Seeing Is Believing!

[Bigred122]

Why does the VA even have a disability program if they aren't going to play fair? I learned early that the VA played the game of LIFE by their own rules.And if they didn't have a rule for it, they made one up just for us and it would only be used once so that it wouldn't be considered the rule of Law.Last weekend, I received my medical records for my first 2 years in the sevice from the NPRC. Being in sports all my life, I was a suck up the pain kinda guy, so I didn't go a medical facility unless it was emergency in nature. So my records were a whole 12 pages long.(I create more nowadays in just one day) And to make me feel like one of the gang, two pages were missing.Would you believe those two pages just happen to be very important to my claim?(Silly me, you all have been at this for years and have heard this story a thousand times.) I know we have people from the VA who come here. Can someone explain to me why these records disappear. Are they paid to process claims or are they paid to sabotage claims. It happens so regularly, it just can't be fate.It has to be on purpose.The odds at them losing 2 pages out of 14 and those 2 pages being key to me getting disability must be HUGE. They did screwup and leave 1 page that may help me on my AO claim from FT Gordon .I don't remember my visit to the hospital there, but it occurred after 2 weekends of guard duty at one of the AO dump sites.It showed a strange rash, dizzyness, diarreaha, and a strange weakness. It was on a important medical document from Basic trainning.One of the page/pages missing was a 4 day stay at the base clinic/make do hospital for unknown reasons. This was key evidence again to my exposure to AO. The other document was a visit to mental health DR. In the letter they sent with my records, they said to call and give them special permission to send other misc records. Of course when I called them today, they had no clue to what the record clerk was talking about. So I told them what was missing and they said they would check again. (Some things have to be authorized twice by me makes no sense)I told them I was up against a 4/29 deadline, so hopefully they will be found.lol I can't believe that there isn't some hidden rule that says to deny deny deny! Lets keep the playing field fair and just decide things on the evidence. It's too late for me now, but I suggest if your thinking about filing a claim, get ALL your records first. Then file your your claim. By filing first they know what records to make disappear. They are the dealer in this card game and they decide what cards we get or don't get.Thanks for giving me a place to vent.Deadline date is approaching in 2 weeks so the end might be near for dealing with this silly game. Get my approval/denial and then to decide what to do. A hundred trees gave their life, just to save a few more government jobs.Was it worth it? We will see!! Mike

[Bigred122]

"I don't remember my visit to the hospital there, but it occurred after 2 weekends of guard duty at one of the AO dump sites.It showed a strange rash, dizzyness, diarreaha, and a strange weakness. It was on a important medical document from Basic trainning.One of the page/pages missing was a 4 day stay at the base clinic/make do hospital for unknown reasons. This was key evidence again to my exposure to AO."

I thought that I heard that hospital records are not always "married" to the service medical records and that in some cases you need to acquire hospital records by a request directly to the hospital. Hopefully someone who has had to deal with hospital records can jump in on this post and clarify this.

I do not mean to be adversarial. However, by attacking your claim now it might become stronger in the long run.

Who told you the missing records are "key" evidence in an AO claim? AO claims are not usually won or lost by identifying undiagnosed "acute" conditions in the military. Many claims of all types are lost because the doctors in the military did not identify a diagnosable "chronic" condition while on active duty. As far as I have seen AO claims are won by showing exposure to AO through duty records. Are there other ways to prove your claim other than undiagnosed symptoms while on active duty?

Can you establish through records that they were dumping AO at these sites and can you put yourself in proximity to these sites using duty reports or proving specific knowledge of the dumping operation that only someone would know who was in close proximity to the dumping of AO. I could be wrong. However, I doubt the VA would service connect every individual from a stateside base just because they were dumping AO somewhere on that base. If you can find cases on the BVA website where they were service connecting everone on a stateside base with a dump site this would shoot down my theory and you could use whatever case law was cited on that claim to support your claim. I have seen people service connected for AO who were able to show that they were actually loading AO or working on the aircraft that was spraying the AO. I have not seen any linkage to symptoms that occurred two weeks after exposure. If you had some medical evidence supporting the onset of linkable symptoms two weeks after exposure be sure and submit this to the VA. The VA assumes very little. You cannot always count on C&P examiners to write favorable opinions.

Due to the fact that my angioedema involves an inordinate chemical sensitivity I have been following chemical claims with the VA for 15 years. I have read numerous reports on the BVA website. Angioedema causes the exact symptoms you had while in the military. I have had in depth evaluations of my own symptoms addressed by several doctors. I have had doctors tell me to my face that all the symptoms I had and you are saying you had in the military could have been caused by something I ate or something in the drinking water.

