john999

On my original DD214 the reason given for discharge was for a character disorder. If I show that as of the day after discharge I am considered by the VA to be 100% Service Connected would it not be in the interest of justice to review my discharge and possibly change the my discharge to a medical discharge with any benefits that might go along with that? How can a vet go from being unfit due to a personality disorder to being 100% SC in one day? The army waited until I was 6 months away from my regular discharge to toss me out as "unsuitable" via AR 635-212 when I demanded help for my mental health problems. This has always stuck in my craw regardless of the money issue. The military did change my discharge to a regular honorable discharge on appeal. It has always seemed to me to be the height of injustice to allow a soldier with a DX of PD to serve a full tour in Vietnam and then just before he is ready to be discharged to present him with a general discharge under honorable conditions for a personality disorder. I made waves in my last year in the army. They paid me back by the less than fully honorable discharge.

This shows that from VAMC to VAMC it is night and day.

When I was waiting for IU I had extensive dental treatments. When I got my IU I asked to be reimbursed for the dental treatment I got while my IU was on appeal. I was paid the VA rate for this care after much hemming and hawing. A lot of things can be done if you are determined.

Skunk I got 10% when I deserved 100%. Keep fighing. Are you working? If not that 30% should be 70% IU at least if it is for SC condition.

Put the retro in the bank for a few months to let it cool off. Then write a plan for how you are going to spend part of it and invest the rest in something safe. Money has a way of slipping through our fingers if we let our emotions take over. Even a million bucks can get spent in a hurry if you focus on wants and desires instead of needs. If I had a new source of income I might even consult a fee base financial planner to get a plan for your future. If you get 3000 bucks a month and spend 3001 dollars that equals eventual misery. If you get 3000 a month and spend 2999 that means peace of mind. Charles Dickens said something like that.

The VA provides long term care if you are at least 70% SC. However, I get Long Term Care for my wife and myself. I just can't bring myself to trust the VA to really place me or my wife in a decent nursing home if we ever need it. If you buy LTC insurance when you are young it is not that expensive. If you wait it is very expensive. Both spouses should have it as LTC can drain you in a hurry. It just depends on what you can afford.

OPM retirement is very easy. It is a good start to getting IU from the VA. You get your OPM,SSD and IU and you will be OK. If you are taking OPM for service connected reasons that will make IU much easier.

You know when the oral surgeons do heavy work in your jaw there is a possibility of nerve damage. I don't know if the auditory nerve could be injured during such surgery. The constant popping from TMJ could give you some sort of noise in your hear. I remember the military took out my wisdom tooth and a molar and made a complete mess of it. They turned my jaw into hamburger. The worst experience I ever had with a dentist and I have had a lot. It bleed for days. I had TMJ in service but they made sure that they did not DX it.

The VA will go back up to one year from the date you file for IU. Otherwise, you have to have some special circumstances. You can get a much earlier ED if you can show a CUE or if your claim was previously unadjudicated. This is not often the case. If the VA knew you were unemployable ten years ago they are supposed to treat this knowledge as a inferred claim for IU, but they never do.

You are going to have to wait for the rating. It is impossible to really tell what sort of % you will get from the facts you present. Did you file for SSD? If you can't work due to the SC conditions you have a shot at IU.

If you can't work due to PTSD that would give you a good shot at 70% and IU. You need a psychiatrist to say you can't work due to PTSD and your other SC disabilites. You are probably young so healing from the PTSD should be your top priority if possible. Living the next 50 years collecting a check from Uncle Sam is not much to get you excited.

Get the money while you can because if these wars dry up the funding will dry up as well. Vets become invisible after a war. For those who remember the 70's and 80's were hard years for Vietnam Era vets. I used to get insulted every time I went for a C&P exam.

Put the retro in the bank. You may need more medical reports in the future and they cost money. A cash cushion can give you the time you need for an IU claim. If you are not working then an IU claim is in order.

Both the military and the VA are adversarial against veterans claims for disability compensation. What about the many thousands of older vets who were discharged with low ball ratings for mental disabilies before PTSD was even recognized?

The NOD may negate the reconsideration but you are going to run out of time. You have one year to file a NOD. If that runs out and you lose the reconsideration you are going to lose your effective date. You may be better off opening a new claim for sleep apnea. How are you linking sleep apnea to PTSD? Is there medical literature that links PTSD with sleep apnea. What is your nexus from PTSD to sleep apnea? If you are obese the VA is going to say that is the cause of your sleep apnea. I understand a sleep disorder due to PTSD. I don't understand sleep apnea due to PTSD. Probably my ignorance. As far as I know the VA has to complete the reconsideration before the one year for the NOD. With four weeks left in February that is uncertain at best.

Carlie How much is on the line? You are already IU, right?

VA math is such that if you get a single rating less than 100% it is almost impossible to every get to 100%. I am 90% IU and I have seven rated disabilites 70,60, and five tens and it makes 90%. I often wonder if the VA did consider the bilateral factor since I have ten percent for all four limbs? I have not been able to calculate that part. The only good thing is if you get IU then it is very hard for them to take it away.

Do you take insulin for the DMII? That is one of the things they use to rate DMII. If you take oral meds I think that is 20%, but if you have to inject insulin that gets you up there.

In my original claim I did not get a c&p exam. It was just SMR's and VA hospital records and my doctor's report which was received before the rating decision. The VA just never considered my doctor's report. Their only discussion was of my VA doctor's notes.

Get every scrap of documentation to present to the VA. If you don't get 100% I don't know the meaning of the word.

If you read the VA criteria for 100% Schedular for a mental condition it says total social and occupational impairment. They mean total with a capital T.

If you are working it is very hard to get 100% for PTSD. Do as John says and try to get 100% for physical things. Then you can work and still get 100%. You got 80% now so the day you can't work put in for IU.

You should ask for housebound SMC if you get 100% for PTSD. The VA is supposed to consider you for HB if you are 100% schedular. If you have any disorder that keeps you housebound ask for HB.

I am a pessimist. Tell me everything is fine and I start to worry. Tell me life is hopeless and I start finding reasons that it is not so bad. I appreciate the feedback. I have always thought to some extent the VA is a lottery. You still have to go for it. If I win the CUE I will be happy. If I lose I will be pissed off, but not crushed. The lawyer has already said he would appeal to the court. The best judge of future actions is past actions. The VA cheated me in the past, so I assume they will try in the future.

I talk to a buddy from Vietnam every once in a while. He lives in Idaho and I live in Florida. We experienced some of the same events. He remembers them entirely differently that I do. I have a pretty good memory and I know he is wrong. He is sincere in his beliefs, so I would never say he is wrong. This goes to show how even honest people can distort the facts after 40 years. Just about every vet tells a war story, but there is a difference between being in Vietnam and not being there. There is a difference between getting a Medal of Honor and not getting one. Some of these guys actually believe they were in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. I can't imagine why anyone would claim to be there if they were not, so if someone tells me they were there I usually believe them. I got taken in by a guy who told me he was in SF for three years in Vietnam. Someone I know vouched for him, and I took it as fact. I found out later it was lies. He landed in jail for theft and fraud, so that is when I began to check. I think most Vietnam vets were treated so badly they might lie and say they were not there. Like on a college campus in the 60's and early 70's who would want to declare "I was in Vietnam and proud of it". First off, the other students think you were an idiot or a psychopath if you discuss it. Your professors would think of you as a specimen to be studied.