Received Decision On Claim Questions

[Rschrei518]

OK let me give you a brief history i was in the army i was active from 1977 to 1980 in about 1982 i put in claim for hearing loss. It was denied because they said that i had a preexisting hearing condition prior to enlisting and they do not believe military service aggravated my hearing. I tried appealing and the bva still denied it. I got fed up i just shelved the case and let it go September last year i decided to reopen claim with new and material evidence and this time i also added tinnitus to my claim it now turns out amazingly that the VA has now approved service connection at 0% for hearing loss and 10% for tinnitus. On my last claim in 82 i didn' submit a seperate claim for tinnitus because i didnt know exactly what the ringing in my ears meant i did mention at the C&P exam in 82 about the ringing in my ears but apparantly i find out now they failed to add that to their report because i last year i requested my claim folder from va and read the reports and nothing is in there about tinnitus. After now being approved i really really regret giving up my battle with the VA i know in my mind that i should have been service connected on my original claim.

I have a couple of questions

If i was given at least 10% for my hearing loss claim would i have been able to receive retroactive back to 1982 or if i ever do get service connected status would i receive retroactive payment to 1982

Since tinnitus is a secondary condition to my hearing loss and they admit i have a high frequency hearing loss consistant with noise exposure due to my mos and they say the same for tinnitus do i have any chance of getting retroactive payments at all?

What are my chances of appealing my 0% hearing loss rating to increase to 10%

According to the rating decision for this claim and the findings from my C&P

for my left ear my speech discrimination is 84% and the average loss is 43 db in the left

for the right ear speech discrimination is 90% average db loss is 45db.

I have hearing test from private audiologist which clearly shows lower speech discrimination scores Can i use this to appeal 0% rating?

Any advice or input is greatly appreciated