Cleetus

Good Afternoon, I submitted a claim back in 2013 and literally have been doing the back and forth since. I finally received my letter of denial 2 weeks ago. During this time, the VA has been setting me up appointments for care and I had attended each one of my appointments. My claim was for COPD, knee and back pain. Of course I barely have anything in my medical records related to this and the VA said that I should follow through with care provided by the VA. My question is, should I avoid getting care by the VA and what is a good way to service connect if I do not have it in my records? I went into the Marine Corps running a constant 18 min PT test for the first 3 years and deployed, I came back and ran my first PT test upon returning from deployment and ran it in 23 min. Ever since deployment my cardio has dwindled to the point I feel drained/dizzy. I went to medical on a few occasions and they kept blaming it on weight gain. I went from 145ish from entry to 165ish this current point. I was always with the unit doing PT and did PT on my off time. I was artillery, so I did a lot of jumping in and out of the back of the 7-tons and lots of heavy lifting so I have had my share of back tweaks and knee issues but again it was frowned upon to even go to medical for the flu. Thanks in advance!