Obesity and Sleep Apnea Concurrently

[tk3000]

 

Over the years, I gained weight which I attribute at large to my physical disabilities (left leg with hardware) and ongoing pain which makes exercising more difficult, currently my BMI is of 32.6 which is classified as obese. There has been cases within the VA whereby mental healhty issues have been grounds for a successful obesity claim, and one also have mental healty issues so this is another ground for the same claim of obesity (the rational being that depressive disorder would increase ones food intake). But it seems to me that the physical disability issues are a stronger case. Anyhow, both disabilities make for an even strong claim of obesity. I am not sure how a claim of obesity is adjudicated at the VA, but I am not morbid obesity by any means.

 

Nonethless, my claim for obesity is a door for another claim; claim for sleep apnea. Recently I was diagnosed with sleep apnea through a sleep study, I have had the same study done in 2011 whence I was more fit and the result was negative but this time around the result indicated a diagnosed of sleep apnea with need of a respirator in order to sleep.

So both the obesity claim and that of sleep apnea would have to be concurrent, and the later dependent on the second.

 

The following are some of the arguments I plan on adding to my claim:

 

Establishing service connection generally requires competent evidence of three things: (1) a current disability; (2) in-service incurrence or aggravation of a disease or injury; and (3) a causal relationship, i.e., a nexus, between the claimed in-service disease or injury and the current disability. Holton v. Shinseki, 557 F.3d 1362, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2009); 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a). In this particular case the third criteria applies since there is a nexus between the veterans physical disabilities (physical limitations and pain plus depressive disorder) and his obesity and henceforth the development of sleep apnea.

Therefore sleep apnea is proximately due to the veterans obesity disorder ( greatest risk factor for sleep apnea) which in different degrees of causality is a consequence to the following veterans established service connected disabilities: mainly left leg physical condition with pain which hinders physical exercise more difficult and depressive and anxiety disorder which increases one food intake (Obstructive sleep apnea and other symptoms of OSA are associated with probable major depression, regardless of factors like weight, age, sex or race, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.).

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Does that sounds like a sound and quick claim to through even the notoriously dynfunctional VA claiming process? 

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by tk3000

[tk3000]

19 hours ago, silverdollar22 said:

I have a doctor that did my DBQ and he worded it as (due to or aggravated by)! The (aggravated by) is the wording that I have researched to be affective in explaining the connection between SA and your existing condition.

I tend to believe sometimes the condition is self-explanatory and self-evident by the chain of events and any reasonable physician or knowledge lay person could come to the conclusion of it being at least as likely service related. But a nexus from an outside physician certainly gives you extra assurance.

I noted also that there are lots of threads about sleep apnea in this forum.  

[broncovet]

1 hour ago, tk3000 said:

 

You posted the above.  Its your claim and you can handle it any way you want.  My experience has been the "VA does not connect the dots".  

Even when you have a valid nexus, diagnosis, and in service event, they still like to make stuff up for denials.  

I just posted with a Veteran who was denied because "coffee" caused his disabilities.  "Consumption of  coffee", or lack therof, is not on the criteria list..this was  obviously made up.  

Now, sometimes I think they do this to "throw us off track".  If they denied "because there was no nexus" or no diagnosis, then that would be shooting straight with us.  No.  They trump up something else, so we dont even know if there is a valid nexus or not, so VA throws a curve ball in order to keep the Veteran in appeals so he will die before he gets the benefits.  

Dont fall for it.  Check the diagnosis, in service event, and nexus.  Make sure they are there, and dont pay any attention if they said they denied you because you have blue hair.  

[Gastone]

TK, the BVA gave the RO a chance to correct themselves and their Failure to do so, got him the SA Secondary to Depression Award.

This was from a 2013 Decision, the reason for the RO's Failure to comply with the BVA for Clarification is a mystery. Intentional or accident?

[tk3000]

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:14 PM, Gastone said:

TK, the BVA gave the RO a chance to correct themselves and their Failure to do so, got him the SA Secondary to Depression Award.

This was from a 2013 Decision, the reason for the RO's Failure to comply with the BVA for Clarification is a mystery. Intentional or accident?

Gastone,

Still it was a decision from the BVA granting him SA secondary to depression. And it also seems to consider obesity as a service connected condition.

It was probably intentional. If a case is the just slightly above the average in terms of complexity or processing time they simply deny it, in effect bumping it up to the BVA. I happened to have a case of early effective date in which a previous BVA decision was simply ignored, so I was left with no recourse but to file another appeal in order to have the BVA  re-interpreting its pre-existing determination and decision and then making the wording very clear to the RO.

[Gastone]

From what I recall, the BVA was twisted because of the Subsequent Raters discussion saying the DX Depression SC which was Awarded (6+-?) years after his Chronic Morbid Obesity was actually DX'd and treated.

The RO's failure (for whatever reason) to answer the BVA's specific questions resulted in the Award. This is the "First Reverse Nexus" I've seen.  Worked for this Vet, just keep in mind this Decision is not Precedent Setting.

[tk3000]

11 hours ago, Gastone said:

From what I recall, the BVA was twisted because of the Subsequent Raters discussion saying the DX Depression SC which was Awarded (6+-?) years after his Chronic Morbid Obesity was actually DX'd and treated.

The RO's failure (for whatever reason) to answer the BVA's specific questions resulted in the Award. This is the "First Reverse Nexus" I've seen.  Worked for this Vet, just keep in mind this Decision is not Precedent Setting.

I confess that I have not read the whole thing; I read the main point and skimp over the rest. To my redemption I read the full content of the following case:

https://www.va.gov/vetapp13/Files3/1325545.txt

It is an almost carbon copy of my case since I also have right leg overuse issues related to my left leg condition (lots of hardware with impairment, pain, etc)