Very Worried About My Claim. Please Help Me Figure This Out

[JHawks]

Response Via Email (Department of Veterans Affairs) 01/24/2011 10:21 AM Below is today's response to an IRIS inquiry on my claim. I am claiming bilateral CTS as SECONDARY to my current SC conditions. My C&P examiner's impression was "Severe bilateral CTS as likely as not 50/50 caused by use of cane required for current SC disabilities". I also provided nexus from a neurologist and EMG results showing "severe bilateral CTS."

According to the IRIS quote below "this condition may be rated as a primary condition as opposed to secondary". How can that be? Does it mean my claim for secondary will be denied?

This is soooooooooooooo confusing.

Dear Mr. :

This is in response to your inquiry to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), dated January 24, 2011.

Thank you for providing the additional information. Your file was reviewed by a Veteran's Service Representative and our system information indicates all the development has been received. It is now ready for a decision.

What we have received:

Name Date Received

-medical evidence since service for bilateral carpal tunnel 1-19-2011

-VCAA Notice Response 1-19-2011

-Reply from claimant 1-19-2011

-VHA examination - VAMC Charleston 1-20-2011

-secondary disability 1-20-2011 *closed

*If a developmental item is marked closed rather than received, this condition may be rated as a primary condition as opposed to secondary, depending on the information available in your claim file.

[Veldrina]

addendum: it hasn't happened yet, like the others said, but pls write in if you don;t feel comfortable about it.

thank you broncovet :) glad to be of service!

[JHawks]

dont give up just yet. If you have doctors giving the nexus of your CTS as secondary to cane usage, and even a VA doc establishing that nexus, they can't deny that. And the letter said it "could", meaning no decision has been made on that. I would write in (i know, it;s exhausting, but try). Just make sure that they are considering CTS SECONDARY to bilateral ankles AND knees (& any spine condition) due to cane usage. If you phrase it that way & tthey didn;t examine you as secondary for it, you wont be denied primary, or at least the office will get an error for denying it that way & they will have to redo your case (sans appeals process). If you have a POA (like american legion or veterans of foreign wars, etc) have them check on it without delay! POA will track down where your file is and i have had many of tem come to me in the middle of a rating to make sure all is copacetic.

Than you for your insight. You gave me some hope here. Is there a reason why the VA would consider my claim as primary instead of secondary? What would be the advantage to me if they would do that?

[Veldrina]

the only reason i could see them treating it as primary is if they had already closed out your condition under secondary and there was no nexus establishing a link between the CTS and the cane use/bilateral ankles/knees. I think that was just standard languae they put in all their letters, so i wouldn't be alarmed right now. Again, if you have misgivings, send or have your POA send a letter with the wording i gave you.

[Tbird]

Hang In JHawks, so many of us get beat down in the system, including me. You have to be a tenacious little sob and I know you got that in you. Listen to this show we recently had on our SVR radio show, it's a Veterans Attorney talking about success stories I am hoping hearing her talking about never giving up and examples of cases they have won will give you some hope.. Here's a link to the show http://ow.ly/3Je4h Let me know if you have any trouble with the link.

[Veldrina]

absolutely....as TBird says, don't give up....with all the claims we have, both new & backlogged, the BEST thing u can do is keep writing in.

[JHawks]

absolutely....as TBird says, don't give up....with all the claims we have, both new & backlogged, the BEST thing u can do is keep writing in.

I have no choice but to hang in there. Once the brown envelope arrives it will be over as far as I am concerned. Win, loose or draw I won't appeal. I did everything right. Got all the documents, letters, medical opinions (nexus) to make this an easy claim to rate. It took me 6 months to get my ducks in a row. Now Atlanta decides to screw it up for some unknown reason by loosing my first VCAA response and not letting me know. Then I rushed to FedEx another complete set once I found out just to have them screw that up as well.

They closed my secondary and are going to try and rate it as a primary. I don't see the advantage to that at all. It isn't a primary disability and will be denied.