john999

The VA considers chronic pain disorder as a emotional disorder. I am rated for it along with all my other mental disorders which comes to a grand total of 70%. Google chronic pain disorder to find out about it.

As long as your HBP came after the artery disease then you can make it happen with a doctor's help. If the VA has readings for years back showing HBP and then you get approved for artery disease it will be harder. I am approved for CAD and have high blood. My doctor put a note in my records that the High Blood is a result of the CAD. The High Blood came after the CAD.

It is interesting since Shad is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Rental Go to your civilian doctor to get the pain meds. In the meantime, go with the written appeal to the head of the medical department. Skip over the patient advocate. There is always a way to get back into these programs if you create a big enough fuss. Don't tell you civilian doctor about any "violation". Just tell him it is easier to get meds from him that deal with the VA. If you get back on the VA program don't tell him. Use him as your backup in case they do this stuff again for some reason. That is what I do. I have a private pain doctor in case the VA gives me a problem.

You think you have problems. Just go to group therapy for a few years and you will see how the human race is really suffering. There was one woman in my group who thought I flew through the air and assulted her in her bed at night. This resulted in some tense group sessions. My wings were not even dry at the time. This really happened with her delusions. I could feel the hate/love or whatever it was coming from her. I did not overreact. I just accepted the fact she thought these things as long as she did not try and shoot me or something.

That is just it. For some it works and for others it is a disaster. With my luck I would be in a hoveround. Whenever the doctors get out the knife I become worried and think the worse. I have this deep feeling of mistrust of doctor's saying they can solve this long standing problem and then being disappointed. I had state of the art treatment using shock wave therapy and it failed and I limped for about 6 weeks.

My new private podiatrist wants me to get an MRI, so that she can rule out other factors, and then get down to cutting into my foot to relieve my chronic foot pain. I was talking to her today and I was getting more and more paranoid about this path. I find myself wishing that what she says about 85% recovery rate to be true, but thinking she is full of it. I probably won't go back for a second dose of "let's cut into Johh's feet and make him a cripple for life". Does anyone else sometimes believe these doctors are just out to make a buck regardless of the damage they do? Doctor's are good at setting bones and stitching up wounds, but on the chronic stuff they seem to fall down the well.

There is a big difference between group therapy and a class on PTSD. I like group therapy as well. I was in a private group for about 25 years with many members coming and going over the years. Now the group has died because insurance won't pay and medicare is just too little for the doctor to keep it going.

We have entered the period in American life where there will be endless war. The wars will be low level, but they will chip away at the soldiers and marines who have to actually do the fighting. If I had back to back deployments to Iraq and then Afghanistan I think that would certainly depress me. Think what it does to the family of military members. Sometimes both spouses are deployed at the same time and the kids stay with granny. If you are not crazy when you enlist in the All Volunteer military you will be after 2 or 3 deployments to the combat zone. The only way for us to maintain our empire is to do like the British did which was to have their army all over the world, and to fight all the time. They had the lower classes of miserable poor to recruit to feed to the meatgrinder in India and all their possessions. Now we have the sons and daughters of auto workers who can't find work to enlist and give their arms and legs so they can get a pension and health care for their families. We also have a mercenary army at work for the military industrial complex. That is a big term for Haliburton. Who is really going to fight these wars? I don't see hordes of new college graduates flocking to the Marine Core recruiting stations to go and fight the Taliban.

If you are ejected from pain management program you can still get your meds from your PCP. You don't lose benefits. I remain in the program because otherwise I have to go out to the VAMC every month to get a refill of the percoset. The program is very inadequate. They tried me on four drugs. I had a bad reaction to methadone and the morphine. The percoset is not adequate to my needs anymore. Tramadol is just too weak. So that's it for me. They will not even discuss oxycontin as it is a "bad drug". What we all have to realize is that the VA is not concerned with vets becoming addicted. Their concern is with vets selling their medications on the street. Since oxycontin is a highly in demand by street addicts they won't prescribe it in their belief that I will turn into a drug dealer instead of using it for my chronic and long standing pain.

Kissinger was equally as bad as McNamara. I hope he, Mcnamara, LBJ and Nixon are all burning in hell together for what they did to US military and the millions of people in S.E. Asia. They do fit the definition of war criminal. They all lied to either get us into the Vietnam war, or to get us out of it with "honor". If that is honor I would hate to see dishonor.

I bet the VA hopes that if vets take the depression class they will look some place besides the compensation division of the VA for help. If they are giving this class as a place where vets can gain insight into their own depression and file for benefits then that would be good. I just doubt that the VA wants to encourage vets to file for compensation with a million claims in the hopper. Myself, if I feel depression I would get help from a psychiatrists now, and not wait for the VA to send me to depression school. Some people with depression commit suicide. That can't wait for openings in some group therapy. If you have depression the VA needs to treat it now, and they have an obligation to treat you now. If you can't get out patient help get in-patient help.

