Substantiate Sign with airSlate SignNow

Substantiate sign

[Music] hey guys um my name is travis brost uh so glad to be here today with you um i'm the education manager and uh with me we have hey everybody this is daryl uh senior veteran coach with va claims insider um hey can we uh just like uh brian's not with us this time but if we could do some quick shout outs uh if you want go ahead and post your uh your name with your your um years of service and and basically who you are in the comments section tell us where you're from too what state you're living in hey cindy how are you doing hey caleb one of our awesome teammates hey sandra a navy medic awesome 34 years of service in the army oh my wow wow aloha sherry yeah 20 years in the navy six years in the marine corps uh semper fi lebron john semper fi semper fight all my marine brothers out there okay you guys go air force vet living in utah will hood we got washington navy seabees 22 and a half years wow my dad was a cd building stuff i had a buddy who's a cb always you say we're just building bridges buildings let's just blow stuff up and build it right uh 10-year yeoman nice united states air force oh yeah in the united states air force 1964 to 1968 frank were you a vietnam vet did you you spent some time over in vietnam uh yeah uh al i'm a gulf war vet as well marine corps uh you know and for all you vietnam vets out there i'm uh i'm kind of with the blessing of brian i'm kind of working on a uh uh vietnam veteran uh um classic class with for just vietnam veterans as well absolutely there's a whole world of presumptive conditions for for you vietnam veterans also golf war veterans as well they're um they're different but um definitely stuff that we're working on for you guys right i love i love all my veterans but i really love my vietnam veterans i know that you guys were not treated the way you should have been treated when you came home and that's just too bad but you're going to be highly respected around here all right i guess we can go ahead and uh get started now um i hope everybody um has got all their christmas shopping done we we have morning with the the we have coffee uh with the coaches every single morning and i heard from some veteran clients and from some of the uh other teammates that uh they still have not started shopping yet so i don't know how they're gonna get it all done between now and the 25th because we're less than 48 hours off from christmas so i don't think amazon can deliver by friday they might they might it's just not going to happen no um and that coffee with coaches does not go tomorrow morning but it does go on friday yup we're gonna have a christmas coffee with the coaches on friday and it's gonna be an hour later than usual it's gonna start at 9 00 a.m central um and if you can come great if you've got family obligations you know go to those family obligations but you know we we've got a really strong sense of community around here and we don't want any veteran to feel alone on christmas morning absolutely and not to mention the cool prizes that are be given out that will be given out that morning as well yeah did i see some 25 gift cards or wait wait way higher than that yeah 200 150 oh there was an extra zero on it yeah yeah and that grand prize of that uh that uh ipad that's what i'm shooting for personally like yeah that was that'd be great all right guys so uh today our our objective is to um talk about back pain and a lot of you veterans a lot of you people here today on this uh live you might already have a service connected disability for your back while you're in the service you could have injured your back you could have had to have gone the sick call or the hospital or the doctor or maybe you're not service connected for your back but you you sustained a back injury while in service it's really not that hard to do it i mean my gosh how much did those rucksacks weigh i don't remember but i was like 17 or 18. um but it they they weigh a lot um you know if you're having to jump out of trucks and things like that you know it's um even in training it's really really easy to hurt your back um let alone deployments and things of that nature so um bad conditions are very common in the veteran community and um our very own uh senior veteran coach darryl mcdonald has his own service connected back condition and so we might listen to him tell his story about his his back issue right absolutely so i am 10 service connected for my back um which isn't a lot really um considering the writing schedule goes all the way up to 100 um but with with the back um a lot of times it's based on range of motion right and and thankfully i do have some good range of motion in my back i just have pain in my back um so so it uh it affects my flexion and and and extension and stuff like that um you know and and i i watch a lot of people come in and um let's let's first let's talk about service connection okay there are really two ways to get service connected for your back there's the direct service connection okay and that is that is where you had an event in service you had a rucksack on like travis was saying or you had a uh you fell while you were in service all right or or you had some kind of an incident service and you have a current complaint and now you have that nexus which is the collision triangle so um i've heard it referred to uh before as like a uh like an oreo cookie where you have the service event you have the the uh the current complaint or diagnosis and then you have that nexus so that's one way um my personal story i am i am directly service connected for my back um the second is uh is a sas through a secondary condition and i'm sure we'll talk about secondary conditions later on so um yeah um 10 for my back uh in order to get up to that 100 level you have to show some kind of ankylosis which is unfavorable like your back is locked into a certain position or something like that which is um i've seen it but it's pretty pretty severe absolutely so thank you uh thank you for hearing that daryl um now i i personally do not have a service connected back condition um i am a hundred percent pnt uh veteran just as is daryl um my my issues are different but i have worked with a lot of veteran clients that have back issues and um i know that what what you're dealing with um whether it be 10 20 maybe maybe even got a zero percent rating so zero