john999

I think if your congressman or senator really wanted to help you they could do it. They simply don't give a damn usually. Send them a bag of money and their ears might perk up.

The raters have no special legal or medical training. They are not trained in any sort of administrative law process. They are just clerks who decide if you get a grant or become homeless. Many are functionally illiterate. Count the number of errors in spelling and grammar in your decision. Most cannot even put a paragraph together using proper English. They usually contradict themselves several times. Nice, huh? Actually, they use dice and the Wheel of Fortune to decide claims.

If the vet has been on narcotic pain meds for 15 years and it is suddently stopped this is going to cause the vet a pretty severe health risk. If I was the vet I would present myself at the VA and demand to be admitted as an in-patient for the pain clinic. The vet should say that he is experiencing withdrawl symtoms of the severe kind.

I had a traveling board at the St. Pete VARO by a BVA board member in January 2010. I have no idea how long it will take.

One thing to say when discussing pain med side effects is that they make you unable to concentrate and that you often fall and lose balance. You can't sleep at night due to pain. You are short tempered and frequently snap at wife and feel awful afterwards. You feel depressed and anxious about the future. You are afraid to leave the house because you never know when pain will strike and reduce you to helpless state. This is the kinds of things that chronic and severe pain do to a person.

The seemingly dumb and obvious questions usually evoke the most controversy. For instance.."How do I file a claim?". I bet you get a number of different answers. Some would say make an informal claim right away to insure EED. Others say wait until you have some evidence. Some say use the VA's automated system. Others say take all your paperwork directly to the VARO and get date stamped copies. Some say use certified mail. Some say use a VSO and others say do it all yourself. Ask any question you like and be sure you should get a few different answers that are probably equally valid.

If they ask you if you are in pain be sure to rate yourself as high as you ever get and not as you are on your best days or when you are medicated. Be very frank about any mental health issues. If they ask you if you ever are suicidal don't laugh it off. Tell the truth about all issues and don't hold back. They are creating a baseline.

I wish the BVA would be forced to make decisions and not remands. This process eats up years and is designed to just bury veterans.

I was 30% at the time with three job related permanent injuries.

Employers can drive a truck through the ADA. It is all lawyer-speak. I was told by EEOC that I did not even qualify as a disabled person. A year later I was fired. Then I got disability retirement via a lawyer.

When the USPS learned I was getting regular treatment for my service connected disability they began demanding I get a statement from my doctor after every visit that I was not a threat to myself or others. I resented that to say the least. They eventually drove me out of my job and into the arms of the VA and SSD.

Congrats! If I was you I would put that money in the bank for a few months until you get a very definite plan about how you are going to manage it. If you start spending it as soon as you get it then it will be gone in a few months and you will have no emergency fund. You need one is you are going to buy a house. I would do my best to live off my compensation. If you can't live off your compensation then you are spending too much. Car, bike, house....these are all big ticket items. I would take a few hundred dollars and go see a fee only financial planner. That money has to last you the rest of your life along with your compensation. If you have a few hundred grand in a safe place you will sleep soundly knowing it.

I see films of guys in WWII and in Vietnam shooting big artillery pieces without any protection. How can they avoid damage? Just being in genereal vacinity of 155's when they go off is so loud I never learned to sleep through it.

You know I had dental work done while waiting for an appeal for IU. When I got my IU I put in for compensation for the dental work I had done while waiting. I got paid. It was significant.

You know it might be wise to claim every condition that has a good chance of being added to the presumptive list for AO since under Nehmer you might get an EED one day.

When you get on the registry the VA should give you an exam. Some Gulf War syndromes may emerge. When I got on the AO registry two AO related conditions were exposed that put me on the track to gettting them SC'ed later. Without the exam I never would have claim these conditions because I did not know. Since then I have added two more conditions as secondary to DMII.

This is why IMO doctors were invented!

You don't want to claim that you had this prior to the military. You want to say you were perfectly OK before active duty. The stress of active duty set off your psychosis.

If all those draft dodgers serving in congress had been to Vietnam that would be the welcome I would like. After being kicked in the yarbels for 40 years they can keep the welcome home jazz. Just give me the money I am due. Better yet, bring back the draft and make sure those with the highest incomes go first. Go to Wall Street and round up all these guys under 35 making millions and send them into the infantry in Iraq or Afghanistan. This would be justice.

Did the military try and say it was pre-existing? If you were on active duty and you had the breakdown then the stress of active duty would be what I would point to as the straw that broke the camel's back.

Larry They probably assume you are making speed in your own meth lab and then selling the narcotics as well. It is nice to know they think we are all junkies and drug dealers. Why don't they just admit " we don't know how to treat pain, and we are too cheap to find out".

Brian It sounds like your claim has been at the BVA for over a year waiting for a hearing. What my lawyer did when the DRO denied we asked the BVA for a traveling board. That took about 7 months. Now we had the hearing and are waiting for whatever they decide. I got a copy of the transcript of the hearing. I sent it to the lawyer. There were mistakes and misspellings. Pretty awful, but it was accurate in general. It was very short as it is a CUE so the evidence is all there in front of them. Who knows what will happen with it.

If you have been DX'ed with schizophrenia you may or may not be presently psychotic, but you can get 100% for residuals. If you can't hold a job due to service connected schizophrenia then you should get 100% or IU. If you have something like chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia or paranoid schizophrenia and the onslaught occurred in service you should get 100%. You don't need to file for psychosis. Schizophrenia is a psycnotic disorder, but not everyone with schizoprenia is psychotic all the time. Most with schizoprenia are unable to hold a job. How long were you in the service before you had the breakdown?

I think you should get an IMO saying that you have service connected depression and chronic pain disorder and that due to that and you physical injuries you cannot work. Can you take disability retirement from your job. You should also put in for SSDI. The VA doctor did not say you could not work. That is what you need is a statement that you are permanently and totally disabled from all work.

Don't take this the wrong way but in order to get the treatment you desparately need you may have to just tell them if you don't get treatment for the pain you will kill yourself right in front of the VAMC with a note in your pocket that you did it because the VA would not treat your pain. You have to bluff a little so don't have any weapons or illegal drugs on you. You can have the note however. You will get admitted.