Direct service connection for sleep apnea may be granted for veterans who can show that their sleep apnea began in service using service medical records, and by providing a nexus opinion from a qualified medical professional that links sleep apnea to events or exposures in service. Do you have questions about how to service connect sleep apnea claims? injury case. According to the Mayo Clinic, there are several types of sleep apnea, but the most common is obstructive sleep apnea. Brian Reese here, Air Force service-disabled Veteran and Founder @ VA Claims Insider. As a matter of fact, it may be easier to substantiate with medical records that the sleep apnea symptoms started after the diagnosis of diabetes. Winning a VA Sleep Apnea is much harder. Take a look at the Sleep Apnea eBook when it comes out I think you will find a lot of informaiton that will help you understand better the many different paths and proofs for service connection of Sleep Apnea. VA initially denied (1ST) my SA claim in 2014, I became a premium member in 2015 and followed your training guides step by step, medical expert opinion, 10 sworn declaration statements by family members, co-workers in service and post-service. Required fields are marked *. Give us a call at 800-477-9027 to see if we can help you. Veterans Benefits Network-Sleep Apnea secondary to Service Connected Dear Mr Attig: Regulation Update: VA Ratings for Kidney Disease and Renal Dysfunction. Tender lymph nodes usually in the neck and underarms. Just think about our veterans from older eras. His eBook, the9 Secrets Strategies for Winning Your VA Disability Claimhas been downloaded more than 300,000 times in the past three years and is the #1 rated free VA disability claims guide for veterans. Some of the most common symptoms of sleep apnea include: People who suffer from sleep apnea are often unaware of the breathing disturbances, finding out about them from a bed partner or roommate. Because of my PTSD meds and sleep apnea I have gained considerable weight as well as an underactive thyroid. 7@$4hvF=/Y 9FsxS@*ia:?4AC,bT_r8{4 X|rGPr-N^j!DU 5|V!"D3Q)fE&Jl`Z9s^Hva$rq%[sRRw8r The blockage is believed to occur when the muscles in the back of the throat become overly relaxed. We know the pain of feeling stuck, frustrated, and alone, and we want to make this process as easy and painless as possible for you. Even a previous diagnosis may not be accepted by the VA without a sleep study. A medical nexus (i.e., link) between their sleep apnea and the in-service event, injury, or illness; Once service connection is awarded, sleep apnea is then rated under 38 CFR 4.97, Diagnostic Code 6847 - Sleep Apnea Syndromes (obstructive, central, mixed). Problems with sleep which include not being rested after sleep or difficulty staying and/or falling asleep. So, if you developed sleep apnea while in service and still carry that diagnosis, you should be granted service connection. Your VA Sleep Apnea Claim, Ill give you the recipe for each of those 4 scenarios. I spent nearly a yearresearching Veterans and their Sleep Apnea claims. The question raised in this case is whether this "intermediate step" is limited to . DRO sided with VA expert (not surprise) who claimed SA was least likely as not occurred or caused by service, moreover, VA expert justified opinion by THE FOLLOWINGS;(time 12yrs since retirement, age 50 at the time of sleep study, and weight gain ?). And that means you are going to have to think through your sleep apnea claim. How to Get a 100 Percent VA Rating (if deserved)! When filing a VAclaim for CFS, the Department of Veterans Affairs has to see the onset of this fatigue is severe enough to reduce your routine daily activities to less than 50%, your medical history, and several symptoms that indicate CFS. If youre stuck, frustrated, underrated, and currently rated between 0%-90%, VA Claims Insider Elite is for you! Its an essential piece of evidence. It only took three months. One step at a time, one claim at a time, one veteran at a time.we vets are winning!! 4 0 obj Veterans with deviated septums can have clear cases for a secondary sleep apnea claim. I also have central and obstructive sleep apnea which has been denied service connection. Board of Veterans Appeals Jason and his paralegal Lisa were on point and on top of their game when it came to handling my worker's comp. Brian Reese here, Air Force service-disabled Veteran and Founder @ VA Claims Insider. Perhaps theyll have to spenda night with someone that suffers from obstructive sleep apnea, hear the suffocating snoring, experience the fear that the person will stop breathing altogether, they will continue to not take seriously claims for sleep apnea. While we still have our home base in Florida, You may eventually get there on your own, but it may be after a series of decisions by the Regional Office and Board of Veterans Appeals. You can lose your arms and legs and still survive. How to Connect Sleep Apnea to Military Service. No blog, and no eBook can substitute for legal advice from an accredited VA attorney. Complimentary therapies such as meditation, gentle massage, deep breathing, or relaxation therapies may be beneficial to help reduce symptoms. %PDF-1.4 caused or made worse by your active duty military service OR. Left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to cardiovascular diseases (high blood pressure, heart failure, arrhythmias, stroke), diabetes, depression, and headaches, among others. People with sleep apnea are four times more likely to have depression than people without a sleeping disorder. Estimate your 2023 VA Rating & Compensation for FREE! Jessica Rodriguez has a degree in Health Information Management and has 15+ years of experience in patient care as a Nurses Assistant. These are sometimes referred to as a crash, relapse, or collapse, and some patients can tell when they will happen. Local Wounded Veterans Gifted with Opportunities to Go Fishing. I dont want