john999

The VA is very sensitive to all the bad publicity around the abuse of presciption pain killers. They prescribe a lot of oxycodone which is now the main drug of abuse amoung people in my state. Expect even less cooperation from the VA for new and better pain meds that have a big price tag. If it is expensive or has a bad reputation among drug abuse enforcers don't expect the VA to help you. Drugs like oxycontin and dilaudid would cause my pain doctors at the VA to fall down in a faint. That is why they like fentanyl patches because they are pretty hard to abuse unless you boil them and make fentanyl tea out of them. My VA doctors are tying to get me off the oxycodone and onto the fentanyl even though it has not worked for me. After using the VA pain clinics for ten years they still think I am a drug addict or drug pusher who is just fooling them. By the way, are fentanyl patches expensive? I do know fentanyl is a very powerful narcotic. My thesis is that cost and the DEA are the main drivers of all pain care at the VA. They are afraid of the DEA as are all pain clinics and doctors. The DEA would be better named the Drug terrorist Administration. DEA is the police agency that most resembles the Gestapo. They terrorize both doctors and patients.

Remember, it is not the DX that will get you a higher rating but the level of disability you have now. I was DX'ed with depression, bi-polar, schizophrenia. It does not matter what name they call it. What matters is do your symptoms match at least a 50% level of disability for a mental disorder other than PTSD. I would try and get an IMO and then ask for a personal hearing before shipping this claim off to the BVA where you will be waiting for 2-3 years. If you are unemployable that is a long time to wait for a check. What you will probably get from the BVA is a remand. That will probably add another year to the 3 years you waited.

I had a BVA hearing 6 months ago. Me and my lawyer had to limit the number of issues the judge wanted to hear. Considering your ability to hire lawyers for these BVA hearings why would a vet go in there on his own to get smoke blown in his face? Vets should not go to hearings in front of BVA judges by themselves or with some half-ass idiot form the local VFW. This is your shot to submit a brief and make an argument. Hire someone who has the wits to actually understand the issues and the expertise to write a brief. If you have appealed more than one issue to the BVA then you can address them at the hearing. My guess is the BVA judge was in a hurry to get some lunch and just BS'ed the vet. They are able to do this because the know the vet does not know the procedural rules, and because they have no respect for a lone vet who is unrepresented by an expert who will call the judge out on this kind of crap.

I think you can get what you want from the VA by using the system to embarrass them in-house and to disrupt the lives of VA officials in a way that causes them to take time out of their day to shut you up. The easiest way for them to shut up a single vet is to give them what they want as long as you don't let the cat out of the bag. I recently did send a letter to the director of medical services at my VAMC and to my astonishment I got an immediate response. Doctors and administrators at the VA work under constraints most medical professionals would not tolerate. If you make a fuss the right way I think you can almost get anything you want. The VA is like a big, fat whale that can't swim. Just be a shark and stroll up and take a bite.

I have private insurance as part of my retirement benefits from the federal civil service. When the VA is allowed to cost shift to my private insurance it helps to drive up my premiums. This is a small part of why my premiums keep going up, but I still resent it. The VA is supposed to "own" my medical care. Well, I think they outsource the costs. The VA knows they can bill the insurance companies for service connected care because the insurance companies have no way of knowing what is and what is not SC'ed. Even if they know it costs more to separate them out than to pay them. This is what BC/BS told me.

How about taking a long ride in a car? I need help getting out of the car. My back will hurt for two days after a long car trip. The muscles in my lower back seem to just get tighter and tighter. I always thought "At least I have a strong back". Not any more.

It is like having chronic pain that does not meet so-called "objective" criteria. Pain is subjective sensation, but I have had doctors say to me that my back looks good to them so why am I complaining about pain. If the doctor knows you have any sort of emotional illness then you are really DOA. They will tell you in so many words that it is all in your head. Just take an aspirin and call me next year.

If he had a blood transfusion while in service that would be good for hep c. You could get it from getting tatoos in service, but how does the VA look at that?

What is wrong with these people is that the VA is a mess and nobody cares. If they don't kill you it is just luck.

I think I would try every other cause for your Hep C before I would try and link IV drug abuse as the cause. I would do some research to find other potential causes of Hep C related to your service. IV drug abuse may be the reason, but the VA will say it is due to your own willful misconduct. If you say you used IV drugs back home after Vietnam that will really put a curse on you. This is just my opinion. I used drugs in Vietnam. I have never mentioned it in a claim since that day. If you start talking about IV drug abuse the VA will be seeing you as some sociopath and start to blame all your problems on drug abuse. If you can squeeze something more out of the DMII or PTSD it would be better. IV drug abuse is radioactive and toxic when it comes to the VA. The military does not even want to admit it exists or ever existed in their midst. I can just see the VA's write up on you. "Veteran has long history of IV drug abuse". That in my opinion would be death to a claim. I could be wrong. I hope someone will contradict me and site a claim to the contrary. I am sure not judging you, but trying to see it the way the VA will see it, or try and spin it.

I get new DX'es every time I get seen by a doctor at the VA. Your rating depends on your degree of disability and not on a DX. You want to show by the medical evidence that your condition has gotten worse.

SgtAF Are you a Vietnam vet with an Agent Orange condition? I know you are a FNG here. You are doing a lot of lecturing of others here, but what is it that you know that helps others? Attacking a moderator who has been here for years is sort of dumb if you want to be heard. I understood where Pete was coming from, but I don't understand where you are coming from.