percent rating means that the va has acknowledged that um you have a condition with whatever part of your body but it's not bad enough to get compensated for it so it's still a service connection so um your back i mean that is a really important part of your your body it affects it affects a lot of other parts of your body um most likely if you have a service connected back condition most likely you're underrated you are severely underrated and our team here can help you with that we can we can help you uh get an increase on your back to what you uh legally and rightfully deserve um we can we can talk about other options as well but one thing one thing to keep in mind is that if you're back if you're dealing with back pain you're going to struggle with other areas and let's provide some examples to that um maybe you used to enjoy working out maybe you used to to go running okay well you might not be able to run like you used to because of that service connected back injury maybe you're not able to work out like you used to because of your service connected back injury as a result what happens when people start sitting around more and uh that you know you're not working out you put on weight so you start putting on a lot of weight you're dealing with weight gain um you know you're not able to go on long car rides because it hurts your back you're not able to to travel far because you're worried about your back going out you struggle with the most basic thing in the world which is sleeping you struggle sleeping because you're tossing and turning all night just to get comfortable it takes you forever to fall asleep let alone stay asleep and you know what as human beings if we don't get sleep what happens to us daryl oh i mean it starts to mean yeah that effects you mentally i mean you start you start going into depression and and um you know you get a little anxiety uh maybe some insomnia kicks in so now because of your back you're looking at a high value claim of a mental condition um you know it's if you're not able to pick up your children and you used to be able to pick up your children i mean you know you're deaf you hit the you hit the nail right on the head the back the back affects everything everything um but more you know i i i always look at the mental aspect of it because it's it's uh you know you can't do the things you used to do if you were an avid jogger you know you're not gonna be jogging much anymore uh if you're a power lifter a weightlifter you're not gonna be able to do that stuff anymore so definitely affects your your your psyche yeah and guys about that so if your back is you know okay of course you're dealing with the pain we might even be getting compensated for the back pain um but your life is hindered in so many other ways past the back you can't do what you used to be able to do or maybe you still can but it's a very watered down or reduced version um if you're pain and it doesn't have to just be back pain it could be neck pain back pain knee pain any type of physical pain if your pain takes away from your ability to sleep at night well for me speaking speaking for me personally and a lot of veterans you're going to struggle with your day to day you're going to have a hard time focusing day to day you're going to have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning because you hardly slept at all that night and you're going to just um your mood is not going to be the best you're going to snap on people you're going to be irritable you're you're gonna find that maybe you're fused if you really stop and think about it uh ladies and gentlemen um if you're dealing with chronic pain or back pain your fuse is probably a lot shorter than other people you might know so you know your ability to get upset is going to come at a much quicker rate just because you're not getting a lot of sleep and because you're dealing with pain and because you are irritable and it's not it's not your fault it's nothing is it it's because of your service connected disability that's why you are that way you know if you have a service connected back condition and it's affecting you in all these other areas of life it's going to make you feel a certain kind of way and you're not going to be in the best of me at times absolutely you know it affects your job it can affect your job it can affect your i mean what it affects is almost endless it really is so now here's the thing about back pain guess um and and daryl he was talking about you know you've got direct service connection and then their secondary back issues as well so when it pertains to a direct service connection and i'm just curious is there anybody here in the audience today that has a service connected back injury i know one of my former clients david spears i know that he came to me last march and he had a 10 service connected back condition and we were able to help him get an increase on that and we were able to help him with what's called the lifestyle impact meaning uh we were able to help him deal with some of those other issues that come with having you know that come with having a bad back or bad knee or headaches or migraines whatever whatever that disability is and we're able to get uh help him accomplish a very strong rating in that regard as well okay so we got a facebook user they said that i'm 30 service connected for back injury okay we got a forty percent a twenty percent another twenty percent a ten percent um glenn most likely that ten percent can be increased okay um those low low percentage percentage points there's usually room for those to actually be increased once you get up to like 30 and 40 it becomes a little bit harder but um there's other options we can go you know if you if you join our program if you already have a coach talk to your coach if you don't have a coach you need to join our program join our program and we can walk you through what you need to do to get the va disability rating that you legally and rightfully deserve okay so here's the thing if you have a zero percent service connected back injury or 10 we just have to show the relationship that your service connected injury has gotten worse guys i don't have a service connected back injury i personally see a chiropractor just because of my posture and you know sitting in this chair all the time and i know what back pain is but i don't have a service connection for it