Dro Denial Received

[jmlo]

My husband received a denial for service connection of his fibromyalgia on Friday. It states that even though his doctor stated that the fibromyalgia is service connected, he didn't base his opinion on a review of his medical records. Also, he got out of the service in 98 and the fibro wasn't diagnosed until 2005. He is a gulf war veteran and served during the Southwest Asia Theatre. Wouldn't the service connection be granted under the presumptive period?

Where do we go from here? I really don't want him to have to wait years for the BVA. The RO said that we could request a hearing. Should he do that? Will they issue a SSOC after that? Also, his gulf war registry exam is in a week. VA cancelled the first one. Could this be why they didn't service connect it? Because they don't show it in the records yet? Everything they send us has on it that he is a gulf war vet but we just found out about the registry in July and he has been to va to determine that he is eligible and they scheduled his exam.

Should we close this claim and re-open another? We also want to include two other conditions but were trying to wait this out first.

Any help is appreciated.

[jmlo]

Okay, I've sent a modified version of my request taking out the language of disagreement, reconsideration, etc. I faxed it and mailed it to the Director at the VARO. Hopefully, we will get some results. I've also requested a hearing at the VARO before going to BVA.

My question is ~ should I go ahead and submit the request to appeal to BVA. I know I only have 60 days to do this. If anything results from the VARO I can always withdraw the request right?

Thanks again to everyone for your help with this!