A small fraction of Vietnam vets receive benefits for AO diseases. How many vets will die from AO exposure we don't know because every few years a number of fatal diseases are added to the presumptive list. Widows of dead vets who don't get DIC are usually totally ignorant of the VA. They don't think " Oh, my husband who died 10 years ago might have died of an AO disease. I should be getting DIC". They think they are lucky if the dead husband gets burial in a VA cemetary. If you were exposed to AO 40 years ago you don't get a benefit until you file a claim.

Get an IMO or IME that will rebutt the findings of the C&P exam point by point. Even if you get another C&P exam it might be worse. Who pays for C&P exams? The VA pays for these exams. They work for the VA. You need a doctor who is working for you, and getting paycheck from you. Nobody at the VA is your friend.

You have a good chance, but you do need a report from a doctor saying you are unemployable due to this combination of symptoms. Just because you have the percentages does not mean you get IU. We just talked about this with RSG who has percentages but was rejected for TDIU. Has a doctor said you can't work due solely to DMII and complications?

If you get a DX from a C&P exam that says although you have confirmed stressor for ptsd you have a mood disorder this won't help you much if you have been out of military for 20 years, and have no record of being treated for mental health condition in service. Even if your doctor says he believes your depression is related to your service if your records are "silent" on any DX and/or treatment for depression you are up the creek. Where is the nexus? A doctor can't create a nexus if there is no evidence to back it up. Otherwise any vet with a MH issue would already be SC'ed. PTSD is the only one I know where all is required is stressor and DX.

If it is expensive the VA won't use it. If it has some generic form then maybe. I would not hold my breath waiting for the VA to think outside the box. They are the box.

This is the VA playing "Gotcha". The VBA is still a rotten organiation who main mission is to find evidence to "deny" claims. It is the 4% soulution. Vets who depend on the VA to get SC'ed for any condition are really letting the claim hang on a rotten limb. It should not be that way, but that is the system in my eyes. Obviously, the VA went over this vet's evidence to find some reason to deny. Most vets with PTSD have depression. Since there was evidence that the vet had a mood disorder and PTSD the benefit of doubt should have gone to the vet.

I make all major decision according to the Eight Ball. For any answer you get from the Eight Ball you can build a good case for action, inaction or come back later.

I got 70% at age 52 and was denied IU. I appealed and got IU at age 53 but was denied P&T. I appealed the denial of Chapter 35 and my effective date. I got P&T and IU back to age 51. I have been P&T for nine years. The VA did pull out every old gimmick to try and keep me away form getting IU. They said just because I was unemployed did not mean I was IU. They said my being uneployed was due to NSC issues. They said I was likely to get better so no P&T. They said my problems were all related to civilian occupation. I rebutted all these roadblocks. I would not believe anything the VA says except the numbers on the check you receive each month. The biggest factor for P&T is for you to have a medical opinion saying you are permanently and totally disabled. Even when you get P&T I bet the VA will cheat you on your effective date. You get SSD for an SC condition the VA will not use the SSD date as your effective date for VA 100% or IU. Why is this? Common sense tells you that if you get SSD for SC condition you can't work. Why should that not be your effective date for IU? Getting SSD is much more rigorous than IU. They are just flat out cheating you and me. People on SSD almost never go back to work. You have to have major disability to get SSD. I do have CUE claim going back to 1971 asking for IU. The evidence for IU is right there in my records, but I was 21 year old Vietnam vet and was by definition some kind of dog. The sicker and more needy you are the less likely the VA is to reach out and help you. If you are hard nosed vet who knows regs then you win the prize.

I use oxycodone and have a catarat in my right eye. Medicare will pay for cataract surgery from a real professional eye doctor who has done 10,000 surgeries. Would I let some VA resident mess with my sight....oh, hell, no. I am 60 years old and I wonder if AO has something to do with cataracts?

I have used the VA opiate program. This was OK as long as you had no changes needed in your scripts. They would mail me the dope every month. As time progressed the drugs became less effective as is the usual case with narcotic pain meds. My PCP referred me to the ambulatory pain clinic for adjustment. Now I have to drag myself into the VAMC once a month and wait for an hour to see a different doctor each time. I have to wait around for the piss test. Then if I want my pain meds right away I have to wait at the VA for two hours to get the script. I spend the whole day for one script. This sucks! I pity anyone with chronic pain problems that relies on the VA. I think it is better to somehow just suffer the pain than to be on this hamster wheel. Better to just tie a block of concrete around your neck and jump into the nearest lake than be treated like a dope fiend.

RSG These NSC issues need to be taken off the board somehow. The only way I know is for a shrink to say that "yes, you have NSC issues, but the SC depression is the reason you can't work". I can see the VA just latching onto these NSC issues. IU must be solely for SC conditions. When I got IU I did have other problems but the SC problems were the ones that appeared in my SSD and in my medical reports. You might even want to try to get 100% schedular rather than fight this IU with all these other issues.

RSG This sounds bogus to me. If you get SSD soley for the same condition you are SC'ed for that should be enough to get IU. The VA is jerking you around on this. There is no way you can force former employers to say you were fired or quit because of some SC condition. Have you had a personal hearing on this? I was 70% and denied IU because the VA said my NSC were the actual cause of my being unemployed. I got around this by hiring a good IMO doctor. The doctor needs to review your records and write a medical history that includes the reasons that your SC condition is the sole cause of your being IU. What the VA is doing in your case is getting out the microscope to find a reason to deny. I think in your case I would hire a lawyer. The VA is going way, way out of their usual routine to deny you. The most important thing I believe is to have explicit statement from a psychiatrist saying you can't work because of your SC conditions. This is what got it for me. The doctor needs to address the very reasons you were denied point by point.

Usually, if you tell the doctor or hospital you are requesting the records for the VA they won't charge you.