Hello all,
I’ve been combing through the forum most of the day and figured I’d throw my situation out there and see if there’s a recommended route to take or at least some advice.
Currently in my 10th year of the Army Reserves and have been battling chronic shoulder pain for the last 3. I deployed recently, aggravated the shoulder pain/issues, and received an LOD. After I returned home I jumped into documenting every through the VA right away and received an 80% rating for my shoulders, BH, and tinnitus.
In the last 3 years of having shoulder pain I’ve had plenty of physical therapy thanks to my civilian, military, and VA practitioners with no progress since surgery isn’t an option. A few weeks ago the VA finally threw in the towel and signed off on a packet for getting a P3 profile. Once the army signed off on it I saw they gave me a “deadman’s profile” where I can’t perform any of the 3 APFT events. I’m assuming that’s because the practitioner who filled out my profile packet limited me to lifting no more than 25 pounds with the primarily bad shoulder.
So now I’ve been referred to the MEB process and have been told to choose between IDES or LDES. With my current 80% rating through the VA should I pursue the LDES to try and retain the rating and possibly a quicker decision? If I went with IDES I’m not concerned with being re-evaluated since I have plenty of paperwork supporting my rating decisions, but I’d be more concerned with how time consuming it would be since it was a nightmare going through QTC for the initial claims through the VA.
My main objective here is to preserve time in since I can’t take a PT test with the current P3 profile and am flagged from failing an APFT when my shoulders first started having issues. