vetquest

Unfortunately, the VA rates your disability on the effect it has on you seeking work or working.  If your headaches are controlled by the Botox they will probably deny an increase.  I also suffer migraines from service and they do not rate migraines very well in my opinion.  Totally incapacitating migraines are only rated at 50%.  If you are having migraines while being treated with Botox do request an increase.

Wow.  I have never heard of such a thing.  I would complain to the White House hot line about that.  It sounds very excessive. 1-855-948-2311.

Start seeing VA psychiatrist and learn about depression.  If you are depressed because of physical disability then file for depression as secondary to the physical stuff.  Many vets never do this for various reasons. Don't be embarrassed about it . When you see the VA shrink don't minimize your pain and depression.   Don't be a tough guy.  Tough guys go broke.

It is also a presumptive if you are Gulf war Vet.  

Whether you deployed or stateside when the injury occurred should have no bearing on approval of a disability claim.   Bertha requested that you attach a copy of your denial.  That could help a lot for people trying to assist you.  Remove any personal data first and then upload the denial.  Yes, lawyers do take a while since they want to get all of the data and any necessary medical evidence.  The process is long and lawyers want to be right the first time.

I fully agree with @pacmanx1.  You need to get evaluated for headaches and find out what in the doctor's opinion has lead to the headaches.  Are there any notations in your service records for being treated for headaches?  This is enough to be a nexus in most situations.  If a doctor relates your headaches to the in service headaches it gives you a leg to stand on.  In a perfect world the VA would do this for you but they most likely will not.

Since you are not a medical physician, I suggest that you have your headaches/migraines evaluated and go from there. The true issue here is that no one can truly state why people have migraines/headaches, but a medical opinion can give their best guess of why you are having them. Migraine Test: Lumbar Puncture Or Spinal Tap.
Don’t let the VA say that you can’t claim a condition that could have started in the military.  Your migraines/headaches can also be caused by your tinnitus. I am just trying to help, but the bottom line is that you need to get a medical opinion about your migraines/headaches. You can search some on the net to see what you can find and depending on the evidence in your records, you can go from there.
 

Yes and no @brokensoldier244th.  I have run into problems in migraine rating and been told by the VA that they look at the effects it causes for work.  Some migraine medications even make it harder to work.  Depakote a medication that can control migraines can cause slow thinking and cognition, even so the VA never took this into consideration.  Between migraines and medication I was no longer able to work and was rated at a max of 50%.  I requested extraschedular rating and was denied.  Never underestimate the VA's ability to make like hard on the veteran. 

Unfortunately, the VA rates your disability on the effect it has on you seeking work or working.  If your headaches are controlled by the Botox they will probably deny an increase.  I also suffer migraines from service and they do not rate migraines very well in my opinion.  Totally incapacitating migraines are only rated at 50%.  If you are having migraines while being treated with Botox do request an increase.

Get a VSO with VBMS access and they can look into it for you.
 

Unfortunately, the VA rates your disability on the effect it has on you seeking work or working.  If your headaches are controlled by the Botox they will probably deny an increase.  I also suffer migraines from service and they do not rate migraines very well in my opinion.  Totally incapacitating migraines are only rated at 50%.  If you are having migraines while being treated with Botox do request an increase.

@El Train, I am sorry to hear that you have had that experience.  In most cases "don't rock the boat" is a cop out by VSO's that want to get you out of their office.  I will say that if you give the VA a reason not to like you they will go after you whole hog.  I did this when I asked for TDIU and would not take no for an answer  I wound up with the threat of severance of a protected disability and the reduction of a protected rating.  The VA plays hardball by their own rules sometimes.

@cathyjourdanI would advise you to fill out the form 21-4138 and request he be continued for residuals, I would include copies of all pertinent medical reports with the important information highlighted and noted in your letter.  I write my remarks in a separate letter with footnotes and attach the medical reports as if it was a college report with an appendix and then say please see attached letter in the remarks of the form.  If you file for a new claim for residuals it might take longer.  This will probably go to appeal and I do not know if your benefits continue when appealing as in a normal reduction.  
Others will shortly be along to offer their advice.  I will close by saying never give up.  

I would say not to get too worried about denial at this point.  The VES doctors that I met were pretty through.  Wait for your ssoc and then decide whether to worry or not.  As far as the earlier audio test it can be included in your appeal.  Worrying about a case only makes us more irritable and less fun to be around.  It also make it harder to continue with or lives.  I spent ten years in the process with two remands.  I would not be sane today if I could not find something to take my mind off of my case for a while.  Good luck and let us know what you hear back.  There's a lot of good folks here with knowledge that transcends mine.  

I went to the BVA the first time and won with the help of the NCOA.  Ten years later I went to the BVA again and decided to hire a lawyer because the VA was playing fast and loose with the laws and CFR's in my case.  Only you can make this decision but know that the service organizations are usually busy and can not always give you the time a lawyer can, it just costs you 20% of your award usually.
I do not believe we should have to hire a lawyer or get expensive IMO's but sometimes that is what it takes.  It's a lot better than the old days when we could not hire a lawyer by law.  Those were some dark days.

