VA says MS is Service related?

[LZMOM]

I am just curious and I am absolutly NOT disrespecting anyones service!!! Tracy Cooper-Harris was diagnosed with MS and she is a married Lesbian and is sueing for her spouse to have her disability after her death from the VA. All of this is fine and I do not have issue with this and really do not have a question about that.

But the VA says her MS is service related to pay her disability. Is this inorder to pay her disability through the VA? She was a soldier for 12 years. (If this is none of my business please tell me) but I have MS and I wasnt in the service and do not understand how it can be "service related."
I appreciate your help but I wouldnt want anyones real issues that are service related to be downgraded by something like a disease!! PTSD is much to serious!!!

Thanks!

LZMOM

[katvar]

LZMOM,

Let me start by saying that I am not an expert on these things so consider my answer speculation. I do hope that my post gives you a different view of the situation.

I served during Desert Storm and worked several years at a Division Medical Operations Center. I wrote orders and helped with presentations and saw a lot. What the public hears about and what actually happen are sometimes 2 different things.

When you join the military - you "belong" to the government. When they tell you to line up for shots (immunizations) you get in line. You are never told what is being injected in to your body. The people giving injections do not know what is being injected. The military gives the government a broad spectrum of test subjects in relatively controlled environment.

I personally inventoried thousands of vials an packages of medication as they came back from Desert Storm. I was pregnant at the time, so I stayed stateside. I didn't wear gloves or a mask - no one even mentioned the idea. Who knows what I was exposed to?

As an added note, my husband was the one unloading all of those boxes as they came back - he receives disability from the VA for a multitude of problems. I have not filed because I don;t have the strength to fight for it.

The fact that the military considers MS (as well as ALS) to be service connected tells me that they know something that they are not telling. I am hoping that this is all in the name of research to find a cure or way to prevent MS.

For the record there is no history of any auto immune disorders in my family history. I have MS and all three of my children also have auto immune disorders that are on the less common spectrum. My children do not plan to have children of their own out of the fear that they will pass these problems and the fact that it is risky for them to even carry a child to full term.

[Sequoia]

I just doublechecked my facts with my veteran husband, and here's the deal.

Any illness contracted while serving in the armed forces qualifies as "service related" and is covered after discharge. The illness does not have to have been caused by serving, as in the case of PTSD.

Here's a "Summary of VA Services for Service Connected Veterans with Multiple Sclerosis" that might interest you:

http://www.va.gov/ms/articles/Summar..._Sclerosis.asp

[Scooter24]

Sequoia is correct on service connected disabilities.

To add to Katvar's statements Veterens have a higher rate of MS than does the general puplic which is going against the numbers as there are more males than females in the military and MS is more prevelent in females. I also agree that they know something that they are not telling us.

Katvar- as far as applying for SC why not contact the Paralyzed Veterans and let them handle it for you. That is how I did it and the only thing I did was give them a power of attorney and they handled it all, the only thing I had to do was go to the VA for compensation and pension exams. There is nothing for you to do otherwise so no stress on your part. It would be well worth a phone call or 2 and a few signatures.

[LZMOM]

Thank you all for your replys!

I really appreciate it! Especially Sequoia's! Like I said I am not a veteran and do not have MS in my family history either. I was just interested in how the VA can say it was Service related. But Sequoia answered that question. Thank you so much! I just know mine is not service related and hope it does create more research I do thank everyone for their service! This Amercan appreciates you all!!

LZMOM!

[gomer]

Here is another point it think is sometimes overlooked.......

It is my understanding that an illness/disease that was aggravated (or made worse) while on active duty also qualifies as being service connected.

In my case I developed diplopia about 1year before enlisting. I had repeated problems getting proper prism glasses when my diplopia got worse while on active duty. Even tho it was documented in my enlistment/recruit phsyical tat I ahd developed the diplopia about a year prior, I never was able to get proper eye care in the Navy. I have records showing I was sent for & rec'd eye checkups TWICE and both times they neglected to Rx glasses with any prisms at all, despite it already being in my records.

One Navy doc noted "no pathologies" on my record, of course they never checked, so I never got proper glasses. Both glasses Rx copies while on active duty show NO PRISMS what-so-ever. Because of that, I had to go off base, outside the Navy to get proper glasses. My visual acuity was not very bad, about 20/30 or there abouts. the PROBLEM I was having (diplopia etc) were not related to being able to read an eye chart. WHY the Navy eye doc even bothered to put the no pathologies" puzzles me, Their main duty is just to patch us up and get us back on active duty I guess, and nothing more.