but i can tell you one thing back conditions aren't going to just magically get better over the years what are they going to do they're going to get worse they're going to get worse over time and so you know it's just a matter of showing how it has gotten worse to to get that increase on your back daryl let you jump in and add to that i'm i'm wondering how many of those zero and ten percenters how many of them actually pushed through that pain instead of stopping when they started to feel pain because you know in the military they teach you to push through push through push through uh so i'm wondering how many of those people went in for their examinations and instead of stopping when they felt pain they kind of pushed through that pain you know when they're told you know when i was in the service i was told to touch my toes better believe i touched my toes you know what i mean so when you have a doctor say bend over and touch your toes i wonder how many of them really pushed through that to try to touch their toes and you know probably should have stopped a long time ago so that's that's where that increase comes in is is being truthful being being honest when you feel that pain stop yo and guys if you don't have a coach already like you know we're giving you a very quick general version of what's going on here okay um but you want to talk through this with your coach and they're going to be able to provide you individualized guidance that's going to pertain to your situation and provide you know the best piece of advice for you so make sure that if you are not signed up you take the time to do that um yeah so not only not only if you have a service connected back condition can you look at increases on that um but maybe you're somebody who you served in the military back in the 80s or the 90s or maybe even vietnam and maybe something happened and you really hurt your back maybe you had to go to the the hospital um and they had and you had appointments while in the military and even after well as long as you're able to supply those records that you were treated for your back or that there was an injury helping you establish direct service connection will be relatively easy if and it's a big if if you have those records now a lot of you here today you're thinking man i hurt my back and i heard it really bad i'm still dealing with these issues but i don't even know where to start to get my records one or two maybe you do but you don't have the records because it was so long ago and you guys know how the government is they're not exactly organized um especially 60s 70s 80s and 90s and um before everything was electronic and so maybe those records just aren't there and they're not available so you're thinking oh i'm just screwed i'm just out of luck no you're not you are not out of luck guys we make miracles happen here all the time i was out of the service for almost 10 years and i came here as a veteran client and i got 100 pnt i have personally helped um a dozen vietnam veterans who thought that they had no hope because it was so long ago and they thought that if they didn't you know complain earlier that they were just done for many of them had issues with not having records we were able to help them and we were able to help them achieve 100 p t rating okay and it's just unfortunate that that they had to wait this long in their life to get the help now that they're in their 60s 70s and 80s because i would have loved for them to have to have this kind of help you know 20 30 years ago you know but whenever we can service connect a vietnam veteran it's still very um it's a great feeling and and they're relieved they're happy um but you don't have to wait and if you feel like the odds are stacked against you um maybe they would be on your own but with the help of this awesome team here at va claims insider and with the help of your coach um you're gonna be successful so you came to the right place right on um so uh there there are a few things too if you're not currently service connected uh are you ready to talk about secondary travis i haven't jumped into the secondaries of the back like ridiculous right well there are ways to get your back service connected as secondary to other conditions too all right yeah yeah you ready to jump into that all right so uh if you're service connected for a hip condition a knee condition a foot condition um the way you walk is changed all right and it you could be 10 for a knee uh 10 percent for an ankle but the way you walked it has changed so it's called the change of gait with a change of gait your your your back is definitely gonna suffer from that so i i have and that that's actually how i got my back surface connected i was service connected for a right knee condition it wound up affecting my left knee condition um then it wound up perfecting my back in both hips so i was able to take my right knee condition and get a secondary uh lower back surface connection at 10 because of my right knee so anytime your gait changes obviously your bones are going to change you know um a lot of you joined the military 17 18 years old uh you got hurt in service or you had a you know you had a condition in service a knee condition and now like me i'm 51 you know all that walking and all that all that change in my in my physical structure while i'm walking it causes other problems um things are things are bound to go wrong so getting that back service connected is is is relatively easy when you're talking about secondary to uh to a lower body condition absolutely outstanding yes so you know maybe you have a service connected knee condition maybe you have it documented that your knee was injured while in service um there are so many different ways you can go about this guys and that's why it is so vitally important that you hook up with a coach as soon as possible um i've been reading the comments and some of you have asked questions like can can i still file a claim or can i the answer is yes you can you still can and there there is a way even if you've been denied before maybe you didn't go about it properly maybe the people that you utilize in the past to help you didn't have your best interests at heart you're here at the right place there is a way there is hope and a way to help you understand that um so now we're gonna we're gonna move into uh we're still on the subject of the of the back but we're