I could not get doctors to write favorable opinions relating my in-service symptoms of angioedema to symptoms of the disease that could have been explained by systemic reactions to food. I argued this point for five years to no avail. It wasn't until I found a hospital record from one appointment, while I was on active duty, from the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth Virginia written by a specialist who actually diagnosed me with angioedema. Even with the same diagnosis in service and post service I was denied two more times until I got a nexus report from a specialist based on the fact that angioedema has no known cure.

It sounds to me like you are trying to win the claim by seeking a medical nexus linking AO to some vague non chronic symptoms that doctors would think it was plausible that the symptoms could have been caused by non AO related causes. In this regard that is what I was trying to establish with my chemically induced angioedema. I would never have won my claim if I did not find a hospital report showing a specific diagnosis of the disease made by a specialist while I was on active duty combined with a nexus report from a specialist stating that the disease had no known cure.

They still denied my claim because a VA hospital employee lied to the RO and told them all my post service treatment records were destroyed in an earthquake. The post service records not only established chronicity of the disease they specifically linked my angioedema to the same chemicals that the VA determined I was working with at the time the military doctor diagnosed me with the disease. Five years later I found the post service records by accident. Finding the records was the last duck I had to put in a row. After 8.5 years of an open claim I was finally awarded service connection.

It is important to find any missing hospital reports from the military. You are saying that the symptoms were unknown in the military. That is exactly what I thought about my angioedema. Much to my surprise I found the report with a specific diagnosis of the disease made by a specialist while on active duty. The reason you need to find your reports is there could be something in there you forgot about. There could have been a diagnosis of some condition you are not aware of that was made at that time. If you do find something then you will still need to show a nexus.

First let me say I am working on my claim on my own. The claim office keeps saying show us proof of when symptoms first appeared.They had a site at Fort Gordon that was admittedly to have had AO sprayed at it. On weekends they had hold overs pull guard duty at it. I've got articles from one of the people spraying it of it's location.I pulled guard duty two weekends in a row while awaiting orders to new duty station. So putting one and one together I came up with possible connection.

Second possible contact was in Korea. I was in communications and when the approved units were in the field, I went with them to provide communications for them. We lived in the same boonies, walked the same ground, and did everything they did that would expose them to AO. Camp Casey in Korea had no hospital just 4 beds in the back of a clinic. I spent 4 or 5 days there with IVs and no one could tell me what I had. Your right about hospital information that required in patient treatment. Thats what the person at NPRC told me. But I explained to them that it wasn't a real hospital. They said they would check on it again and let me know. All I know is I have documents showing AO was used at two duty stations that I walked that ground personally, I had unexplainable symptoms around that time period and now I have Diabetes, ischemitric heart problems, hyperthyroidism that involved removal of half of my thyroid from a cancerous growth. No one in my family has ever had these health problem. I have no beef with the Blue Navy Vets, but I was all over the areas that were sprayed. And if they can get connection being 30 miles from land, I'm sure I qualify living on the land they sprayed. The Secretary of VA says all we have to do is show that we were there during time period and have qualifying medical problems. And I have plenty of proof of both.I have never seen any DR civilian or military ever say anything against another DR. They stand together.I don't know how people get nexus letters unless it is from a civilian DR and I can't afford that. I had a VA Dr who I thought was on my side until I asked them to write down what they had told me previously. Nothing but silence now. There was only one time in Korea when we were out in the field that we were ordered to put on our gas masks. We weren't told why, just follow orders. Nobody knew of AO back then.Hell I didn't know of it being where I was at till I started checking this last winter. I was aware of the Veit nam vets problems with it, that all. Like I stated in an earlier post that if it wasn't for the AO questions on the Form 526, I would have never known. I just answered the questions and the claims office wrote back for me to send them documentation. Now the whole thing is bigger than that original snowball.

