john999

Republicans fought against SSA. They fought against medicare and medicade. Republicans have fought against mandatory funding for the VA. The republicans have fought against every program to help the poor and disadvantaged for the last 60 years. If you are a multimillionaire by all means vote republican. If you live off your capital gains it really helps to get a lower tax rate than a school teacher.

Teac I am going for a pension exam Monday and I hope I get paid. It won't be much even if I do get paid. I live about 20 miles from the VAMC. It is just far enough away for it to be pain to get there and close enough so I can't get paid for the hassel. I takes me an hour to get there because of no parking at the hospital and traffic.

My aunt got A&A and DIC, but she was in a nursing home. I don't think the A&A for a spouse is that much money. I know it put only a tiny dent in my aunt's payment to the nursing home. She had SSA, a teacher's pensin, DIC and A&A and it alll went to the nursing home with nothing left over. I think if a person is in a assisted living home they could get A&A. That seems obvious, but that might not be so obvious to the VA.

The thing is that the VA must surely know what a hardship it is to go without work for a year or 18 months while you TDIU claim is adjudicated. I think this is the way the separate the sheep from the goats. It is a brutal way to do it. If you think you are going to have to go out on TDIU start saving and getting a line of home equity because if you work you are going to at least dely your getting TDIU.If you can get private disability insurance or get it under a group policy from your job then get it.

Unless there is some physical cause for your insomnia then it is probably due to eithier drugs you take or to anxiety or depression. People with sleep apnea have a physical cause but they suffer from many mental problems including depression. People with psychological cause of insomina are often depressed and anxious and many vet with these conditions have PTSD. I would want to look deeper and find the root cause of the insomnia.

If you get 80% and have to retire on disability then you will have a good TDIU claim. If you are a federal employee you can take disability retirement. This is good evidence for TDIU. The day you retire apply for SSD.

I would try and work the insomnia and chronic pain into a depression claim. You can get a greater percentage rating for depression than insomnia alone. Are you seeing a psychiatrist about your chronic pain and insomnia. If you can't work file for TDIU. Just about eveyone who has chronic pain does suffer from some depression.

The thing is that if you are called in for a C&P exam and they ask if you are working and part of your 100% is for a mental condition then you risk having that part of your claim reduced. For mental conditions working is everything. This is my experience. When I was working at the Post Office I had 30% for a mental condition. I got fired and I ended up with TDIU, and the only real difference was that I was not able to work any more. I had many C&P exams over the years and the first question they asked me was "Are you working"? I know if you are a double amputee and can work then you deserve your 100% and all the money you can earn. It is a double standard for mentally and physicall disabled persons. When you have PTSD or some other emotional disorder so severe as to be rated 100% you have lost much in the way of quality of life. For that alone you deserve maximum compensation in my opinion.

I did the independent living program. The Voc Rehab guy made it so complicated I told him to just shove it. They wanted a PH.D. thesis from my shrink to justify getting me a quitar and lessons. The VA said that I needed to prove that music lessons would help me overcome my permanent disability. I saw where it was going and I wanted no part of this foolishness. It was just about money as usual. The VA did not want to spend money on a P&T veteran.

I would request a hearing. You want a person to look at all your records, and not some "cut and paste" review. I had a cut and paste type review when the VA claimed I had skipped a C&P exam. The person doing the review did not even look in my file to see if a letter had been sent to me. I was denied again without even the most basic investigation. When I got the personal hearing I got the C&P exam. Ten minutes with a person at the VA can solve 2 years of paperwork problems. It has to be with a person who has the power to make a decision, and not just a clerk. The kind of problem you are having is the reason people hate the VA. It is just negligence on their part and laziness. Your paperwork might still be in the mailroom or sitting in your C-File, but the were too lazy to look. This causes you a hardship and time when it should have been solved before they made their decision to deny you.

You will have to file an NOD and include a copy of the return/receipt. The VA recently denied one of my claim by saying I had not showed up for a C&P exam even though I was never notified of an exam. It is hard to fight a lie, but all you can do is file your NOD. Do you have a copy of the TDIU form you sent in to the VA. I would include that with a copy of the return/receipt, along with all the other deocuments they say they did not get. Ask for a DRO Hearing so you can sit down with someone and discuss this problem. Have you applied for social security disability? It would help if you got SSD for your SC conditions. You might also ask to see your C-File. All the documents they say they did not get might be sitting in your file and they were just too lazy to look.

I have back pain and I have talked to a podiatrist. I have tried almost everything and still have pain. My foot pain started first and then as I got more immobile my back started to hurt. I have arthritus in my back and some bulging discs. When I first get up in the morning my back is stiff and sore. If I sit too long I get sore in my back and it gets stiff. I am constantly getting up and streching my back and hamstrings. The percoset I take does not give me much relief. My feet are beyond hope. Once the pain cycle gets cranked up it is hard to stop.

I had an EMG today because my feet hurt so much. The VA said there was no nerve damage in my feet or pinched nerves. So I guess I am cured. Can you have peripheral neuropathy and yet not show any damage on an EMG? I have miserable pain in my feet and sometimes lose my balance, but VA now says my nerves are fine. Feelings of numbness,pain and tingling are not totally objective. I worry the VA will decide I do not have diabetic neuropathy and cut off my pain meds. I have been for a lot of tests this last two weeks and my subjective pain is not really reflected in my objective findings from MRI and EMG, but I still have miserable pain in my feet and back. I get sick of doctors telling me that my findings are normal and, yet, I hurt, and the VA does not adequately treat my pain. I don't believe that these pain doctors know what they are doing, and just want big bucks to do procedures like nerve blocks that may or may not work.

