[Advice for someone still on Active Duty?]

On 1/17/2018 at 12:06 PM, Holllie Greene said:

Hi Skull,

Welcome.  You will not find a better group of people anywhere---Hadit is THE rockstar of websites.

Anyway, my advice is to keep your shot record, something I wish I could have remembered to do.

Have a good day.

HG

Keep the shot record?  Interesting - I never would have thought of that.  Thanks!

[Advice for someone still on Active Duty?]

On 1/17/2018 at 9:43 AM, Navy04 said:

Welcome aboard, and too get an account on here right before I was Medically retired so I could learn the process. Incapacitating or Severely  episode means that a few times a year, you have such bad Gout that you can not work or do most things of daily living. I have rarely seen Vets get higher then 20% unless they are unable to work. All Vets coming out think they should be granted 100%, but we find out the hard way that it takes alot for the VA and Govt to give us a 100% of anything. Just continue to seek treatment, and make sure that it is all well documented in your military records, and on your exit exam if you make it to Retirement or the Military Decides to Med you out. I was offered a lot of money to do Medical Discharge, nope, instead I took the Medical Retirement with No Severance. If you get Med Boarded, Medical Discharge its like you were never in the Military, Medical Retirement is alot more benefits, plus Life insurance along with Military Retired Pay, unless your VA pay is higher, which is Tax Free and preferred pension to receive. Good luck and Keep us posted. God Bless

Wow, thanks!  That's great info! I just figured gout would be rated higher because it does rather much incapacitate you sometimes.  The whole system is a bit bizarre.

[Advice for someone still on Active Duty?]

I've been reading a while but finally decided to jump in, make an account and ask some questions.  I'm still Active Duty and have a couple years until retirement.  I'm old by military standards (49) and have a number of medical problems but most of them aren't documented much at all.  It's just difficult to find time to see doctors much and even then I don't know how the system works.

Anyway, let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:  I have gout pretty bad.  I take medicine but still have attacks fairly regularly (at least one every couple months).  I have seen specialists and they have increased my meds but they say it-is-what-it-is at this point.  I do my best and nobody gives me a rough time at work.  They can see I am doing my best to deal with it.  Thing is, I don't go to the doctor's office anymore when I have an attack.  What would be the point?  I already know the attack is because of gout.  Besides, by the time I can get an appointment the uric acid level has probably already gone down (and the attack might even be over).  Plus, in the past I have worried that missing more work for medical appointments might lead to me getting med boarded out of the Army.  That's not as much a concern at this point since I am nearing 18 years but I still don't want to miss work more than necessary.

And while we're on the subject, I looked up the ratings for gout and here's what I found:

Quote

With constitutional manifestations associated with
active joint involvement, totally incapacitating.................................................... 100

Less than criteria for 100% but with weight loss and anemia
productive of severe impairment of health or severely
incapacitating exacerbations occurring 4 or more times a
year or a lesser number over prolonged periods.................................................... 60

Symptom combinations productive of definite impairment of
health objectively supported by examination findings or
incapacitating exacerbations occurring 3 or more times a year................................ 40

One or two exacerbations a year in a well-established diagnosis............................. 20

I'm confused by the wording.  What is "incapacitating" versus "severely incapacitating"?  And who would determine that?  Sometimes I can't drive because of a gout attack so I get my wife to drive me to work.  If it's bad enough that I have trouble hobbling around, then I will use crutches.  But basically none of my day-to-day stuff is being documented.  I'm sure if someone looked at my records they would think I rarely have attacks.

So what should I be doing?  Is there some way to document this without being ridiculous and going to the doc constantly?