john999

I think stressor #2 might be good if you can prove it.

Catch 22

Yes, I hope the VA is getting better. There seems to be a plague of greed in the USA. Everybody who does their job wants a bonus, and feels they are entitled to that bonus. You know the VA exectutives don't deserve a bonus anymore than the creeps on Wall Street who ran our economy into the groud. What is shocking is the salary of some of the nonprofits that are pulling down a million dollar salary. Most of the well known charities have very plush benefits and pay packages for the CEO's. Those on top have become leeches on the productive members of society. I am no longer productive economically, but I once was, and I never got a bonus. The fact this backlog has developed shows that vets are not a priority. Spending a trillion bucks on a credit card to topple Sadam was a priority. Rebuilding Afghanistan from the ground up is a priority. Those who do the dying to make it possible are not a priority.

You should be getting the bilateral factor. I don't think the VA ever sends you a letter to tell you exactly how they come up with your rating. There are calculators that will show you what you should have. I got 70&,60% and five 10% ratings. It is 90%. I have PN in both hands and both feet. I should have bilateral factor for all four limbs. I can tell you that the closer you get to 100% the less individual ratings matter.

They get the bone from your jaw bone. No doubt you have to keep your mouth open for a while. The thing is with an implant you can just get a couple to hang a bridge off. You don't have to replace all teeth with implants. My TMJ has progressed to the extent that the joint is totally worn out. It slips and slides and does not lock up.

I don't think you are going to get bi-polar as secondary to migranes. Bi-polar is a disorder that stands by itself. You could sure get depression and chronic pain disorder as secondary to migranes in my opinion. Bi-polar is usually something that runs in families. Now if you can show that you were showing bi-polar symptoms in service that is different. Then you were probably misdiagnosed as a PD. This happens all the time. When people are in manic state they often do crazy and sometimes illegal things.

Well, I have a lot of pills and I don't have to pay for them at the VA. I agree that if the VA is going to charge my insurance for some treatment I usually get it done by private doctors. However, the VA has told us all that they want to "own" our medical care from the date we are discharged to the day we die. I want to hold them to this to some extent. I am going to have cataract surgery. I won't be getting it done at the VA. I will use my insurance and medicare because I don't trust the VA with something that important. I know the VA falls far short of the quality care we deserve. I do like the idea that all your medical records are in one place. Since I have duplicate doctors in private sector I had instant second opinions on anything the VA finds. If we middle class types don't use the VA it will just become a charity hospital. Charity patients don't buck the system or ask for improvements. They just take what they can get. My VAMC is a charity hospital to a great degree. The whole idea of excluding richer vets and charging co-pays should go out the window. That again divides vets. If rich vets want to use the VA more power to them.

A good dentist can do bone grafts to build up the bone and then do the implant. The VA just does not want to do the implants because they are expensive. Cost is always the main factor with everything the VA does. Most who get implants get a bone graft as well. Perhaps there is no one qualified to do this at you VA dental clinic. The really good dentists do not work at the VA. My VA clinic does not have endontists doing root canals. The general purpose dentist does it all. This is not the medical standard in world outside the VA.

TestVet I am about two years away from the ten year rule for DIC. No, I don't want to die in a VA hospital. The point I was making is that you need good documentation of a SC death. If you die from a SC death before the ten year time on Total disability you have to prove it. Also, if you die from SC death after ten years as total the VA has to pay for your funeral. It is a little thing but it means a few extra bucks for the spouse. Berta knows that dying from direct SC has some other benefits but I don't remember. If is wise to get an autopsy because you want the death certificate to reflect a SC death. Death certificates without autopsises are maybe just a word or two. Once you reach 10 years nothing is so important, but I want my spouse to get every benefit since a SC condition is going to kill me one day.

The VA even billed my insurance for a C&P exam. The only reason I go to the VA is to get free pills and to keep documenting my claims. It is more a ritual than treatment. The VA believes that if you are not getting continuous treatment you are probably getting better, so why not try and reduce you? If by some chance I do ever depend on the VA for care I want everything documented including my death and autopsy.

The whole idea of charging co-pays to vets at a VAMC burns my ass. Any vet without insurance should be able to use the VA regardless of income. The larger the number of vets who get care at the VA the larger the constituency of potential voters. That means more money for the VA. If vets had world class care including dental and vision care it would help draw people into the military. As it is I think those who volunteer now do so because of lack of other opportunity. The USA has always gotten away with shortchanging its veterans. That should stop. I think most Vietnam vets will eventually find some AO disease to get SC'ed for since the list is expanding.

Did anyone here ever have a psycholoical exam when enlisting or being drafted into the military? I never had any such exam. They asked me if I had mental problems. I thought I was fine. I bet every person with any sort of potential or actual mental or PD problems probably thinks they are OK when they enlist.

