Dro Hearing

[Ricky]

My wife and I just returned from my DRO hearing. Although no decision was made the DRO appeared to be a very understanding person. She was pleseant, professional and most of all very knowledgeable of my claimed disabilities and the law and requlation. She allowed up all the time needed to submit our oral arguments, testimony and new evidence. She, on the record on several occassions agreed to the validity of our arguments and she asked what I felt to be very informative and claim supporting question. It was by far one of the most pleaseant and experiences I have had with the VA in the past seven years. I truly hope it goes my way but even if it does not I can at least say without hesitation that this hearing provided me with a different view/side of my VARO.

However, on the negative side as we sat in the lobby waiting our turn we were able to observe the contact team people as they dealt with walk in veterans. They were some of the most disgruntled and mean people that I have every seen. Smart a$$ responses to questions, eyes rolling up in their heads and just the general felling that they truly hated dealing with veterans. The veterans that were walking in were both older and younger veterans with questions such as how do I file, what do I have to do to review my file, can I add this to my file etc.... They were all professional and respectful even though they were being treated like pieces of crap. Maybe just a bad day for the contact team. Anyway I will post the results, good or bad, when I get them. I guess I can now sit back in a low throttle and simply enjoy my visits to Hadit and helping other veterans. I thank all of you guys for helping me to get to this stage. I could not have done it without you and would probably simply given up years ago. Thanks

[Ricky]

Pete, you are right about the proof being in the resulting rating! So I guess I will see. She said it should take about 3 weeks to clear up all of the problems.

I do have a question for the board - one of my claims was an increase for hypertension which is currently rated at 20 percent. At the time of the claim my BP was almost constant at 245/136 which is why I had the stroke so I requested that the rating be increased. At this time, 2 years later, it averages 210/120. I am afraid that they are going to want a C&P to verify my original claim. If so the current readings will only qualify for a 20 percent rating (take three different meds per day). So my question is - should I with draw my request for an increase? If I let it stand it will probably cost me several months more waiting on the claim because of the C&P. If I withdraw it hopefully the rest of the claim will be rated without a C&P because of the previous C&P's and civilian medical evidence in the file. Bottom line is that the hypertension is already SC'ed so any future residuals will be secondary any way not matter what the rating percentage is. What do you guys think?

[Pete53]

Ricky:

You have got to get your blood pressure under control. I take a couple of meds to regulate mine and it was just a matter of dialing it in.

Good Luck on your claim.

[Ricky]

Thanks Pete. Yep the doc is a little worried also. Since my stroke he has been unable to give me anything that will work. Diet is in check and take meds without fail but it just hangs there. My concern is that since I have alread had one stroke I don't want to be one of the stats that says people who suffer a stroke are 80 percent likely to have another one within the next five years and that one will be devestating.

[Pete53]

Stay away from salt. Its a killer. I have gotten used to not salting and after a while food starts to taste better.

Its a slow process and maybe it means that they need to adjust your medications. The VA gave me a BP Machine that probably cost about 30 bucks but I take mine several times a day.

As weird as it may sound I think that control of breathing can help a lot.

Anyway hang in there and I am glad that your Doc is working on it.

[carlie]

Cardiac doc taught me all about reading food content .. it's shocking to see how much salt is in ketchup - who'd have thought that.

carlie