gonna talk about how if maybe you have a service connected back injury even at ten percent or zero what you can claim secondary to that and so what i want to talk about is radiculopathy okay radiculopathy uh it took me a while to figure out how to say that word um but uh yeah so what radiculopathy is it's like a pinched nerve um it's like a tingling sensation do you want to speak more on the simple because you have it don't you darryl do you personally i do yeah okay you want to speak more on the symptoms of it uh yeah so radiculopathy i have radiculopathy in the lower extremities it's due to my sciatic nerve um and and you experience numbness sometimes there's sharp shooting pains that go all the way down to your feet um tingling there's tingling in it um it it's pretty much the same thing as peripheral neuropathy um radiculopathy but it all depends on the nerves that are affected and uh it's we call that a high value claim because those are uh usually it's bilateral you know it's it's both legs so it shoots that percentage right up there 24 i'm i'm actually 20 for each leg plus the bilateral factor i think is like 1.9 or something like that but yeah i mean it's that's a high value claim it is oh real quick i got to say hi to elvis sanchez one of my former clients hey elba um so yeah guys it's a very very high value claim and so if a veteran has a service connected back disability um most likely and i'm not going to say like a hundred percent of the time but most likely nearly almost every single a time the veteran is going to be experiencing symptoms of radiculopathy okay they're going to be experiencing symptoms of radiculopathy and we have um you know we have partners over at telemedica that can actually help a veteran obtain the diagnosis for radiculopathy online from the comfort of your own home so you don't even have to leave all right you don't even have to leave your house um so radiculopathy the reason that it's high value is because you can have multiple ratings for it okay now as it pertains to the back what we know what we most often see is um an upper lumbar radiculopathy rating a middle one lumbar radiculopathy rating and a lower lumbar radiculopathy rating okay so let's just say that you get you know you get diagnosed with ridiculopathy because you have it you're experiencing those symptoms that um mcdonald laid out so maybe you experienced some of the symptoms as a secondary to um your back injury even if you didn't get all three maybe you get two of them you scared me you left me out here all by myself for a whole minute i don't know what happened oh man i heard that so so maybe um maybe you get two out of the three well it if you get two 30 ratings which is the average with us if you get two 30 percenters you're adding 60 to your cumulative score and if you're in your 80s or 90s disability wise like if your disability percentage is in the 80s or 90s you know those points will add up to kind of help you get to that magical 95 marker and i call it the magical 95 because i'm 95 rounds to 100 so um you know it's going to help and if you're lower in the disability percentages it's going to give you a really nice boost okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna let daryl talk for a minute since he uh he left me because i left you it's really important um i know me personally i i only suffer from the lower extremities but um you know you got that cervical spine or the neck and and uh you can experience those same feelings in your arms all the way down to your fingertips uh numbness tingling heart pains um but there's also uh there's also other muscular conditions that you can also look at for that service connection of your of your neck so you know you have the muscular you have the actual musculoskeletal and then you have the nervous or the nerve condition all three you can technically get rated for three different things on your upper middle and lower back as long as those uh as long as those symptoms don't overlap each other which typically they don't because the nerve in a and a musculoskeletal or two different body systems so um there did i did i chew up my minute travis oh yeah yo you're good they did great i was just i was uh just reading some of these comments over here um oh awesome stuff yeah so guys um if you're dealing with back pain i'm so sorry you know i know that that can't be pleasant because it affects so many other parts of your life it affects you in other areas physically it affects you mentally um and it's it's just not it's not easy to live with right but what you've got to understand is that when it comes to va disability ratings and and moving up it's it's a very workable type claim and you know a very very very high value not just from the back itself but the secondaries that come from the back and so um even though money is not going to make your pain go away it will make your life a lot easier and the benefits that come with uh having a higher va disability rating that you deserve it will make your life easier and while we cannot help you make that pain go away i wish we could we can help you navigate through this process and we help you in the form of education that's what we are we are all educators here in fact um i'm the education manager here and i my professional background is an education so i'm a professor um i teach at central methodist university and i do that part-time and uh taught high school but i feel like every day here i'm teaching and that's what we do we empower you with with knowledge hey i was a high school teacher too degree in elementary education yup where are you where are you sixteen and happy you know how was history and a half years yep oh nice man yeah yeah so boom hey uh i i did want to add a little something so if you're if you're a veteran and you had an mos like you were with uh 82nd airborne hundred first airborne you're jumping out of planes um you're you're you have a combat action you have a combat infra treatments badge you have some kind of of a medal for combat um you're in helicopters and you know the hard health the hard-hitting of the helicopters uh the va has started looking at those kind of things you're an 0311 in the marine corps 11 bravo in the army and you're carrying a rucksack around uh the army are they uh the va has started looking at those things and is actually with a strongly written statement they they are accepting