I also had pancreatitis and admitted to sick bay for it once. Again my records are incomplete on that. Where I had to pass a urine sugar test before being allowed to return to duty is totally missing, the navy doc avoided putting that tests or its results in my record. At the time I was just glad to get out of sick bay and more than willing to, as he put it, "forget it ever happened". Of course the first time I got really sick after release, I ended up hospitalized for diabetes.

Gomer Wish I knew then what I know now! (paying the price for ignorance)

[Bob698]

LZMOM, there are some innacuracies in what you read.
The term is "service connected" which refers to any disease you can prove you got while serving in uniform.
Say, for example, I stepped on a nail while I was in active service and I got hepatitus. While its my fault (kinda?) for stepping on the nail, its the armed service's fault I got hep because they were the ones who put me in the postion.
The rest of it gets complicated very quickly. Especially when it refers to what the gov't calls "dependants". There are some strict rules on who can (and can't) be a dependant in the eyes of the military.
Long-term relationships outside of being legally married are not covered in terms of getting services for dependants (this isn't true for other country's armed services- for example Austrailia). It also gets tricky depending on when you got married. For example, suppose I dated a woman for years and we got married three weeks before she retired from the service. It would be tough for me to get benefits although it wouldn't be impossible.

[Scooter24]

As another note approval for service connection is as, if not more difficult to get than SSDI in many cases, some people even though there is evidence of MS in their military records the VA still does not approve them. I believe Gomer is a case in point on this.

The VA also does not do like SSDI, VA gives you disability by %, ie I was given 20% each for limited use of my Left leg and arm and 20% for my right leg.

My main purpose of applying for it was for health care when my wife's co dropped family coverage, now that I have rcvd 60% my meds and care are covered except for 9 per month copay for each of my meds.

VA care is available for anyone that has served with other than a dishonorable discharge, one does not need to be retired to get VA care but they do have an income level that you must be below to rcv it.

[lovejoy]

Scooter very well put, and to add any ver can go to the VA , but if you have a diability rating over 30 percent you are a class 2 prioirit over 50 you are class 1, so you get to cut infront of the line like me...

[bobus498]

Here's the deal with MS and the VA. If you are diagnosed within 8 years of your discharge date, your MS is considered to be service connected and you qualify for health care and a disability pension.

Don't have a clue how they came up with the 8 year cutoff. I too believe they are not telling us everything.

[Scooter24]

It is within 7 years and the story I heard about that is that a congressman's son developed MS after being out for 6 yrs and he got it approved thru congress for a 7 yr period, don't know how true that is but have heard it 3 or 4 different places.

[blue129]

A friend of mine is a VA claims adjuster and also has MS. It's basically an arbitrary number that has changed over the years, last in 1962. There were two reasons for it: 1) the delay between onset of symptoms and diagnosis (therefore the possibility exists that the servicemember had it while in); and 2) because environmental causes cannot be ruled out (therefore exposure to things like Agent Orange, etc. can't be excluded as cause). When Congress decided to raise the limit the last time they actually didn't even bother looking at any scientific evidence to support the 7 year rule--it's just completely arbitrary.

[Bob698]

Here's the deal with MS and the VA. If you are diagnosed within 8 years of your discharge date, your MS is considered to be service connected and you qualify for health care and a disability pension.

Don't have a clue how they came up with the 8 year cutoff. I too believe they are not telling us everything.

With the healthcare stuff, you qualify as long as you have access to your DD 214 form and you had a mostly honerable discharge. There are also financial and medical ins. considerations but I know folks with good ins. packages who also get treated by the VA.
You can also draw what's known as a non-service-connected pension if you filed outside the seven year window. Its not as large as a service-connected pension (its about half) and there are more limitations but it is there as an option.

[lovejoy]

Bob i think its actaully 7 years i could bbe mistaken but i just talked to the VA about it cause i am in the middle of getting it approved from 1985 when i had some other problems that could of been ms related.... if that happen that puts me at a 100 f.. 100 percent yehaw, otherwise i still have the unemployability angle to use

[Scooter24]

The non service connected is not for someone who filed outside of the 7 years if they can provide proof of sx prior to that. I filed over 20 years after discharge date but I am still SC as my records show sx of MS going back 30 yrs.

Lovejoy- I'm in the same boat at the moment working on 100% , according to Ebenefits my file is in for decision approval, if not ok'd that way we wil put in unemployability PVA rep already has copies of my SSDI file so he is ready to submit.