Va Compenstation Question

[scooter318]

Hello Everyone

My name is Eric and I'm new to the site and so far from reading this it is really a wealth of knowledge. I was talking to my sister on the way to work this morning and she told me to come to this site and post my question and get an opinion from people who have been through it and can probably give you an answer really quick. I filed for VA compensation on January 18th of this year and I had a claim in for my back and my appendectomy scar because of the pain that I have. Everything went through and I went to my C&P exam on the 27th of August and I received a letter in the mail from the VA about 2 weeks ago stating that I rated 10% for my appendectomy scar pain and 0% for my back. This is the think that I wanted to know, currently the VA has me seeing a private chiropractor 2 times a week for the next 3 months and then I'll go back to them for follow up and before they referred my out I was seeing the VA once a month for my back. The provider that I'm seeing now actually sat me down and showed me the X-Rays and the lower part of my back where L-4 and L-5 meet are some what separated and out of alignment and that's why I'm in so much pain. I was in the Navy and station in 29Palms with the Marines for 3 years and out in the field all the time, I was a corpsman and I walked around with my gear on my back and took a few falls with caused the injury, but me being macho didn't go get my back looked at when I started having back pain and just dealt with it. Now it's really bad and I filed for it but they are saying that in so many word if it's not in our record we aren't going to compensate you for it. I wanted to get the groups opinion on filing an appeal, do you think that it's even worth it or should I leave it alone because I probably won't get rated for my back. I talked to several people and I've heard different story from some saying that I should because I can and other saying no because I'm wasting my time and I'm stuck at 10%. I wish I would have went and had this added to my medical record when I had the chance but I just didn't know. Thanks in advance for the advice and I hope to hear from you soon .

Eric

[TiredCoastie]

Good question. Would deck logs have some of that info for an LSD? We used to ship them off to be archived somewhere, so they must be available. There's likely a posting here about how to get copies of unit logs.

[scooter318]

Hello Everyone

I wanted to give an update on my appeal process,I'e contacted a lawyer to help me in my appeals and the law firm contacted me today and told me that I would need to send them a copy of my C&P exam and I need to get several lay statements to back up my claim. I wanted to know how effective are lay statements and is there a template that I can use, and do these statements have to be notarized because everyone that I contacted said that they would do it but they were just going to put the statement in an email and send it to me. And i would like to say again thank you to everyone on this forum for all of your help I really appreciate it.

Eric