that as as uh they are accepting that as evidence and uh depending on the office you get depending on the radar you get um back when i was raiding we would actually set those people up for examination and try to get them that nexus statement but with with us and and the the company we use um you know that strong nexus statement comes into play really big on those very good um hey uh chip jones uh just put a comment there and chats how do i get somebody look over my case well very simple we have somebody here that will message you in chat that will give you the information uh you need to get that set up okay so no problem um great great information darryl so um there's so many different ways and you're gonna learn um at this point like guys really what you need to do is you need to talk to your coach about your situation we just wanted to present and convey that if you have a back issue whether your service connected or not service connected yet we can definitely help you and um it is definitely a path that can take you towards the higher va disability ratings um so we're we're kind of leaving the back for a moment but not really okay so what we're going to talk about now is how your back could affect you mentally and everybody's different so this is not going to be the case for everybody but um and this can be towards any service connected condition and we hit on it a little bit earlier but you have a service connected back you're not able to do those things in life that you used to enjoy that is a lifestyle impact that is taking away from your life you're not able to sleep so you're moody throughout the day that is a lifestyle impact maybe maybe like one of my veteran clients his back i think he's a 20 his back actually causes him to feel anxious because the pain is always there and he has anxiety knowing that it's always there and sometimes the pain will will be even worse and he doesn't know like if he's out with his family he doesn't know when it's going to get really really bad and that makes him anxious and it makes him sad it makes him it makes him depressed like he's told me this you know and um if that's you like if you're dealing with anxiety or depression or you feel like your mood um has changed maybe um maybe like you are really short with people maybe you have a short fuse maybe you and your spouse get into it maybe you and your kids get into it um you might have gone into it with your uh with your bosses at work with your co-workers maybe you've been fired maybe you've been asked to leave or you will be fired right maybe you have quit a job so that you don't have to deal with it anymore because because you're feeling anxious and depressed about your back or maybe you physically can't do that job because of your back it could be a lot of those things maybe some of you here today um you know you resort to alcohol drugs or porn uh to help numb your pain to distract you from the pain that you're dealing with in your back and that's a lot of veterans i talk to a lot of veterans every single day and they tell me that those are those are the big three and you know if you're if you're drinking because because of your back and how you feel about your life because of your back that's a secondary service connection and our partners over at telemedica you know uh they they partner with us you know we we can help you with that if you're dealing guys if you're dealing with anxiety and depression or you know um just those major things in life that that aren't going well we can help you with that so don't don't sit back any longer we can we can help you absolutely i don't know what to say on that man you you you hit the you hit the nail on the head there that's that's absolutely right i'm kind of reading the notes here too um yeah backs are not presumptive and that's not what i was saying backs are not presumptive all right but the va can look at your mos and say that there is there is reasonable uh it raises the the probative value of your statement okay so you know i was saying that that you uh you used to be a jump out of airplanes while you're in the while you're in the 82nd airborne 101st uh they do look at that that you have hard landings and that's why i said it's not presumptive but with a strongly worded nexus letter uh you can get you can get that service connector potentially get that service connected absolutely for sure guys another thing too don't let the percentage on the disability like let's okay maybe you're a veteran here today you've got 10 for your back so maybe you're dealing with some of those lifestyle impacts that i talked about not being able to work out not being able to go on vacations or trips not being able to get down and play with your kids or grandkids or just get out there and enjoy life like you want to enjoy life or maybe you're feeling anxious don't think don't think that just because your service connected disability is only 10 that you you don't have any ground to stand on that's not true at all many times people will come here and they have a 10 service connected disability but secondary to that disability they're dealing with other things and those other things will take them to 100 secondary to that 10 service connected disability so i just don't want you thinking like oh well mine's only 10 yeah it it hurts but um it's only 10 so i can't really you know i can't do that yes you can talk to one of us talk to a coach uh sorry i just reading up some of the notes here let's see surface connect for my right knee cortisone shot in my left knee i'm diagnosed with degenerative disc and lumbar strain going back to 20 years wow yeah that's that's definitely a lifestyle impact i'm on i'm not a doctor but i could definitely see that one going yeah if there's anybody that wants to share in the chat um they feel free to do this and you don't have to only if you want to um if you don't mind making yourself vulnerable but maybe maybe share with the group um about how your back pain causes you to not enjoy life fully maybe it takes away from your life so i'm getting a little bit away from the pain itself and i'm just kind of wanting to know how does it affect you in your day-to-day life i'll give you guys a moment to get that in there can you follow xsd secondary back if you're already ready for ptsd uh well since you cannot you can only be service connected for one mental condition at a time so if you're