Chronic pain

[chamilton]

Hello! 

So my vet rep and I put in for a increase for lower back, arthritis, si joint and chronic pain.

 

Has anyone of you ever been rated for chronic pain? And what rating are you receiving and the reasoning behind said rating. Do they rate it by itself? Thank you

 

[vetquest]

7 hours ago, Fat said:

Chronic pain is a fairly new service connected issue. Their doesn't need to be a specific injury, however a injury or condition helps, but you need a physician to connect the chronic pain as direct or secondarily connected.

@fat, and others.  I am going to attempt to test this when I have my NOD hearing.  I have neuropathy in the legs and also suffer pain for this that is treated by my doctors.  I am going to raise the issue since my pain has increased.  I do not know if they consider that neuropathy is painful when they rate it but I sure am going to test this presumption on chronic pain.  I will keep you updated but I may die before I have my NOD at the rate they are going.

Edited October 15, 2019 by vetquest

[Richard1954]

I'm rated 60% for my lumbar spine.. been rated for 20 years.... I also have a dropfoot because of this injury, and I live in constant pain with sciatica both legs.   This is one rating that even I won't try to get an increase on... first as someone already said doctors don't prescribe bed rest for back pain very often now and you must have bed rest  for 6 weeks within the last year  to get a 60% rating under the newest rating guidelines.  One to 2 weeks bed rest is only rated 10%. This is to get a rating under incapacitating  episodes. Otherwise you get rated for range of motion.and unless the spine is frozen the most you can get is 40%. And an examiner can say an abnormal range of motion is normal for this veteran, and then you get no rating. My injury is so bad that it eventually put me in a wheelchair.

Getting pain rated outside of a know medical issue I am guessing will be very hard. Right now the guidelines for pain alone have not even been published yet. 

Right Now my back, neck, and knees are so messed up that I live in pain. While the VA says pain is taken into consideration when rating joints.. the minimum rating you will get for knee pain is 10% based on x-ray of arthritis.  

They rewrote the rating guidelines so to prevent veterans from getting high ratings, at least that is how I see it.