Clear guides, original reporting and a closer look at VA claims.
39 articles · All sections
VA can service-connect the other knee as secondary to a service-connected knee, usually through altered gait. Gait research complicates that story, so the opinion has to explain your walking history.
VA can service-connect sleep apnea, diabetes or hypertension when a service-connected disability caused or worsened obesity that led to it. Obesity itself is not a disability.
VA can service-connect migraines as secondary to PTSD. The Board has sent these claims back when VA opinions skipped aggravation or the sleep pathway. Here is what the evidence needs to show, and how migraines are rated.
A no-current-diagnosis denial may mean VA missed a diagnosis, read the claim too narrowly, or saw symptoms without one. Pain that limits function can count even without a diagnosis.
Search medical records by evidence question, not just condition name. Capture the exact passage, date, source and page, including any clinician's statement about what caused the condition.
Build a nexus review packet around the medical question: current diagnosis, service or primary-condition records, DD214 and personnel records, the timeline, earlier opinions and the facts that cut against the claim, with page references.
Keep source files unchanged, build a source inventory, index passages by condition and evidence role, preserve page references, and log records not found.
VA can grant hypertension secondary to PTSD. How the Board weighed competing causes in a 2025 grant, how DC 7101 ratings and the three-day readings rule work, and the records a clinician needs.
VA can grant GERD secondary to PTSD, and the Board has, on causation and on aggravation. How the DC 7206 rating works since May 19, 2024, what the nexus letter has to explain, and the records that support it.
VA can grant erectile dysfunction secondary to PTSD, including ED caused by PTSD medication. The ED rating is 0%, but the grant opens SMC-K. What the medical opinion has to explain and what to check in the decision.
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