if you're affected if you're a ptsd if you have ptsd and you're affected by um your say your back condition which is what we're talking about uh you're you're you can file for an increase in that ptsd um but but they won't service connect you for both conditions it'll it'll be like i said just one mental condition um and i also wanted to hit on something before too pain is often when you go to a va doctor they often they will often diagnose you if you just have pain they'll diagnose it as a lumbago all right um and and there is a difference between just pain and then something like uh degenerative disc disease all right there was a question in the in the chat earlier about it so there there is a difference between just lumbago and degenerative disc disease yep great um so here here's the deal um very very good information you know some people have put up here in chat um they i had somebody say that you know their their back condition affects their sex life right i know that's kind of an awkward subject to talk about in front of 300 people uh but if that's you if your service connected disability affects your sex life um that's a wouldn't you call that a big lifestyle impact doesn't that like isn't that going to make you feel like a certain kind of way so um absolutely that is a that is a great great example okay so um at this time what i would like to happen is i would like for you guys to to just ask questions and we're going to try to answer these questions to the best of our ability with the amount of time that we have left we're going to have to wrap up at um 11 55. i have five servers connected i have five service connected issues with all zeroes can i get help from you guys i have back service connected and now i've gotten worse with tingling and feeling roland absolutely yes don't wait any longer reach out to a coach sign up get on somebody's calendar as soon as possible okay do not wait when you guys are waiting around you're literally throwing away tax-free money every single month that you wait why do that luke you're killing me here 900 service connected total total service connection not including va math wow can back issue be presumptive condition since i never complained it so i don't think a back issue can actually be presumptive it can't um so presumptives that would be like okay if you served in the persian gulf or you served in vietnam so a presumptive over in vietnam would be like you know agent orange exposure and so like you know maybe you have diabetes and that's tight in the agent orange that would be a presumptive um another one could be you're in the persian gulf and maybe um you got what's called chronic fatigue syndrome that would be a presumptive so the back is going to be it's going to be a direct service connection meaning directly from the military or it's going to be a secondary service connection uh there there was another way too and we don't talk about it a whole lot but aggravation if you had a back condition before service and um it was it was noted and they put you in service anyway um then you would just have to show that it was aggravated beyond this natural progression and and you could potentially get service connected that way but that's not one we talk about a whole lot because it's it's a little difficult to uh it's a little difficult to substantiate yeah for sure um it definitely is yeah and it's kind of it's like one of those deals you had it going into the military but then you showed that the military made it worse it's actually pretty complicated too so yeah um but yeah that is that is a possibility yeah so okay charlie didn't change the way you walk if it changes the way you walk you could potentially file for yeah you could plantar fasciitis you could potentially file for a bad condition um but get with your coach for sure and without looking at all your records um also i want to clear something up so i know that sometimes um in our in our chat uh people people will come in that maybe your client maybe your prospective client maybe you want to be a client you know but sometimes like people will come in that that have no intention of being a client and that's that's totally fine i mean it's it's information we're here we're educators but i'm seeing some things in the comments about somebody is saying message me i can guarantee you a writing if anybody ever asks you to if anybody ever says they can guarantee you a service connection they they are lying to you and they are absolutely wrong do not proceed okay understand that i don't know if you caught that daryl earlier i did i wanted the board our folks william byrd says i have aggravated condition on these okay great um see what else do we have craig turner got a 70 rating for ssd got you to 90. craig that's awesome man so glad to hear it craig did you um what was your primary service connected just like where did the ssd come from like was it secondary to a back pain was a secondary to your knees tenitus just just out of curiosity guys somebody might need to take off luke uh a certain individual you see what i'm talking about daryl okay ask some questions i wish there was a way that they could come on i could hear their voice oh glenn you got to 100 yes i am so happy to hear that oh oh yeah man that's great yep that's it ken that's that that's that uh radiculopathy we're talking about sciatic nerve pain going down both your legs absolutely and then the lifetime lifestyle impact if you don't feel like going anywhere um i would definitely if you're if you're with us get with your coach and look at that guy guys luke allen disregard anything that he says okay he should not be here right now thank you so i just don't want you guys to think that he's representing our company because he absolutely is not so anything that he says is not credible foot drop do you know anything about foot drop darryl yeah usually foot drop is associated with the nerve condition as well um it's just it's uh your foot doesn't so when you walk in your foot comes up and it resets usually that nerve condition doesn't allow that to happen and uh foot foot drop can can uh it can also be rated a secondary to your back good stuff we got anybody in here uh that wants to talk about you know their their back or their radiculopathy or mental health secondary to the back can knees aggravate the back using it yeah absolutely they can so if you got like a knee issue