If the VA will do the implants then get them done. They cost over $3000 bucks from start to finish otherwise. It took me about a year to get mine done from start to finish. The VA refused to do mine saying it was not medically necessary. I did not trust my dentist to do it anyway so I went to a well known private specialist to do it. My implants are rock solid with no complications.

You can get 100% for GAD easier than a PTSD claim. If your C&P says you have GAD and it is related to your service then you don't need a verifiable stressor. PTSD, GAD, Panic Disorder are all anxiety disorders. The VA is fixated on PTSD and trying to make every vet prove a PTSD claim. You should read all you can about PTSD and decide if you have it. I think of PTSD as a person suffering some horrendous event ro events that are life threantening like combat or a major accident. However, other types of anxiety disorders may arise during service without such stressors. In some ways all these disorders are related and they all share symptoms. PTSD has the strictest criteria. The thing about PTSD is that you can SC it many years after discharge whereas the others it is more difficult unless you have SMR's that show treatment or symptoms.

The VA may try and say that your problems are work related due to being a mailman. At the same time the USPS will blame your pre-existing service connected problems for not being able to do your job. It is a tightrope, but you can walk it to your advantage if you are careful.

I think Hoppy is right about not being able to get connected for a mental health condition superimposed on a PD if there is no evidence in the service record. The only way I got around it was I filed a claim for a MH condition within one year of discharge. The VA decided that there was a PD but the basic condition was a compensable MH condition. If you could show that you had been misdiagnosed as a PD when, in fact, you had bi-polar or PTSD they it would fly. In the bad old days most PTSD sufferers who got in trouble in the active military were thrown out as PD's.

You need your own doctor to write a letter to connect all those conditions to in-service events or as secondary to in-service events. The VA is probably always going to low ball you without your having more evidence from your own specialists. The VA goes out of their way to not connect the dots.

I head on the news tonight that many experts are saying we could be in Afghanistan for a decade. This may mean streams of vets coming back with PTSD for years to come if the same number of troop levels are maintained. Every year a new 70,000 troops have to be shipped into the combat zone to replace those leaving. In ten years that would be 700,000 vets. If 30% of those get PTSD that is more than 100,000 new cases. If the war really escalates there could be many more troops and more PTSD cases. A lot more suicides as well.

Hoppy You are on to something. I think there have been some studies about risk taking behavior of people who suffer from PTSD and people who have been in combat zones. All those single car accidents and unaccountable deaths of young healthy veterans are probably suicides based on impulse. I think a lot of Vietnam vets felt disconnected from the world they had left and the world they came back to when discharged. I had a very hard time directing myself or taking anything seriously for years. I just could not see any future and I was only 22 years old.

Remember that "personality disorder" in most VA claims means no compensation. You don't ever want to say any of your present problems are due to a personality disorder. You may have a PD, but you need to show that you have MH disorders that are not PD's.

You need a nexus between your service connected disorder that is causing you chronic pain and your depression. This is something a shrink can do for you. You have to have your doctor tie up your secondary conditions with a bow. The VA will not connect the dots for you. You might be suffering from a back injury and be depressed, but the doctor has to say that your back injury is the cause of your depression.

Don't give up on the TDIU. I got denied and I had SSD and a 70% rating. The VA knows that once they grant IU then you will probably never work again. Eventually, you will be made P&T and your dependents will get expensive benefits. The VA looked my three IMO's over with a microscope to find a reason to deny my IU. It cost me another IMO to defeat them. Every denial has in it the clues to a grant.

Hoppy No question from my own experience that medical conditions impact on a person's mental health. I was not doing too bad until the chronic pain thing began to drive me nuts. I was getting it from my employer and losing my ability to be mobile and do the things I like to do. Depressing and distressing, especially when you employer is threatening to fire you constantly because you are no longer able to do your job. Time No doubt TBI can make marked and severe personality changes. My father-in-law had severe TBI and he went from being a good marine to a arsonist and criminal. After the head injury he did not even know his name. He recovered to the extent that he seemed normal, but he was anything but normal. He could not control impulses or tolerate any stress. When under stress he would do crazy things like setting his house on fire.

I don't know why the VA ties adjustment disorder to a physical illness? I understand depression due to pain and disability. I know that adjustment disorder is what many teenagers get DX'ed with when they are acting out. It is like a thing you grow out of.....not. Is the VA saying the vet is going through adjustment disorder due to trying to learn to live with their disability?

The military likes to use adjustment disorder instead of PTSD. This is because adjustment disorder is less permanent and less severe. Why not post your decision so we can read the exact wording.