Ok, now to try and answer some of the other questions.Like I stated before, my whole records from Basic trainning till my discharge approxiamately two years later was a whole 12 pages long. 4 pages was preinduction physical, 2 pages were immunization records, 1 page signout sheet for medical records, 3 pages of knee stress fracture in basic,1 page from Ft Gordon and a page from Korea on knee problem status.The missing paperwork was 4 day stay at clinic and a visit to mental health clinic with a shrink. Both of these took place in Korea. It's just really unusual with such a small amount of records, that two reports I need are not there. Like I said before, I'm doing this on my own, no prior experience with it. I was not prepared because I was not aware of the other medical connections.Everything I read said to do it on your own, when you get denied then get a lawyer or a SVO to help you. Since I was past my date on any tort claim, lawyers want nothing to do with me. So I figured the Chapter 38 section 1151 should be simple. So far the claims office has not asked for anything on it. So I guess it was a cut and dry case of yes or no. Yet the C&P Dr said it was beyond his capabilities to say that my surgery definitely caused my Hep C!! I guess he hasn't realized that there is no perfect definite answers when it come to medicine. Most of it at best is a most likely caused..... So that is the jest of it all. So I've done the best I could have done, but that is a good thing because I should have lots of reasons to file appeals.lol Mike

[Hoppy]

AO and HEP “C”

“All I know is I have documents showing AO was used at two duty stations that I walked that ground personally,”

This is the strongest part of your claim. You do not need to prove symptoms of anything at the initial time of exposure. Work on proving the exposure.

If you do go the route of proving symptoms of exposure you will have an uphill battle. In addition to what I have told you about my chemical problems I know three other Viet Nam veterans who tried to get the same symptoms you had and I have had all my life of skin rashes etc. linked to AO and failed.

Angioedema episodes (often called "attacks") …………….. weakness, and in some cases, watery diarrhea, and an unraised, non-itchy splotchy/swirly rash.

I read literature stating that 80% Americans experience one of these attacks in their life time. I am one of the unlucky individual who is one of 1 in 5000 who have chronic angioedema. These symptoms are also called hives and can be irritant reactions and even associated with poison oak and poison ivy. Most people react to foods they eat. The symptoms are so common that doctors would not link them to any one cause without extended blood tests, allergy tests and a long history of chronic symptoms. It is very common for a single episode to go undiagnosed and the doctors only list the symptoms without a reference to a diagnosis.

“The Secretary of VA says all we have to do is show that we were there during time period and have qualifying medical problems”.

The symptoms you had in the military are not currently qualifying medical problems linked to AO. I doubt that a single symptom event will ever be linked to AO. Your current symptoms are qualifying primarily or secondary as far as I know. That is why you need to strengthen the fact that you were exposed to AO.

Has your claim been denied and did they address any opinion denying your proof of exposure. If not, you still could be in good shape with the AO claim. If they did deny your proof of exposure then we here on hadit need to see what the exact wording was and rebut there denial.

As you have learned doctors will placate you and act like they agree until you ask them to put something in writing.

Doctors do not always agree. I have developed evidence for several veterans by getting medical opinions that directly contradict the opinion of VA C&P examiners. I obtained these reports from other VA doctors and civilian doctors. The DRO’s gave weight to the reports I developed and the veterans were service connected.

Do not do it on your own. However, SO’s are useless in developing medical arguments. On complex claims you need to do your own research and get reports from doctors. That is how I won my claim. The DAV threw me out of there office. I changed SO’s and developed the medical evidence. The new SO got me service connected. I helped develop the medical evidence for another veteran that won his claim for an acquired psychiatric condition. The claim was previously denied four times. Both the DAV and VFW gave up on the claim due to lack of medical evidence.

HEP “C”

Yet the C&P Dr said it was beyond his capabilities to say that my surgery definitely caused my Hep C!!

The doctor did not answer the right question. It is not a question of a definite cause. It is a question of more likely than not.

Can you find any evidence of HEP “C” occurring at that hospital in inordinate rates? Where they cited for not properly sterilizing? Ask an attorney or other HEP “C” advocate what to look for and do your own research. I do not know much about HEP “C”.

Were you a combat veteran? Were you exposed to blood in combat? Have you attempted this type of approach to you HEP “C” claim. If you can remember any combat related exposure to blood your subjective recollections of combat events can be given weight.

Also, at one time they were researching the possibility that HEP “C” was being spread by the guns they were using for immunizations given to the troops. What is the latest on this avenue?

[Carl the Engineer]

""Also, at one time they were researching the possibility that HEP “C” was being spread by the guns they were using for immunizations given to the troops. What is the latest on this avenue?""

For what its worth, my neighbor is a Nam vet that is currently compensated for HEP C from his immunizations. From a gun..

