Bva Denied All Issues But Secondary Shoulder

[allan]

BVA just denied all spinal issues. They granted the shoulder, but gave no rating. This is a final SOC, so I guess I need to find a good lawyer.

They simply picked the shoulder out of the C&P they refused to consider in 1998 and left out everything else the examiner said was SC. The Cervical thoracic & lumbar DDD & DJD.

Injuries are from a Whiplash & Blunt Chest Trauma from an auto accident at age 19.

How they can think the shoulder is SC, but not the rest after all the C&P's & IMO's stateing so, I have no clue.

I will likely recieve a "0" for the shoulder is what i'm thinking. They say theres no diagnoses for the left arm the shoulder causes, so therey didn't make a decision on that.

VAMC records show "frozen shoulder", along with arthritic spurs. I have such a loss of ROM I can't believe they never considered this in their SOC.

I'm so tired of all of this playing mind games. It's attorney time for me.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[les]

Allen, I just received an iris and the bva granted me 20% for limited motion of my left arm. I could only raise my arm to shoulder level at my c&p due to pain which rates 20%. I wish you luck with your appeal! You said the bva granted the shoulder that does not mean you won't get a rating above 0%. Yor appeal will go to Va. or Amc to get rated. Good luck! Les

[Pete53]

Allan:

I am very glad that you are going to get a lawyer. It seems like someone at the VA put you in the Penalty Box

Good Luck

[allan]

I very well might just stay in the penalty box, without help from someone that knows how to get me out.

This was a final decision from the BVA. They gave no rating at all after 11 years at the BVA. Than they used the very first C&P favorable opinion they hid and said they never received, to award the shoulder.

The Examiner stated that the Cervical, Thoracic, lumbar left shoulder & left arm conditions, are on a more probable than not bases service connected as issues & incapacitation's have been steady since service.

The BVA judge picked out the shoulder & said the rest was due to helping push a car out of the mud, lifting a tool box & walking in snow. This is all they could find in my health records since 1976 to try and pin it on. When I would tell my PCP I was down a week or two after walking in snow, the Dr would write it down.

It took over 25 years to get 11 months of service records from these jerks.

Getting T boned at an intersection by a drunk driver & ejected at age 19 couldn't have caused DDD & DJD in the Cervical, Thoracic, lumbar the 5 IMO's I have say. But it could cause the DJD in the shoulder, "ONLY"?

I crushed the several cartilage in the breast bone and cracked ribs in the back thoracic area with the blunt chest trauma. Along with a severe whiplash, The mess never did heal right & is a direct cause of multiple DDD & DJD I have had all these years.

Are these BVA Judges medical specialists & so knowledgeable that their own C&P examiners and specialists like Dr Bash don't have a clue compared to them?

I think an attorney will be able to smell somethings not right.

I sure need to get my records organized and ready to send off. Something I'm terrible at is organizing

Edited May 22, 2009 by allan

[Josephine]

Allen,

I am so sorry to hear of such news. Most definitely get you a lawyer.

Betty

[Stretch]

Allen, sounds like an injury that I had in service.

My neck was thrown back and this caused my Cervical spine to be somewhat deformed. This causes a narrowing in the spinal canal causing pain. Mine pain goes from one shoulder to the other. Rather than admit a spine problem they would much rather blame it on arthritis (old age), but the MRI is the absolute proof of the injury.

I don't know if you had a MRI or not. I had an MRI and it shows exactly what the situation is. My other claims are still at the AMC. I figured you would have been rated, by now, before my other claims caught up. I think pete is right.

Hang in there buddy. Check carefully the list of evidence they used.

[Berta]

Once you appeal the part of your decision they denied- to the CAVC and get on the CAVC docket-attorneys will surely contact you-

You could file a Motion for Reconsideration with the BVA if you think that will help.But there are deadlines to watch out for there and the results could be the same-

BVA decisions dont really mention all the evidence they used-I hope they had all of your evidence.

My recent BVA award only mentioned the first piece of evidence I sent in Feb 2003 with the claim and then the IMOs I had.I also had faxed to the BVA 3 weeks before this came -even more medical evidence.I had just learned how to read the microscopic autopsy slides-something I didnt think to do for over a decade.These were slices of major organs and the brief microscopic descriptions seemed not to contain any important info.

I was wrong. The heart slides had a word I didnt understand, I looked it up in Med Dictionary and here was prime facie evidence of the claim I filed in 2003-more proof that Rod had DMII undiagnosed and untreated.3 weeks after I faxed this additional evidence to BVA they awarded never mentioning this important medical fact.

BVA looks at the whole picture however as the prior remand pointed out facts I had raised back to 1988.

A prior BVA decision on a CUE claim I had mentioned the ancillary benefits an eventual SC death award would give me.My award letter I raised Hell over when it came last week failed to consider the entire BVA decision.

My point is- it is a real good idea top get organized with your stuff Allen and read over any other prior SOCS or remands or whatever you have.

A lawyer will be looking for any legal errors the BVA made as the CAVC cannot review new evidence.

It is quite possible that BVA overlooked critical evidence and yet they dont list what they did use in many decisions.

A lawyer themselves might even suggest filing Reconsideration if the errors are so obvious.

I had knocked down 2 C & P docs for my claim -Dr. Bash knocked down one of them too but the last doc-I knocked down myself.

One thing the BVA did was weigh what these doctors had written against my IMOs and found the deficiencies in their opinions that both I and Dr. Bash had raised.My additional evidence which was voluminous was really only briefly mentioned-but would have awarded even without the IMOs.

Oddly enough the very last thing I faxed to the BVA was one of the most important pieces of evidence I had- the heart slide description.I should have studied the slides 6 years ago.

There might be something extremely important to your claim that has been overlooked.

And dont forget Allen-my daugher nagged me for months to re-open my death claim- and look at it all a different way.

She was right.I didnt ever want to look at the medical records again- ever-I had won the past claims and didnt want to deal with them again.

She was right-

after a few days of reviewing the medical records and going to some diabetes sites-I realized Rod had undiagnosed and unreated diabetes mellitus -an AO condition- which BVA just granted SC as cause of his conditions at death.

If you organize and read over everything the BVA might have missed stuff so significant that they could reconsider.

The CAVC will only look for errors that were to your detriment.They certainly find BVA errors and this sets up a remand-or in some cases a grant of benefits.

CAVC is best to have a lawyer as they know exactly what to look for in prior decisions.

In my Fax to BVA and in other submissions I mentioned numerous times the standing unresolved VCAA legal errors in my case as well as other errors the CAVC would take note of if BVA denied the claim.

This is a point that can be reaised in a Reconsideration Motion to the BVA.

But a lawyer would know best if that is preferable over CAVC appeal at this time.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Berta