BVA decisions do not set precedents. That means you have to win on the merits of your individual evidence and arguments. What you need is a medical opinion from some doctor who has expertise in this area to review your SMR's and to write an opinion that your exposure to jet fuel is the cause of your PN and other problems. Decisions of the Court of Veteran Appeals do set precedents. If you can find those you can quote them in your arguments. A lot of times if the VA sees that a certain issue is going to get to the court and set a precedent they will head it off by giving the vet what he wants at a lower level. This is what I have read and been told. This has been true in agent orange related disease.

Everytime you give blood at the VA they check your blood for illegal drugs and alcohol. If you are in pain management they do periodic urine tests to see that you are taking your drugs. They do it to everyone in the program. I have been in the program for about five years. I made the mistake of complaining about side effects of the drugs one time and was ejected from the program until they got that worked out by trial and error.

NamVetWife His PTSD should be a sure thing if he has a PH. It must be the letter that is lacking. The PH is his verifiable stressor proof. He or you just need to write a letter describing the event. I can't think of anything else that would be holding this up as long as the VA knows he has a PH.

The "Decider" who sent thousands of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan did not for one moment calculate the cost in human suffering of our troops. This is just not in the equation of the cost of war. Nothing has changed to my mind since Vietnam. I know many thousands of Vietnam vets were "on the road" after the war and I met quite a few of them. Now some of the troops will be getting out in the middle of a very bad economic depression and won't find jobs. Not everyone has it in them to do 20 years in the military especially when they will be going from Iraq to Afghanistan for years to come.

Yes, as Larry says, you want to win the TDIU claim, and then you can go back and get SC'ed for HPB. I think you should do that later. Get it for the Gerd as well since Gerd can cause cancer.

I would leave out the Dr. Dumbass part, but other than that I think it is good. I think to violate you just because you could not Pee that day is over the top. They are so suspicious of us. They think we are all drug dealers. That's is what the drug screen is all about, and nothing to do with your health or medical needs.

If you had knee pain in the military and are SC'ed for it then I think they are just playing games with you. You need a doctor to review your SMR's and say that your depression is secondary to your SC'ed knee pain. Was the pain you had in military knee pain?

The "verifiable stressor" is why PTSD is the hardest mental claim to win. However, it is probably the only mental health claim that can be won 20 years after discharge if there is no in-service diagnosis or treatment for a mental disorder. NamWife Was your husband a combat vet and does he have CIB or PH or any combat award? if so then that is verification of the stressor, but he still needs to write a stressor letter. If he does not have combat awards you have to prove through documentation that he had a stressor. Somehow people have gotten the idea that PTSD is an easy claim to win even if you were not in a combat zone. This is not true even for Nam vets who were at bases that got hit with enemy fire, but who were not soldiers with combat MOS. There was no combat action badge like in Iraq, or Afghanistan for truck drivers whose convoy gets bombed or shot at by Taliban.

gruntdaddy I think you can go in and sign the paperwork to have it sent to you when it is ready. I think it is too soon to get a copy, but who knows?

If you get a TBI or any other injury in service then it does not matter if it is combat or non-combat related. When you join up they own you 24/7. For instance, a soldier in Vietnam is climbing a guard tower and slips and falls and breaks his back. Is he less entitled than a grunt who gets shot in the back? Both are entitled to SC and compensation. One gets a PH and the other does not, but the injury is still SC.

Out of many VA C&P exams over the years I have received maybe 2 or 3 that were decent. The bulk were inadequate, incompentent or even hostile. It is a crap shoot. You go to the contract doctor and then you get a copy of the exam and get your own IMO. Unless the C&P doctor gives you a very friendly exam get ready to get your own doctor. If you have any serious medical condition and can afford it I would have long standing relationships with my own private doctors. I have been seeing the same psychologist for 30 years and the same shrink for ten years outside the VA. If I need an opinion I got it.

Navydoc Being an in-patient might really help your cause. Also, steady record of psychiatric treatment is very important for IU claims. You want documentation of your inability to work and your low level of functioning. You are getting good advice here. The VA knows that once you get IU you will never work again, so they make it hard to get it. I had been seeing a VA shrink for years and had a recent in-patient stay, and I still had to fight like cats and dogs to get IU even after I got SSDI, so it is not easy. You have to turn over every rock and jump through every hoop to get it. People here have been on SSDI for years and the VA still denied them IU or 100%, and they had to fight on to get it. Don't be discouraged because they make it hard and act stupid when you know you can't work due to your SC.

Even if it takes a little longer, and I am not sure it, will I would ask for a personal hearing with the DRO. You can ask the VA directly regardless of what your VSO says. A certified letter will do.