you to think about the EASYway to Service Connect Sleep Apnea anymore. Of course, I dont give legal advice on the Veterans Law Blog. You will need to follow one of the paths to service connection, which will likely require lay evidence and expert medical evidence. I talked to several doctors about the causes and limitations of sleep apnea. This is where I come in. That is how I suggest you handle this situation. While proving service-connection for sleep apnea claim accepted is no longer as difficult as it once was, it still is wise to not take your chances and get it right the first time. For all about getting a VA rating for sleep apnea, see our post Your Sleep Apnea VA Rating A Guide to Getting a VA Disability Rating for Sleep Apnea. If youre stuck, frustrated, underrated, and currently rated between 0%-90%, VA Claims Insider Elite is for you! Heck, I get an email or more a day from a Veteran that says this: My Sleep Apnea claimwas not granted. Heres the brutal truth about VA disability claims: We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. We also connect veterans with independent medical professionals in our referral network for medical examinations, disability evaluations, and credible independent medical opinions and nexus statements (medical nexus letters) for a wide range of disability conditions. In September 1978, she was granted service connection for bilateral chondromalacia, a breakdown of cartilage in the knee joint that causes pain when bones . FREE tips for Veterans to stay Or perhaps when they realize that Sleep Apnea is going to be as big an issue for our current generation of Veterans asAgent Orange related conditions are to Vietnam Veterans, they will take it seriously. Listen: you have got to know this: sleep Apnea is a complex medical condition, and presents differently in each and every Veteran. Source: Department of Veteran Affairs Regional Office New Orleans, LA. I have a diagnosis and a CPAPwhy arent they granting my claim?. Winning a VA claim to service connect sleep apnea is hard. If accepted into our ELITE membership program, youll get free up-front access and permission to use $13,119 worth of proprietary VA claim resources, including access to our network of independent medical professionals for medical examinations, disability evaluations, and credible Medical Nexus Letters, which could help you get a HIGHER VA rating in LESS time. Department of Veterans Affairs See id. For a true diagnosis of CFS the patient must also have one of the two following symptoms: There are other symptoms that some but not all experience: Diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can be a bit tricky and understandably so because there is no set test to make the determination. Below is the schedule for rating . Making the Sausage: Heres what you need to know about new VA Claims regulations. entitlement to service connection for nerve damage to the bilateral lower extremities, to include as due to Gulf War illness, and, if so, whether the claim should be granted. Estimate your 2023 VA Rating & Compensation for FREE! Take advantage of a FREE VA Claim Discovery Call with an experienced Team Member. Thinking and memory issues such as not able to think quickly, difficulty remembering things, and unable to pay attention to details. <>/Parent 3 0 R/Type/Page/Contents 4 0 R/Tabs/S/Resources<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]/Font<>>>/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Rotate 0>> Therefore, a well-crafted nexus letter for sleep apnea is the single most crucial document a veteran can provide the VA adjudicator to help prove service connection on an at least as likely as not basis. If you need assistance in appealing your claim for CFS,let us know here! You are going to have to get a LOT of 5-Star Evidence. Click Go Elite Now below to get started today and a member of our team will be in touch within minutes. This may be 20 or 30 years after the problems started. Your airway narrows and closes, leading to pauses in the breathing cycle. %%EOF The most trusted name in education-based resources for Veterans. Youll need to make the call on direct service connection versus secondary service connection. endobj Newonset of debilitating fatigue severe enough to reduce daily activity to less than 50% of the usual level for at least six months. There are 3 ways to get it: Chris, Even if youve had a sleep study before, its important to get one done within the 12 months prior to your VA claim. Follow the steps below to remedy the above-listed typical reasons for denial, and youll be much closer to a winning claim! I do not response to Individual claim and legal questions, although I do catalog them for post / video ideas. If you were diagnosed with this condition while in the military, you have a straight forward shot for service connection. 1 0 obj Broadly, it's defined as the occurrence of five or more breathing-related "events" per hour, measured by polysomnography (sleep study). In my book Put it to Rest! Need help claiming this crucial part of your claim? This means they make their claim without providing much proof. And I found that MOST Veterans with Sleep Apnea claims and appealsfit into 1 of 4 common scenarios. Gulf War Illness and Presumptive Service Connection. In our experience, OSA denials are almost always due to one or more of these five gaps: Fortunately, there are simple strategies you can employ to address these factorseven if the VA has already denied your VA claim for sleep apnea. How you mix them is the hard part. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Making the Sausage: Heres what you need to know about new VA Claims regulations. HV6+jsl1q$=Yn3 N>% YQUVUOICzR4'By!