john999

Now you know why you get rating decisions that are full of errors in spelling and grammer. In the past even the claims I have won don't make sense. What you do is pile a huge load of evidence. The rater looks at it and decides it is easier to grant it than read it. What has won for me in the past is dropping a load of evidence on their heads rather than fancy arguments about regs and rules. You have to follow regulations in general, but evidence by the ton works the best. Ask Berta about some of the evidence she used in her DIC claim.

My VA doctor thinks the generic Mobic is great. However, it sometimes hurts my gut. I think way back I asked for celebrex and the VA gave me morphine instead. Does that make sense.

Get a lawyer!

If you are already 30% for anxiety you would be better off trying to show your SC anxiety disorder is worse than trying to prove a PTSD claim. You can get 100% for anxiety disorder easier than proving PTSD claim which is an anxiety disorder.

If you can't work you should try for IU instead of dreaming about that extra 50%. I am 90% as well and it is hard to get to 100%.

SSD can deny your claim just based on your medical evidence and work history. That little survey they give you about what you can and can't do can be used to deny you as well.

If the VA wanted to make it easier for vets to get SC'ed for PTSD they could simply make PTSD presumptive for any vet who has served in a combat zone. All the tinkering around the edges just raises people's hopes. I don't believe the VA is going to make it that easy to get SC'ed for PTSD when they have a tidal wave of claims coming at them and for years to come.

I think the rating worksheet for IHD is not so different than for any other type of heart disease. I had a PA who did mine. This idiot was teaching some other PA how to do exams. She did not even order up a single objective test. She just made wild guesses. I had to get two echos and two stress tests to get evidence for a rating. The people doing the exams are often in a big hurry and could care less about the worksheet. I found the worksheet for heart disease and asked my PCP for tests. This is how I got a 60% rating secondary to DMII.

The doctor who did your C&P exam won't talk to you about it. Forget that. They will tell you things just to ease you out the door, but what they write is what counts.

What a really good lawyer can do with a claim is far beyond my limits. That is why I advise those with difficult claims to get a lawyer who knows how to do VA claims. I would not even have thought that a vet could get PTSD claim for get G.I. Shower or blanket party. It happened in my basic training company to a guy who was caught stealing. This is funny since half the guys in my BT unit would steal the gold filings out of your mouth.

The think I worry about is having your claim file moved in the middle of your claim. If you tell VA you have a new address should not they move your file to new VARO. If you don't tell them mail continues to go to old address. If it goes to P.O. Box the post office will forward it for one year and after that "return to sender forwarding order expired". If you mail went to a relative that would be better then they could forward it to you outside the system. I live one hour away from my VARO. If there is anyting wrong I am over there the next day.

You need to apply for an increase. 0% for enlarged heart is probably way too low if you have any symtoms. Enlarged heart goes along with congestive heart failure. You need an exam from a real doctor to check condition of your heart .

Yes, it is the 201 file. I think those files are cleaned up sometimes. I did see some records regarding personnel actions related to AR-15's I got after I started going nuts. No mention of special courts martial because I signed off on 635-212 discharge under pressure from the military lawyer who was supposed to be representing me. The army would have lynched me, so I guess it was a good thing. My treating psychiatrist would have sat there and told them I was just a trouble maker since he did not want orders for Vietnam I am sure. All those records vanished.

Pam If your job is aggravating your MH problems you may be able to file a workers compensation claim. I did that before I finally got IU from the VA. These are two separate ways to go. You can google VA lawyers in your area. Also they advertise on Military channel and in service organization mags. They get paid out of your retro payments. No money up front. Where do you live? If you live near a larger city there must be VA lawyers in the area.

I think they stopped signing these c&p exams due to fear, so I don't really think it matters. They get around it somehow. Same things has happened to me. Maybe someone has better handle on that question. The doctor may be afraid you will come look him up one day.

Your PTSD letter should identify the stressor you are claiming. An article-15 is not a stressor. That could show behavior change after stressor. For example, you were perfect soldier. Then you see buddy killed in front of your eyes. Your behavior starts to change. You become problem child. This might indicate PTSD. If you just constantly got in trouble then that fits military definition of personality disorder, and they sometimes kick you out if they don't need your body as cannon fodder. Behavior change is one way some indicate some undocumented stressor, but it is hard to do. It depends on your credibility. The military and VA believe we are all liars.

If you have AR-15's that will be in your personnel file, maybe if you have reduction in rank or AWOL. AWOL shows up on your DD214.

You know the relaxed standard for PTSD DX'ed in service does not do any RVN vet any good since there was no DX of PTSD at that time. There was acute combat fatigue, but that is not the same as PTSD at all.

Stick with trying to get SC'ed or an increase for bi-polar disorder. Leave the PTSD alone. You want to draw a clear line between anything that happened before or after service. You don't even want to discuss your childhood, or some events that happened after you left the service. What you want to try and establish is that you were fine before service and that your problems began in service and not after service. I think you need a lawyer. You blame yourself for many things. The VA will use this against you. You have so much on your plate you need some legal help of the expert kind.

If you can delay your move until you get your award I would do it. Get the IU paper in your hand and then move. So many things can go wrong if you move during the claims process.

Bob That's right, and my father, and his father, and his father had all served in the military during war time. I sort of thought if I was not in college then it was my only option to enlist. Our minds were washed and there was the draft. First thing employers wanted to know was what your draft status was before hiring.

It could take 6 months or 2 years. There is no standard.

Troy I once lived in a pretty bad area in my town. I could not walk out on the street drunk or sober without being stopped by police and given twenty questions. This happened at 8pm or 12pm with no probable cause except I was walking down the sidewalk. I know what would have happened to me if I had wise cracked. Now I live in a much better area where the police are our servants, and everyone is white middle class. Big difference in attitude. If there is a crime here the police get here in minutes. In my old neighborhood when they came they came in groups ready to kick ass. I know this from experience. I sure don't want to live in a police state. I am pretty easy to get along with and would not even mind a national I.D. card. What is bad is someone knowing about your private life without you knowing. The credit agencies know more about you than your wife probably, and it is all hooked into a system that has tendrils reaching into almost every aspect of your life. In Florida they are going to start tracking every prescription so if you get a prescription from Walgreens for vicodin and then a few months later get percoset from CVS you may be in trouble. This I don't like. When I went to the VA pain clinic the doctor must have asked me ten different ways to see if I was abusing or even using any other narcotic. I told him I had a drink on my birthday. His eyes bluged out of his head.........Criminal........drug addict........where is all this heat coming from? Information is being shared between VA and DEA.

Troy You know cops shoot mentally ill people all the time. They come to a situation where some person has flipped and is obviously insane, and they don't have effective non-lethal means to deal with that person. Some crazy bastard is standing in the road with a knife to his own throat and the swat team arrives. Just look at UTube and you can see many examples of cops beating the hell out of drunks that just piss them off. My friend the black MP said when he is driving in the civilian world the first thing he does when pulled over by cops is stick both hands out the window so there is no mistaken bullet to the back of his head. My private psychiatrist does evaluations of policemen after incidents. He told me most of them should not even be allowed to carry a Swiss Army knife. They are dangerous. I pity anyone who cannot cooperate with a cop's commands due to mental illness. They are going to get hurt. I do respect the law, but I realize these guys are not social workers. Social workers don't carry Glocks and shotguns.

I think if the cop got something back indicating the vet he was pulling over suffered from PTSD the cop would be fingering his pistol as he approched the vet's car. I remember the "crazy Vietnam vet movies" all too well. Many of the cops might be war vets as well and they are thinking "If this guy has PTSD he may freak out on me". Does he have a gun? Better call for backup".