oh i helped the veteran with this uh he had like made it to 93 it was the thing that like took him over the top um but i helped him with this and we just it was a relationship where it showed that his his knees affected his back and it was a it was a done deal absolutely they can uh gregory jones i have 10 for my back how can i take a physical through va claims um that would be that would be signing up for our service and and getting with your coach and they can take a look at if you're 10 doing an increase on that and getting you over to uh to the company that we use to uh to get you that increase absolutely hey guys i want to hear about some celebrations if you're a current client maybe you're a client maybe you haven't hit 100 p t yet but maybe maybe we helped you go from 10 to 60 and you're still working towards 100 um maybe you are 100 pnt and you're just hanging out with your fellow vets today drop your celebration stories there in the comments let people see the work that we're doing and and the results and things that can come of this yes absolutely mesa you can absolutely yes don't worry about that we got you yes james many of these conditions can be claimed as secondary tony may says do you have do you have to have a diagnosis for back problems to submit a claim um so yeah yeah that's going to be very helpful i mean because when we look at the like two of the most important pillars it's going to be a diagnosis and then a nexus so a nexus is service connection okay so yeah if you don't have a dying if you're just dealing with back pain maybe you're like one of those troopers that you just deal with it like i deal with headaches only recently in the last two years that i start you know going to the doctor for it but i just dealt with it i would go to walgreens before i had va healthcare and i would just get medication i would just treat myself and i just dealt with it so what happened there was never any record of diagnosis because i would only go to the doctor once a year and it during that once a year i wasn't having headache issues so it never really made record right so i can understand why some of you might not have a diagnosis yet you're just you're you know you're you're pushing along um but so if if this is you then what you want to start doing is you want to start getting it on paper when your back gets back when your knees get bad you know your neck whatever is going on ladies and gentlemen you want to make sure that you start paper trolling paper trails are so important so when you're having that pain i know it's a pain in the ass to go to the doctor i hate going to the doctor but you need to go to the doctor because you got to have a diagnosis for these things there's got to be a record that's actually going on man look at all these people just getting getting the increases everywhere like 90. oh that's that guy's it's so it's oh it's such a great feeling um seeing all this you know this this is this is great what is the key of proving nexus with any claim chad well that's where we help you that's where we help you and our partners we have a partner company and they can help you with not all nexus statements but quite a few like they can help you with many of the different types of nexus statements you would need hey i'm also seen in here a lot of people that were were denied or initially denied hey don't don't give it up don't give it up just keep coming back and and we'll keep fighting for you there's there's no quit there's no quit on anybody and and uh va claims insider everybody's there for you until you get what you morally ethically and and legally deserve absolutely during coffee with the coaches this morning and i love i love that time of morning um you know we work with we have our veteran clients come in so when you become a client you'll get to participate but it's 8 a.m central standard time and we just talk we all hang out we talk we talk about things going on we talk about claims and um terrell merle or morrell he is our director of engagement and he's a great guy but um he closed about uh the closing of coffee hour with the coaches this morning was about how you should never give up this guy he he had to go at it four times four times and he said that the easiest thing he could have done would have been to give up and for a lot of you the easiest thing would be to give up but do not give up i don't care if you've been denied five times in the past ten times i don't care if you feel like you don't stand a chance do not give up we will not let you give up you need to come talk to a coach you need to hook up with us as soon as possible and we will help you we will help you until you get what you legally and rightfully deserve just don't ever give up no matter what you have heard you will hear a lot of things out there when you go out there and you start googling things and you know reading the forums that's going to make you want to give up and they may want to give up but don't guys i am an unlucky person i do not have good luck in life period i just don't okay if i if i can get 100 p t me being like the most unlucky person in this world anybody in here can get it and i mean that hey uh i've been reading a lot of notes no you don't have to have your service treatment records in order to work with us um we just uh we'll go off your your my health event report your your current rating if you have one and uh we can work from there um those va records are really hard to get they take a long time to get them so uh yeah we don't we don't need to have the va records in order to go to work for you great point darryl um a lot of you you're putting your situation on hold because you're waiting for your records to come back from the va or from the army or from the air force or wherever you're waiting for your records to come back i mean guys with covet going on who knows how long that's going to take before kovid that was easily a six to nine month deal you do not have to wait you don't have to wait if you even if you feel like you don't have all your ducks in a row you don't have to wait talk to a coach as soon as possible there might be another way there usually is another way we can go ahead and start working with you and teaching you and helping you and getting you on the right path do not wait if you wait you are only throwing away tax-free money every single month that passes don't do it michael