Armand I hired a lawyer to help me do a CUE claim. The DAV guy just laughed at me when I told him what I wanted to do. If you have a complicated claim that involves some decent retro I think that is a major incentive for a lawyer to take your case. They get 20% of the retro so they are motivated. You kindly DAV guy gets the same if you win or lose that 20 years of retro. If you were arrested for a crime would you rather have pay a good criminal defense lawyer, or rely on a public defender? The public defender, like a VSO, tells you to take a plea.

It also depends on what your TDIU is for a mental or physical condition. If it is for a mental condition what benefit do you gain from going from TDIU to 100% schedular? If the VA finds out you are working you will lose the 100% rating either way. If you are never going to work again then it does not matter except you might have an easier time getting some kind of SMC such as housebound. If you are going for SMC then you probably want 100% schedular.

Berta If at some point your claim became final and your IMO's were not acknowledged as evidence in your claim do you believe that would be a CUE? I know that is a long way off and would mean the BVA and the Court would have to ignore the IMO's. It does not seem possible that the VA could continue to lose your IMO's unless something is happening where there is some hanky panky going on between your VSO and the VA to deny you.

Teac If the only evidence in a claim is SMR's, a VA doctor's report and the veteran's doctor's report, and the VA fails to consider, list, or reference in any way the veteran's doctor's report then how can you have due process? There were only three pieces of evidence. There was the evidence that was twisted to support the VA's position, and there was the evidence that represented the veteran's position. Even the DRO said it did not make sense, and that I should have gotten a larger award. However, he will need some brass ones to grant 25 or 30 years of increased compensation, so my hopes are not that high, but I will appeal. If I had gotten decent representation I would have appealed the decision ,and not let it become final 35 years ago. I don't believe I had any representation from a VSO, nor was I informed that I could get it.

Teac My CUE is based on the fact that the VA had in its possession a medical report from my doctor that it did not list or consider in my original decision. This seems to fit the definition of a CUE that you discuss in terms of SMR's. If the VA had condsidered my doctor's report I believe the rating I got would have been significantly different. There is no doubt that they had my doctor's report, and no mention of it in the decision. I filed within one year of discharge so if there is any change in rating it will go back to the day after I was discharged. This error occurred when I was a very young man and truste that the VA would not just low ball me, and refuse to consider crucial evidence. Or maybe they were just sloppy and did not give a damn.

Rock You could file your CUE claim ,and then if it is denied then get a lawyer to look at it and see if there is some way he can phrase it to support a CUE. As you have said it is all in the way the advocate or vet sets forth the claim for CUE. I filed for CUE and was denied. I then filed an NOD, and hired a lawyer to look it over and see what he thought. That costs nothing. If there is a CUE and there is possibility of big retro you might have the lawyer do the CUE for you because any wrong wording, and your claim dies at the BVA. A denial at the VARO is not as important as getting it right for the BVA or the Court. Many of these things go to the BVA or Court with fatal flaws in the logic or facts. What my lawyer told me is that the first thing the VA has to admit to is a CUE. Then they have to re-evaluate the claim based on the admission that there was a CUE. If the VA found an error and then found that your had acute schizophrenia in remission without residuals you might only get 0% up to the present. You need to show schizophrenia in partial remission with residuals to get some money beyond the minimum. I only got 10% for residual schizophrenia back in the day. However, if you even got 0% that would open the door for an increase if you can get a current diagnosis of schizophrenia. I would just do the best I could with the CUE and file it at the VARO where the error occurred. When it gets denied, like 99% do, get a lawyer to look at it and go from there. I am telling you how I have done it so far. I think I have a good case since there was evidence that the VA did not consider in my decision. My lawyer did not argue that I should have gotten a higher rating based on the evidence since that would be judgement call only that the evidence was not considered at all. It would be the same thing as if SMR's were not considered in a decision. I am still not counting my chickens because I know how slippery the VA is on CUE's.

Have you received treatment for the condition since the service? If a doctor will say that the IBS and other conditions were caused or aggravated by the surgery, and you can show a history of treatment along with current diagnosis it might be a good claim. It has been almost 20 years since your treatments in the military. You have to show a nexus between that disease or injury and current conditions. You can get something for the scar, but the other conditions you need to show a nexus. When was the last time you were treated or examined for the "weird feelings in your gut"?

Talk to a CPA or Tax Lawyer and get a professional opinion before you do something based on advice from non-professionals. You can get in trouble with not only the VA but IRS and SSA if you do fancy footwork regarding the nature of your income.

That makes no sense. If you got 10% then you should be entitled to compensation. If you got 0% then you are SC'ed but no compensation. The decision is illogical. Diabetic neuropathy is a symptom of DMII. If your HBP is aggravated by a symptom of DMII then it should be SC'ed as secondary to DMII.

I think the VA will wait until most Vietnam vets are 95 years old before making heart disease presumptive for AO. They know what it will cost them for DMII and they won't make the same mistake twice.

Me and my lawyer believe the VA owes me 25-30 years of increased compensation. Maybe they will fling me in jail to get out of paying it. The psychologist who wrote in 1972 that I was unable to work because of mental condition has treated me for over 35 years. He would be a hell of a witness.

You know the way banks are failing some vets who get big retro might not want to keep more than 100,000 in any one bank. That is the FDIC limit. I heard on the news that a bank in California actually failed and there was a run on the bank. The ones with more than 100,000 won't get back all their money. That is hard to believe but true.