Hamslice

[john999]

The immunization gun thing is interesting. If a vet has tatoos then the VA will blame that for the hep C. The immunization process the army used at Ft Benning when I was there was just horrendous. It was a bloody mess. They used the guns and there was so much dripping blood. Many went around with festering infections after the shots.

[Bigred122]

AO and HEP "C"

"All I know is I have documents showing AO was used at two duty stations that I walked that ground personally,"

This is the strongest part of your claim. You do not need to prove symptoms of anything at the initial time of exposure. Work on proving the exposure.

If you do go the route of proving symptoms of exposure you will have an uphill battle. In addition to what I have told you about my chemical problems I know three other Viet Nam veterans who tried to get the same symptoms you had and I have had all my life of skin rashes etc. linked to AO and failed.

Angioedema episodes (often called "attacks") …………….. weakness, and in some cases, watery diarrhea, and an unraised, non-itchy splotchy/swirly rash.

I read literature stating that 80% Americans experience one of these attacks in their life time. I am one of the unlucky individual who is one of 1 in 5000 who have chronic angioedema. These symptoms are also called hives and can be irritant reactions and even associated with poison oak and poison ivy. Most people react to foods they eat. The symptoms are so common that doctors would not link them to any one cause without extended blood tests, allergy tests and a long history of chronic symptoms. It is very common for a single episode to go undiagnosed and the doctors only list the symptoms without a reference to a diagnosis.

"The Secretary of VA says all we have to do is show that we were there during time period and have qualifying medical problems".

The symptoms you had in the military are not currently qualifying medical problems linked to AO. I doubt that a single symptom event will ever be linked to AO. Your current symptoms are qualifying primarily or secondary as far as I know. That is why you need to strengthen the fact that you were exposed to AO.

Has your claim been denied and did they address any opinion denying your proof of exposure. If not, you still could be in good shape with the AO claim. If they did deny your proof of exposure then we here on hadit need to see what the exact wording was and rebut there denial.

As you have learned doctors will placate you and act like they agree until you ask them to put something in writing.

Doctors do not always agree. I have developed evidence for several veterans by getting medical opinions that directly contradict the opinion of VA C&P examiners. I obtained these reports from other VA doctors and civilian doctors. The DRO's gave weight to the reports I developed and the veterans were service connected.

Do not do it on your own. However, SO's are useless in developing medical arguments. On complex claims you need to do your own research and get reports from doctors. That is how I won my claim. The DAV threw me out of there office. I changed SO's and developed the medical evidence. The new SO got me service connected. I helped develop the medical evidence for another veteran that won his claim for an acquired psychiatric condition. The claim was previously denied four times. Both the DAV and VFW gave up on the claim due to lack of medical evidence.

HEP "C"

Yet the C&P Dr said it was beyond his capabilities to say that my surgery definitely caused my Hep C!!

The doctor did not answer the right question. It is not a question of a definite cause. It is a question of more likely than not.

Can you find any evidence of HEP "C" occurring at that hospital in inordinate rates? Where they cited for not properly sterilizing? Ask an attorney or other HEP "C" advocate what to look for and do your own research. I do not know much about HEP "C".

Were you a combat veteran? Were you exposed to blood in combat? Have you attempted this type of approach to you HEP "C" claim. If you can remember any combat related exposure to blood your subjective recollections of combat events can be given weight.

Also, at one time they were researching the possibility that HEP "C" was being spread by the guns they were using for immunizations given to the troops. What is the latest on this avenue?

My having Diabetes, ischemtric heart problems hyperthyroidism and removal of a cancerous growth on my thyroid that lead to removal of half of it should be enough to show AO contact.The skin thing was just an early sign that I was playing in the fields that were sprayed. The other stuff is my proof.

The Hep C is a no brainer. VA hospital removed pollups during colonoscopy. Surgeon botched surgery and I had to go back to hospital because of excessive bleeding.It was 11 am in the morning and surgeon didn't want to mess with it and went home early.First mistake. Second mistake didn't order any fluids to replace the 300+ CC of blood I was losing each hour for the next 22 hours. Hence next day I had to have 4 units of blood transfused into my body before surgery could be done. Seven months later, I get letter from Health dept that I NOW have Hep C. Army didn't have guts enough to let me know personally. So see a No Brainer. Didn't have before, 7 months later I have. Thats pretty clear cut I would say. They used the jet guns on me also in basic, but I wasn't one that was cut by the process. But your right it was a bloody mess back then. They had so many men to process to go all over the world. But since it takes usually 6 months for Hep C to rear it's ugly head, I doubt it would wait 26 years to suddenly appear after a surgery where I received 4 units of blood. I just wished that back in 1997 I didn't listen to the wrong people and not file a tort claim. I would have made some serious money. But a judge told me that I couldn't sue either the Dr or the VA system back in 1997. It was only after I read about the florida Vets who were infected and got 100% disability and free medical for life without goingt thru the claim process.So with my broken down body, I could use the free medical/medications especially. I didn't get it exactly like they did, but it was still laziness and they were responsible case closed.lol