michael strichfield this is one of my former clients love this guy we were we were actually on a training call we were having office hours on a sunday afternoon with my uh team of veterans and um we were just in this guy let me tell you this guy the va gave this man such a hard time he ended up having like three cmp exams and prior prior to coming to our company like he was just rejected and he was so discouraged but one thing he never did is he never gave up and i remember literally right after that meeting was over a meeting much like what we're having today i get a call from him and i'm thinking what we just talked what what does he need we just talked and uh he he goes i just logged into he benefits and this is on a sunday yes claims actually move on saturdays and sundays i know it's not comment but it does happen some people are working on saturday and sunday i don't know if it's a covet thing or what he go so he goes into the benefit disabilities and clicks on it he's a hundred percent he's 100 pnt oh my gosh i was so i was so happy i'm still so happy for this man like he deserves it vietnam veteran he just had a really rough run uh there was a question on here earlier about can i have a hundred percent pnt and still work absolutely i'm a hundred percent pnt uh travis you're 100 percent pnt also correct yes sir here we are both working so yeah the only time you can't is if it's individual unemployability then you're limited on how much you can make and chad chad there in chat i mean he says start by filing an intent immediately that's called an intent to file so if you have that knowledge base if you know how va.gov works and you have the ability to put an intent the file do so if you're if you don't know how to do it like you don't know how to navigate like the va website like i did not know how to navigate the va websites when i first came on board and i consider myself to be you know relatively smart but i didn't know how it worked what's a ds login so for some of you that could be the case so just just wait till you talk to a coach or talk to somebody and they will help and assist you with that but if you already have that skill set and you know how to put in an intent to file always have an intent to file in place because they last 12 years or not 12 years oh my god 12 months 12 months so um what that means is like you put in an intent to file today here we are december 23rd um and let's say that by the time you get hooked up with us and you get your decision back maybe maybe it's may well you're looking at you know potentially four or five months of back pay right off the bat um steve van noy put the number the one eight hundred eight two seven one thousand that's the va's uh customer service line you can call them and do an intent to file also if you're already a member of of elite we have the eep the eep plus portal uh you can go in there as well and it'll show you how to to do the intent in there as well absolutely on guys ask us some questions it says i can tell you stories for 50 years now i was discharged honorably with 30 disability haven't seen a doctor since 74 but i am not giving up joe that is what we like to hear um much like our director of engagement don't give up yeah do not give up let us help you though please don't try to do it yourself joe please don't let us help you we will not only do we want you to win but we want you to win as quickly as possible we want you to win under the path that's going to have the least amount of resistance if you if you've been service connected for 50 years it tells me that you're most likely a vietnam or vietnam era event and i don't want you waiting two or three more years to get the disability you deserve i want you to be there in six months and we have the ability to make that happen uh somebody put on there up there a little earlier about their 10 for their lower back and they're currently at 93 percent uh should they file for increase i would definitely if you have a coach get with your coach um there is no harm if you're 10 for your back file them for increase on that and potentially uh part of the back examination is that radiculopathy they'll address the release property and if they find that you have it they will uh they will go ahead and do a dbq on that as well um so yeah i mean if you're 10 and you want to seek an increase by all means get with your coach and work that out yeah guys and i can't tell you how many people i know are a hundred percent because of a 10 disability so i always keep an intent to file on on uh on the books uh some people just choose a date like uh every veteran's day they'll they'll make sure they go in and do a new one um you know their birthday they'll just pick an arbitrary date and and go in there and file an intent just always keep one on file because you never know edgar uh good good question he says how long should he wait before we resubmit a claim for a degenerative condition that is worsening well okay so here's the deal maybe you just didn't get rated right maybe you didn't get the right rating so don't feel that you've got to wait six months to to show that it's gotten worse okay if you didn't get rated right you didn't get rated right you just need to go through and do an increase and provide documentation that that condition is continuing to to worsen but once you get to talk to a coach they're going to be able to give you more guidance on that because like i can only speak on very like vague and general terms because i don't know like all the specifics of your situations so um understand that we can help you understand that you are wasting time if you're trying to do this on your own we can help you we can help you get there quicker i want you all to be successful okay that's what i want so so just hook up with us as soon as possible final thoughts travis i hope you all have a merry christmas hey don't forget about that uh that coffee with the coaches on friday it's an hour later um but there are some fabulous prizes some games some fun um you know if you're we don't want any veteran to be alone on on christmas so uh you know even you got family open up christmas presents in the morning uh jump on have a good time with the rest of us uh we're here for you as veterans um we're veterans so everybody enjoy the holidays absolutely you guys take care of yourselves all right and hopefully we'll we'll be in touch very soon