john999

I would sit on that money like a mother hen on her eggs. You won't get another chunk of money like that unless you win the lotto. Go see a fee base financial planner. You will sleep so much better knowing you have a pile to fall back on if something happens. Houses, cars, boats that is all consumption. Investing that money might be the wisest thing. You can live on your 100% day to day.

marlon I would apply for SSD and IU while I am well enough to put up with the stress. You don't want to wait until you are so bad off someone else has to do all the leg work for you. I know what you are going through because I saw my disability coming at me for some years. Finally, I got fired at age 51 with a bleak future. At age 29 maybe you will get better and maybe you won't. I would not wait until someone else makes the decision for me.

Yes, AO presumptive does qualify. You can google the subject and get all the info on it. You have to be a 20 year retired vet to get it. What it allows is for military retirees to get their retirement and compensation for disabilies without an offset. If you did not retire from the military forget it.

You need a will and durable POA. It is worth the cost which is a few hundred bucks. Death and/or incapacity does bring out the worst in people especially if there is money involved. In Florida you need a will, durable POA, living will, and a health care surrogate. Otherwise, someone besides your significant other may get involved in your life. This is something that lawyers do that is a bargain.

This is a poor exam. The doctor's bringing up the alcohol and substance abuse is not going to help you unless he says it is a result of your anxiety and service connected depression. He will not even say the depression is part of your service connected anxiety disorder. You need to hire your own doctor. This gives the VA raters a lot of room to say there is no evidence your depression is SC and that your real problems stem from substance abuse. You don't want that.

Oldman I would use the doctor close to home and also consider you will have months of PT to do afterwards. You don't want to drive 6 hours three times a week to get one hour of PT. I would use the doctor with the most experience like Pete says. This is major surgery. You want as little stress as possible around this. To heck with the VA unless they do fee base. If you have good insurance and you have made up your mind then why wait? How many opinions have you had since this is such major surgery. You may still have pain even if everything goes well.

Nevada Something to think about is that you can't be employed full time while you file for IU and SSD. You have to be disabled for at least 6 months before you can even get paid by SSD. With IU you need to be able to say you are not working because of your SC disabilites. It will take some time to get IU. This means you need to be able to survive while you wait. If you can't survive for at least a year without an income from work you need to find funds to tide you over while you wait. Otherwise it becomes very stressful.

I think your claim should be remanded back to the BVA. When was the decision of the BVA made and how long did it take to get it vacated by the court? I am not sure about this but it is logical that it would be remanded if a decision was vacated.

I had psychological testing done at the VA back in 1972. The VA not only ignored the testing they lost it. The psychologist wrote up something and it is no longer in my records. Someone pulled it. I wonder how that happened?

The dog attack might be a good stressor. When I was in Vietnam I was sleeping inside a bunker. There was a dog handler with his dog who was talking to the other guard. The dog got away from the dog handler and fell into the bunker with me. I woke up looking into the eyes of a giant sentry dog. The dog handler nearly had a heart attack since he envisioned a courts martial due to my being killed by his dog. Obviously, I survived but I do remember it. If you were in fear of your life when attacked by the dog then that might qualify as a verifiable stressor. How badly were you injured by your dog?

The military used to kick out thousands of vets with MH problems under the personality disorder DX. They have been hammered for this over and over again by vet advocates and congress. If you IMO said you have a PD you should get your money back.

My private pain doctor I used to see got upset when he found I was getting oxycodone from the VA. He would only prescribe vicodin. Like you can't become a vicodin addict? You know people get operations and they go through hell and still have pain. I find chronic pain to be the most undertreated illness I know about. If you have DMII the doctors don't holler about drug addiction. There seem to be two kinds of pain doctors: 1. This doctor thinks all patients are after drugs and any request for increase is drug seeking behavior 2. This doctor sells this prescriptions for cash only out the back door of his "clinic". I want to get off these opiates since I hate having my chain pulled by these doctors. Unfortunately I have not found a good alternative. The pain doctor I see at the VA now is useless. Florida is a hell of a state to need pain meds. The private doctors are scared to death of the DEA and the VA believes every vet is a drug addict.

Chief I would fight that 0% rating for my feet for PN. I was denied for upper PN and granted 10% for feet. I appealed and got 10% for upper via a DRO hearing. You run a much bigger risk with PN of the feet from DMII. You don't hear too often of guys with DMII losing a hand from infections via PN, but you read about this being the case with PN and feet. I had a very minor procedure done on my foot. It has taken about 6 weeks for the damn thing to heal. That is part of DMII. I got a wound infection as well.

Welcome aboard!

You got to be really careful about any injuries to your feet since you may not feel it. Your wound may not heal quickly since that is a part of DmII. You get separate ratings for all the secondary conditions. You get a 0% rating for EED, but you can get SMC for that. The severe CAD needs to be attended to since this is a major complication of DmII.

Do you have any other records in the 1983 case that describe PTSD symptoms that were before the VA at the time of the denial. You might have enough for a CUE since your DX from VA is absurd.

Since you have Combat Action Ribbon your stressor is conceded. You have to get a DX of PTSD in your VA records and then your SSD should help you get at least IU. I think I would do as Pete says and get in treatment for PTSD at the VA. Get some records going and put in your claim for PTSD. Stay in treatment at the VA for the PTSD. Every visit helps document your PTSD. After you get SC'ed for PTSD stay in treatment.

I don't think there is such a thing as an informal CUE. I don't think you should include a CUE with a NOD from another claim. Your husband had a rating in 1985 that did not include scars. Did the claim in 1985 include scars that were overlooked? What error are you basing the CUE on that happened in 1985?

You need a diagnosis of schizophrenia or depression that you can link to your service. What DX did you get in the service? What kind of discharge did you get? You might be able to get a DX of residuals of schizophrenia which means you don't have to be psychotic. The schizoid PD is not compensable. It means you have chacteristics of schizophrenia but not the actual disorder. It is a fine line. In the military if you are not chewing the carpet they will often give a PD diagnosis.

If you want something secondary to another SC condition you should get a medical statement that explains the relationship between the SC condition and the secondary condition and makes a nexus. You should get something besides a note. You need a medical rational. If you are 100% already why bother getting the depression sc'ed?

Wings If it gets to be too much see if you can hand it off to a lawyer. So he/she gets 20%, big deal. You can go on about your business and let the lawyer look after it. It probably will take a few more years.

Where did the error occur...at the RO or BVA? The RO has a way of kicking these CUE claims upstairs because they don't want to grant 10 or 20 years of retro. It would be 40 years of retro in my case.

I doubt the VA will fill a didaudid prescription. They like to prescribe the cheapest drugs like methadone and the long acting morphine (generic).

When you get IU the regs say you must be unemployable "solely" due to your SC condtition. That one word "solely" can really trip you up. I know from personal experience. You might have 90% disability from SC condition and also have some other NSC condition. The VA will often try to blame your being IU just on the NSC condition.

I would get a referral to a shrink. Try and link your back problems with chronic pain and depression. If you can get all this SC'ed you would be seen as a person who can't work I think.