[Hoppy]

"My having Diabetes, ischemtric heart problems hyperthyroidism and removal of a cancerous growth on my thyroid that lead to removal of half of it should be enough to show AO contact. The skin thing was just an early sign that I was playing in the fields that were sprayed. The other stuff is my proof."

By "other stuff" I hope you a referring to evidence that establishes you were in contact with AO rather than the symptoms of diabetes etc.

I hope you are not getting the horse before the cart. Medical authority used statistical linkage to associate diabetes with AO. They studied people known to be exposed to AO and found high incidence of diabetes. They did not study people with diabetes and then assume the individual was exposed to AO. You absolutely need to focus on establishing exposure to AO. Do you read BVA cases? I will start reading BVA cases in the next couple weeks and let you know what I find on cases similar to yours, either awarded or denied.

When they decide to associate a condition to chemical exposure it is not based on a preponderance of evidence. It is based on a high incidence of the disease after the exposure to the chemical. In the case of Gulf Vets and the disease MS, I heard the VA allowed service connection even though the incidence rate in Gulf vets was only two times higher than the general population. However, in these cases the veterans had to establish exposure to the burning hydro-carbons from the oil field fires.

I agree the initial diagnosis of HEP "C" after surgery is a red flag. However, to call it a no-brainer is an exaggeration. You need to start dealing with these issues from the point of view of the people you are trying to blame for spreading the disease. I am not an expert on HEP "C". However, I know people who were diagnosed at the age of 60 who had no surgeries in their entire life. I have also heard that the disease can have sub-symptomatic levels that are not detectable to tests for decades. Have you really looked into the immunization gun studies to see if they linked HEP "C" to these guns? I remember seeing people bleeding as they were walking through the lines getting their shots. However, visible blood would not be a requirement for spreading the disease.

Even though HEP "C" may have had been spread by causes other than the surgery you only need to develop a preponderance of evidence. If it was me I would use statistical linkages to show that it was more likely than not that the HEP "C" was spread by the surgery. It would require doing some research then getting a doctor to sign it off. This is what I have done for other veterans. I actually write the reports and get a doctor to sign them. I took premed classes in college and have established doctors who I have worked with. I will start researching this in the next couple weeks. I do get obsessive. I have read BVA cases involving HEP "C". However, it was a long time ago and I forgot more than I remembered.

I am a researcher and have specific training writing for medical journals. The research would need to identify how other advocates are winning post surgical HEP "C" claims. It would also involve identifying all studies identifying the incidence of HEP "C" post surgical Vs. the possibility that your HEP "C" would have went undiagnosed for decades.

You call it a no brainer. Unfortunately, to win this type of claim someone has to do the homework. Technically the VA is required to blow the whistle on the procedural failures of their own doctors. However, that does not mean they will advance a claim for a veteran. If what you said about the C&P exam was quoted accurately there is no doubt in my mind that the C&P examiner did not understand the legal issues and thus failed to do an adequate job. We are on the same page with the C&P exam. I have read C&P exams that were so bad that the examiner should have been put in jail. There are C&P examiners who feel it is their job to do nothing to help a veteran advance a claim. I have seen cases where they make up false evidence against a claim. The question is how to continue advancing your claim.

It sounds like the claim has not been denied yet. The problem is that the C&P was not favorable and the C&P examiner did not cite any research supporting his opinion. Technically there is no evidence against you claim. All you need to do at this time is develop evidence that favors your claim. This is an individual case with individual merits and needs to be fully understood. The BVA cases I have read treats HEP "C" claims individually.

I just do what I do. You can take it or leave it and it won't cost you a penny. I would tell you that you might get what you pay for. However, I get way to many emails from veterans who I have helped in the past thanking me for developing the evidence that won their claims to put a low value on my efforts..

I also think you should try and find an attorney or advocate who has worked post surgical HEP "C" cases. Hit the VA from every angle. They will hit you from every angle.

Edited April 20, 2011 by Hoppy