ptsd Next Line Of Attack

[SouthernBelle]

Okay, so here's what I've been thinking on lately: I want to try to service connect my husband's ED, which is caused by his PTSD medications. ALSO, he had (while in service) some pretty severe kidney issues. I want to get them service connected. **I am not going to start this claims process until the other is completed, I am just trying to plan my attack and have everything prepared to go out as soon as we get the decision.** Here's the problem service connecting the kidneys: His SMR's are missing. I've called everyone under the sun and nobody can find them. They are NOT in the C-File. Records Management NEVER got the records, they said the records were sent directly to the VARO in Atlanta from his last duty station. In searching for his records, I have contacted National Archives, National Personnel, Records Management, the VARO in Atlanta and the actual hospitals where he was treated. Nobody can locate the records. With my husband's memory problems, he couldn't tell me who he knew back then to try to find to get buddy statements written up. He can't remember the doctors names, either. I'm going to have a really hard time proving that his current kidney issues are service connected without the records, but I'm going to KEEP trying to find the records. I just sent an IRIS complaint about the missing records.

As far as the ED, he's taking medication to treat the ED which is caused by his MH meds. They don't help.

I guess what I'm getting at is how do I go about getting stuff service connected? Do I just send the VARO a letter and ask them to SC the stuff?

Thank you SO MUCH in advance for any help with this.

Edited December 11, 2008 by SouthernBelle

[mags1023]

Hi Belle:

Sounds like a good plan to wait for other issues to be resolved. I am working on getting my gastrointestinal problems secondary connected due to meds for service connected conditions. A Nexus letter from the doc that your husbands meds are "at least as likely as not" contributing to his kidney problems is key to your claim.

good luck!

Mags1023

[mags1023]

Hi Belle:

Sounds like a good plan to wait for other issues to be resolved. I am working on getting my gastrointestinal problems secondary connected due to meds for service connected conditions. A Nexus letter from the doc that your husbands meds are "at least as likely as not" contributing to his kidney problems is key to your claim.

good luck!

Mags1023

Woops, the ED issue would also need a Nexus letter.

[SouthernBelle]

Let me back up, the kidney problems started in service. He was injured during training, and he can't remember the exact way, he went to the hospital for tomato soup-looking urine. They diagnosed him with "athlete's kidneys" after testing for months and not being able to figure out what exactly was wrong, he just had a lot of blood, and a lot of pain, and large and frequent kidney stones, and still they sent him off to war. All through the Gulf War he was in and out of the Medic station for bloody urine, and when I say bloody, I mean that his urine looked and had the consistency of tomato soup without the extra can of water. It continued throughout his entire military service. The service medical records, by my husband's account, was about 10 inches thick, and the kidneys consisted of more than half of that. He remembers being sent to the teaching hospital at Fort Gordon for testing, among other places they sent him (he only remembers being sent to Fort Gordon, but he knows he was sent other places) He has had severe kidney stones. The last one that he went to the hospital for shut down his left kidney completely. These are things that are in his SMR, but we can't get our hands on them. The Psych ward at Brooke Army Medical Center had him so drugged up when he left he sat on the couch and drooled for months after. He didn't know to get a copy of his records, he doesn't even remember getting back to Georgia from Texas. He doesn't remember the PEB, or his discharge, or signing papers. He remembers very little, and I think it is because of the meds they had him on. He didn't know he needed to say something about his kidneys not being addressed in his discharge, and if he had known before the meds, he sure as heck wouldn't have had the capacity to address it with the meds.

ON TO NOW: Now, at this moment, he has several large kidney stones in his left kidney, and smaller ones in his right. They found these on accident with a CT scan of his liver (for unidentified spots). They informed us that as soon as they started to pass, we would need to try to make it to Charleston, if we can't make it to Charleston, go to the nearest ER, because the ones on the left will probably shut it down again. NOW, they know the left one shut down because we got those records from the hospital (a civilian hospital), and forwarded them to his PCP.

That's the back story on the kidneys. The ED should be easy to SC because the pdoc will write a nexus statement.

[jbasser]

SB, he should have the big one broken up using sound waves. Does he have hypertension. That is a often a direct result of Kidney problems.

Did you try to contact the hospital he was in to see if they had the records? If h e does have HTN, have the VA send him to urology for them to treat it. They are the best MD's for blood pressure.

J

[SouthernBelle]

He has no high blood pressure, no hypertension...yet. The VA did a treadmill stress test at my insistance and he had very good results. Another thing: he has osteopenia. There are no chemical reasons for this. That's another thread, nevermind. Anyways, the VA is taking the stance that the large kidney stones will be dealt with when they NEED to be, they're not going to do a preemptive strike to go ahead and get rid of them. Ridiculous. The thing that makes his kidney problems so strange is that the only thing that has ever happened to them is the in service injury. Since then, he's had nothing but trouble with them, and the military did a battery of testing to find a cause and couldn't. The VA hasn't touched his kidneys, except to tell us "Oh, by the way, you've got some huge kidney stones!" He's gone to private hospitals since he got out of the military to deal with his kidneys. I have all of those records, I've given copies to his PCP. The problem is that they are all after he was discharged.

AND: Thanks, everybody!

SB, he should have the big one broken up using sound waves. Does he have hypertension. That is a often a direct result of Kidney problems.

Did you try to contact the hospital he was in to see if they had the records? If h e does have HTN, have the VA send him to urology for them to treat it. They are the best MD's for blood pressure.

J

Edited December 12, 2008 by SouthernBelle

[jbasser]

How long after his dischargs????