The VARSD says 30 % based upon my medication that I take daily, but thats if they only use the PFTw/o challenge right?
Not really. If they only have access to a PFT w/o challenge they have to resort to rating based on the medication. Asthma is supposed to be rated based on the severity of an attack. Its the challenge portion that simulates an attack.
The should decide the rating based on the medication needed to treat (as this changes as attacks become more severe)
or the challenge results (as this measure how severe an attack is). They have to select whichever rating method results in a higher rating. It could even be based on the frequency of ER visits (because again, that's how bad an attack is) if that results in a higher rating, but that's more unusual.
So really only the 2007 PFT is useful to guess at a rating. I can't read it clearly enough, and really, its probably not going to be super accurate anyway.
As a note, this is all based on an important rule the VA has to follow that ratings need to be based on functional impairment in daily life. They can't just say, oh, well you're good 6 days out of 7, so we'll just measure how you do on one of those good days and say things are fine. Most medical conditions that occur periodically, have flare-ups, stuff life that, they require lifestyle and vocational changes. If your back gives out for an hour a day, that's going to effect what you attempt to do. Same thing applies to asthma, epilepsy, all that stuff. For asthma this principle is pretty well understood, for some conditions it becomes important to tell them what a bad day looks like.