-v'QZI`+2c.T\`~]Klovk*\3x9$vx%C _FjOBFECxm]WoZ>H*:zR/yuY(r( Thanks for your concern and the blog. Its almost as much work and it can often take as much dedication. First of all, lets explore a little about this common disability in veterans, so you understand the condition and why its important you pursue your claim and get the benefits you deserve. But most veterans are not service-connected for this sinus condition. The independent opinion of a private medical professional can also influence the C&P examiners medical opinion, as well as the VA rating officials final disability decision. One of the most straightforward ways to achieve service connection of a particular disease or disability is to show that you had that disease or disability while in service. Many civilian doctors have NO CLUE what a Nexus letter is or the importance of it! .{}p/=jyWG0j#kdLl%*~ P5O1A S-<9o2xmBV1 G(7H^1rnWI\8@I8w I have also had a stroke. Otherwise, I would properly ended up in mental health facility or going insane!!! Result: Service connection for obstructive sleep apnea, secondary to service-connected GERD, with history of esophagitis and hematemesis, is granted. Along with the record of the potential cause must also be a proven medical link between sleep apnea and the occurrence. We see that quite often with sleep apnea claims. He is aformer active duty Air Force officerwith extensive experience leading hundreds of individuals and multi-functional teams in challenging international environments, including a combat tour to Afghanistan in 2011 supporting Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Here are a few examples of how Sleep Apnea has affected Veterans from all different eras of service: * Don D. (he asked me not to use his real name) served mostly during the Cold War was in the best physical shape of his life he was an avid weight-lifter. Click Go Elite Now below to get started today and a member of our team will be in touch within minutes. SvKve5.YmPE}=;vpb -GW2RN His frustration with the8-step VA disability claims processled him to createVA Claims Insider,which provides U.S. military veterans with tips, strategies, and lessons learned for successfully submitting or re-submitting a winning VA disability compensation claim. By doing this your claim will have the best chance possible. NOW ITS YOUR TURN. Some people have developed CFS after having a viral infection like Epstein Barr virus, Herpes virus 6, and mouse leukemia virus, but there has been no conclusive evidence. The question raised in this case is whether this "intermediate step" is limited to . Heres what I mean in BVA decision after BVA decision, I saw examples ofVeterans that take a look at the VA Ratings Tables, see that they can get a 50%VArating for sleep apnea with CPAP. Not a lot of VSOs or advocates get this when helping a Veteran file a VA Claim. without his BI-PAP MACHINE,one up from CPAP,which i have. sleep apnea is not the kind of disability associated with a wounded warrior. Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can have a huge impact on a persons life and those around them. Here, nexus is the connection between your service and the current diagnosis of sleep apnea. %PDF-1.4 % * Can I service connect sleep apnea without a sleep study in service? Even without a definitive cause of the disorder there are noted risk factors including being between the ages of 40-50, difficulty managing stress, and women are more commonly diagnosed (possibly because they report symptoms more often). Cardiomegaly enlargement of the heart makes me thing of a damage resulting from a chronic sleep apnea condition. Proving Sleep Apnea is Service Connected its the one thing I hear more about from Veterans than any other topic. . Veterans with CPAP machines have often fallen into the trap of believing that their use of the CPAP will be enough to qualify their claim with the VA. Ann Margaret really took the time to explain things to me. Scenario 4: The Veteran has one or more conditions service-connected, and is claiming that those conditions CAUSED the sleep apnea. VADisability Benefits for Chronic Fatigue, Fatigue not relieved by sleep or bed rest which was not always present throughout life. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Its an entirely different thing to mix those ingredients so that they turn into a cake. about the threat of COVID-19 and Coronavirus. 2023-03-04T21:20:56-05:00 You will need strong lay evidence that establishes what symptoms you were having in service loud snoring, apneas (stopped breathing) followed by gasps for oxygen, dry mouth upon waking, daytime fatigue, etc. Philadelphia, PA: 1 International Plaza, Suite 550, Philadelphia, PA, 19113 Your VA Sleep Apnea Claim, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). Therefore, sleep apnea can be filed secondary to either a musculoskeletal condition with weight gain or a mental health condition with weight gain. <>stream If you have symptoms of OSA, consider obtaining a sleep study, also known as polysomnography. VA Claims insider is an education-based coaching/consulting company. Therefore you should be well prepared before submitting your claim. I was diagnosed with OSA 10 years after separation. I awake countless time at night due to this. * What if it wasnt diagnosed until years after service can I service connect it then? If that is similar to your situation, how do you show that link (nexus) between what was going on with you during service and the actual diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea you now have? ,144x{,}T=7#|lk0s @0\0N Z,;QkH|L[, Template for processing Decision or Remand. The rate was a staggering 22%. LIFETIME Subscription to the Veterans Law Blog, Quarterly Subscription to the Veterans Law Blog, Annual Subscription to the Veterans Law Blog. application/pdf However, this has been thoroughly disproven. For instance, if you complain of being tired all the time your doctor may order blood tests to check for anemia, diabetes, and hypothyroidism all of which cause fatigue. If you are lucky, you start breathing again. endobj Theres so much information, so many Veterans, and so much delay that it sometimes feels like this battle will never end.