to get paid.

Betty I still think they owe you. Are you pursuing it? That staged rating of yours was just fraud. They cheated you. It depends if you want the stress. If you hire a lawyer he gets the stress. Your staged rating never made a lick of sense. It was just an invention of the VA to save money at your expense. It is par for the course. Nothing personal. Those of us with old claims really got the giant screw. They hide behind the walls of CUE while propogating the fiction of CUE as a fix. Sure if you can wait ten years and find a lawyer to take you case.

My VAMC says the DEA is their biggest problem in treating pain. I say it is cost. Cost drives every decision they make regarding vets. I am getting Crestor now. I get 15 pills at a time. This creates a burden on me. I had to split pills and I am already out of refills and have months to go before I see my PCP. They want me to come in for a blood test to see if Crestor is lowering my blood sugar. That is fine but it is an hour trip both ways just to get blood work. Then I have to wait to see my PCP and play phone tag. The VA would rather see me dead than supply me with adequate prescription of Crestor since they think zocor is not working. What I get from this is that the VA wants to spend as little on me as possible. I am a liability and from their logic the VA system would be better off if I were dead. It would cost them less. I am going to fool them.

Oh, I am going to fight to the bitter end. My lawyer wants to fight as well. I just see that the current CUE system is a fraud. It is the only way for a vet to modify an old decision that was not appealed. The VA actually said that even though the VA did not provide me with appeal rights in 1973 that is no CUE. They also said that no matter how unfair a decision is that is not a CUE. That leads to the question of just what would be a CUE? I am getting more pissed everytime I think about it. I already told the lawyer to go ahead to the CAVA. I will sign the papers and do whatever else is required. It is a legal argument now. It is not about evidence or even about me. It is about the law and due process. I will quit ranting about it. How far can you get outside the VA system with a claim? Is CAVA the last appeal?

See in a CUE anything that was not in front of the VA or should have been in front of the VA is not considered. My doctors evidence should have been in front of the VA rater. They admit that. Letters written 40 years later are no good. My doctor from 40 years ago whose evidence they excluded still treats me. He would write letters for me but the one he wrote in 1973 was so devastating, but the VA still says it is debateable. My doctor says I was totally incapacitated at that time and the VA says I was a little bit nervous. They win. A reasonable mind could say that although he is on a locked ward with other psychotics he is just mildly nervous and depressed. He gets along well with other psychotics. How do you defeat that logic? I guess you go to court.

My CUE was for a higher percentage. What the VA did was to just exclude evidence from my psychologist who treated me for six months. My doctor said I was getting worse. The BVA admitted this fact. They let in evidence from a VA doctor who saw me one time on the locked ward. I never had a C&P exam. My psychologist's evidence was the only evidence that followed the criteria for an exam. The VA relied completely on my SMR's, statements from unnamed witnesses about drug abuse, and a single sentence from a VA doctor. What the VA said was that the evidence for a higher rating than 10% was not undebateable. Nothing is undebateable. Some people believe the world is flat. According to the VA's I don't think any vet can meet that standard of proof. It is a fraud. It was not a case about weighing the evidence. It was about excluding evidence. What the VA says is regardless of the exclusion of evidence you cannot meet our impossible burden anyway. The VA can exclude any evidence they want in a final decision and you still can't win a CUE.

If you have insurance you could get a private (you control the vertical, you control the audio) vocational evaluator to look at you. You will get a more sympathetic ear. Basically, you want a doctor to say you can't work due to your SC conditions and all the effects of those conditions.

Bob The crunch in your claim for possible CUE and retro will be when the VA says "Oh,yes, he had PTSD in 1975, but it would not matter because there was some debate about symptoms and severity. It is not undebateable that he was only NSC or only good for 10%, and by the way, I believe some doctor said he did have two real legs. Therefore, there is debate about him losing a leg in Vietnam". This is the kind of reasoning they used in denying my CUE.

Betty In your claim the VA never admitted a CUE am I right? Didn't they say you had an open unresolved claim? The CUE standard Jesus walking on water could not meet on a 40 year retro claim at the BVA. That is my opinion and my lawyers opinion. As it stands the CUE standard that unconsidered evidence must result in undebateable conclusion that a different result is just impossible. What kind of evidence is absolutely undebatable? Even if you lost a leg in combat some doctor might raise a question that you lost your leg before you enlisted. That is a debate. The VA is saying there cannot be any debate. 12 doctors say you have cancer and one says it is just heatburn. No CUE. There is a debate . Maybe VA admits CUE in certain claims but the more retro the less likely that would be IMHO. RSG You know if my lawyer eventually loses my CUE he will never take one again is what he told me. But even with these hurdles you got to get a lawyer because you will end up at CAVA. I wonder how long CAVA takes. Will I live to see this result?

Berta Does the VA post CUE decisions on their website? The decison is too long to post here. It would be good reading. My lawyer Karl K. says he will take it to the Supreme Court. To quote the BVA "if it is not absolutely clear that a different result would have ensued, the error complained of cannot be, ipso facto, clear and unmistakable? Fugo, 6 Vet App. at 43-44. The VA admitted there was an error when the VA excluded my evidence, but since the the veteran (me) was able to have relationships, however superficial, with others that discounted my doctors opinion that I was unemployable and unable to function in society. That is why my CUE failed. I was on a locked ward when the VA doctor wrote I had some kind of relationships with fellow mental patients meaning, I guess, that I was not strapped to a bed and unable to speak. The burden the BVA has set for me no one could meet. By BVA standards it is just not possibile to have a CUE. I was awarded 10% which for a DX of "chronic undifferentialed schizphrenia" is laughable. It is like being a little bit pregnant. I never got my appeal right either. I am in a box only the law can get me out of via the CAVA I hope. Bob If you go after them on a CUE get a lawyer. Easier for a camel to go throug the eye of a needle than for a Vet to win significant retro via CUE at the BVA. If I had been heard to fart that would have satified the BVA that I could have significant relationship to others at the time.

I take opiates from the VA. When I do piss test if they find alcohol I am out of the program. One drink the night before an exam and I am done. The VA is so paranoid that you will OD and they will get blamed they will toss you out on slightest indication you are drinking or using illegal drugs for pain. I get asked 20 questions every time I get perscription filled for any narcotic. I have been in the program for years and still they suspect me of either selling my drugs or abusing them.

I am using fentanyl patches for pain. They are crummy and don't really work. They are supposed to last three days. They last about 24 hours.

Bob My lawyer was more pissed off than I was since I was expecting the drill. What is interestting is that the standard the VA has for showing that it is undeniable that evidence excluded from a rating decision would have made a difference in the decision cannot be met. Me and my lawyer agreed that it was impossible under existing laws to meet that standard. The CUE law in this area is a fraud. The VA says that it is wrong to exclude records or evidence from a rating, but then comes back and says it would not have mattered anyway. It seems the only way to win a CUE like mine would be if the VA excluded all the evidence except my evidence. You have to see one of these decisions to understand the degree of fraud involved.

File to reopen and if and when you are denied do an NOD and hire a lawyer. Forget chasing the CUE for now. Work on establishing SC now.