I Have A Good Question About Sleep Apnea

[CITY BOY]

I was diagnosed with Chronic Sinusitis in the service and had a bunch of problems with this condition since I got out. In the year 1999 I had to have nasal surgery due to polyps, swollen and infected turbinites, which they cleaned out most of the inside of my head per se. After the surgery every thing went down hill fast, headaches, ear pain and the worst of the surgery was the severe Obstructive sleep apnea that started three months after the surgery. I applied for Chronic Sinusitis in January 2007 and received 10% then got it upgraded to 30% back to the effective date of Jan 2007. My question is this, under the reasons section of this decision the VA said, "The 30% evaluation seems to most closely approximate the level of your disability, as your condition has caused you to undergo surgery use a CPAP machine for OSA and request medication to help you sleep due to you chronic symptoms". Does this statement mean that the VA acknowledges that the OSA is secondary to my Chronic sinustitus?

[jbasser]

oh, hell, ptsd, triggered, by, some, a--wipe, concerned, about, a, @#$%^&* comma,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Out here, this is no place for this type of comment.

It was asked to better understand the post.

If you dont have anything productive to add to this post, ignore it.

J

[vaf]

I think I raised a valid question, so just to get off the subject of punctuation, can we bounce my comment around a little? Yes or no, what do you guys think?

[Bonzai]

vaf,

I have spent some time trying to find a 'good' answer, and I could not find one. I know what I think, and that is that Robinson v. Principi should definitely apply.

Of course, in my research of this, I have found that with the VA's recent surge to find out everything that is wrong with me, this same situation may bite me in the end. I have filed an appeal, and have filed a NOD for an effective date for my wife being my dependent. In the course of that, I was diagnosed with OSA. If Robinson v. Principi is applied to me, then everything will slow down even more. On the advice of a senior member, I am going to apply for OSA to establish a claim/effective date, just in case.

Louis

[out_here04]

Bonzai and All,

I revisited this post (even before scrolling up and reading Bonzai's understandable reaction to my own) to apologize for making such a rude comment about what I thought was flaming, yet, petty uppityness or misinterpretation of a mere typo regarding CITY BOY's quoting of his sleep apnea diagnosis. My view was that the only other way the sentence could have been written (comma or not)and made any logical sense would be:

"...as your condition has caused you to undergo surgery. Use a CPAP machine for OSA and request medication to help you sleep due to you® chronic symptoms".

Meaning, of course there should have been a comma there, or change the sentence to the above. The VA is giving the history in the reasoning to increase compensation, not giving a prescription to remedy a condition seven years later, so the separate sentence theory is obviously incorrect. With or without a comma, I still see no evidence the gist of the words changes the favor of the statement to the veteran. If so, further enlightenment is requested.

Writing (either in a transcription of something someone at the VA did or did not punctuate correctly or online) often doesn't meet the standards of properly written English, but it is communication. I know that I still, to this day and in most of my posts, don't always get my commas right, but I do not point out others' minor nuances because I usually understand what they are trying to say.

As jbasser rightfully states, productive input should be made to posts. This morning, I just didn't see it in Bonzai's, thus my knee-jerk reaction. Wrong site, wrong forum, wrong people, wrong emotion. Sorry Bonzai for making you, in turn, hit the ceiling. Your resorting to meditation is to be commended and filed hopefully for my own use in the future.

On a related subject, you don't get all qualifications solely from an MOS or other status symbol. Please don't threaten to interrogate me, either. I've already been through enough c&p exams. Maybe we can have a beer instead.

Now, back to trying to help CITY BOY:

My initial reason for even looking at this post was to offer what my rating decision stated regarding my sleep apnea diagnosis:

"Service connection may be granted for a disability which began in military service or was caused by some event or experience in service. On current VA examination you reported complaints of having sleep apnea which has been a problem since 19xx. Service Medical Records...note problems with snoring and hypersomnolence. You have trouble staying awake during the day occasionally about 12 times a year and seems to be aggravated by chronic sinusitis, depression, and anxiety. On VA examination you underwent pulmonary function study that showed slight restrictive defect otherwise normal. Chest x-rays were normal. You were placed on a CPAP machine. Service connection for sleep apnea has been established as directly related to military service. An evaluation of 50 percent is assigned if a breathing assistance device, such as a continuous airway pressure (CPAP) machine, is required. A higher evaluation of 100 percent is not warranted unless there is chronic respiratory failure with carbon dioxide retention or cor pulmonale, or a tracheostomy is required."

[Bonzai]

out_here04,

In my original post, I was asking about the comma because City Boy had quoted what the VA had written. As you mentioned in your last post, communication doesn't have to be perfect. However, in my eyes, if the VA had put a comma in, then it would have signified a series event needed because of the SC condition e.g. this, that, and something else. So in my not clearly understanding the written word of the VA, I asked the question.

I did not threaten to interrogate you, nor did I imply that I meant to. I post my MOSes so that others from a Military Intelligence background can contact me. Anyone, who has watched MASH and seen Col. Flag in action, can attest to how anal retentive Interrogators can be.

By the way, I hope to receive a letter like you did one day, so a belated congratulations on your success. And we all need to know how others proved their claims, to prevent ours from being delayed or denied.

Louis

[out_here04]

Bonzai, so we're cool. I was likely not having a good a day as I thought and should not have been allowed near my computer. I respect all vets, sorry for going anal myself, that's what I was apologizing for. Keep adding your valuable input.