I would say its the individual personal decision. I had filed a claim and I use VFW as my rep. Bless my VA rep heart, she did a great job. But for some reason, I kept getting denied. My VFW rep filed the NOD for me which she would not do if its not a strong claim and again denied. It take a long time to do research  for an individual claim which she service ample amounts of vets on a daily basis which only limit the time for maybe 10 minutes per person.
So of course the SOC had come in and being that she was swamped, I had made that decision to lawyer up which is at the BVA level. Yes you do have to pay attorney fee's but this particular attorney does not accept a fee until the claim is awarded which is 20 Percent.
Just like anything else with the VA, you have to spend a little money to get your deserved proper rating. I had made a decision to go this route instead of going and paying thousands of dollars to get an IMO/IME with a possibility of still getting denied.
Do not get me wrong, our VFW's/DAV's (which I am a life time member of both) etc are doing a great job but I think that they are over worked and can not keep up with the workload as far as claims and other things.  But its pretty much a crap shoot. You may have good support from your rep, maybe not. So what do you do? Fire that rep and get a new one? That might delay time being that the new rep has to get familiar with your claim.
Thats why I made the decision to lawyer up at the BVA level and yes its a crap shoot for me as well but I will never quit. Once I do have my hearing, they BVA may look at that yes I have an attorney as my rep so hopefully the BVA will pay more attention to detail to my claim instead of RO's looking at it briefly. Just my opinion though.
I am sure that there are other members on the board like Broncovet and Berta have different insight. They are much more experienced than I am and we can all learn lots from them.
 

I worked for the VBA for a couple of years processing claims and I still have friends there - one of whom is a manager now and another one is a DRO.  If you submitted a DBQ before the date that they were phased out it's possible that it will help you unless it's one of those that they view as telehealth or fraud.  If it's sent in after the date they were phased out then you will be sent out for new C&P exams.
If you read the OIG report, you will see why this was done.  The old DBQs didn't even have a place on the forms where the examiner could certify that the exams were done in person.  The VA has also claimed that they have updated all of the DBQs that they use in C&P exams and they did not update the public use DBQs.  They also claim that updating the public use DBQs will take some time but I doubt that they are even considering this.  
With that being said, if you have it I'd still send it in though.  If you don't get what you want then appeal it and BVA my see things differently.  

I agree with Vync.  We need to raise hell about this and prevent the VA from making things harder for vets.  They claim to be doing this formerly due to veterans outside of the states, I believe them about as much as I believed the VA when they first denied my claim.

I agree with Vync.  We need to raise hell about this and prevent the VA from making things harder for vets.  They claim to be doing this formerly due to veterans outside of the states, I believe them about as much as I believed the VA when they first denied my claim.

I recently woke up to a sobering realization..
 
Without finding HADIT.com, I wouln't know a damn thing, nor would I have been granted a damn thing in VA disability benefits.
 
That is the truth.
 
I appreciate your patience with me and the guidance that those of you have freely given .
 
 
My donation is to help HADIT help other veterans in their time of need, just as HADIT did for me.
 
There are members here who truly are heroes in my book.
 
Thank you.
 
 

I recommend doing the following:
Call the White House VA Hotline and put in an executive complaint (different than a normal complaint or recommendation). Complain to our Congressional representatives (both House and Senate) Complain to our veteran service organizations Complain to our veteran lawyers (if you are using one) Contact news media. They are always hungry to learn about VA-related scandals or how the VA is shafting veterans. @JustGettingStarted This smells like the contracted companies/doctors saw this as an opportunity to increase their revenue stream and asked the VA to do this. It also smells like an attempt to make it more difficult for private doctors who specialize in performing C&P exams, such as Dr. Bash, Dr. Anaise, etc...
Keep in mind that this still does not prevent you from getting a nexus from your doctor. However, the VA would probably want a C&P in order to rate you.
Here's a link to every official VA DBQ and every time they changed since being officially introduced in 2013. Just follow the timeline at the top and/or click on specific dates where highlighted changes occurred. 
https://web.archive.org/web/2019*/https://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/dbq_disabilityexams.asp
An FOIA request should be sufficient for requesting the "current" version of each DBQ, but don't expect it to arrive any time soon. My last FOIA request for a form was submitted in October 2019 and I received the form in February 2020. Ironically, I asked for an examination worksheet that was used in 1997, but they claimed they could not find it. Instead, they sent me a copy of the current DBQ. It was completely different and didn't line up to the C&P answers at all. I was able to find the original via archive.org.
 

Put gin in it and I will try, I will tell my wife it is the cure and maybe she will let me start drinking again.

I have received good service at the VA before but I have also received service that would make your toes curl.  I am one who tries to get most of my care off the VA campus in that I have Tricare.  I have run in to some neurologists at the VA that would tell me thank-you for your service as they twisted the knife.  After reading their notes I knew I would never see them again.  Funny thing is they were probably doing that to everyone because for some reason the Johnson City VA closed it's neurology department without explanation.  As for the mental health at the VA I have received pretty good care while an inpatient.  The only thing I can complain about is that the VA diagnosed me with every mental health condition under the sun (about eight) they could before declaring I had PTSD.
 

I have received good service at the VA before but I have also received service that would make your toes curl.  I am one who tries to get most of my care off the VA campus in that I have Tricare.  I have run in to some neurologists at the VA that would tell me thank-you for your service as they twisted the knife.  After reading their notes I knew I would never see them again.  Funny thing is they were probably doing that to everyone because for some reason the Johnson City VA closed it's neurology department without explanation.  As for the mental health at the VA I have received pretty good care while an inpatient.  The only thing I can complain about is that the VA diagnosed me with every mental health condition under the sun (about eight) they could before declaring I had PTSD.
 

Last year the VA implemented some significant process changes. Before the changes, you were stuck at a single VARO for the most part. If they were backed up, it took that much longer. After the changes, they would out of a centralized national work queue. Claims get assigned out to different VARO's who have availability. It appears to be working to some extent to alleviate the unnecessarily long wait times. Keep in mind that appeals to the BVA do not work out of that queue and still take a very long time.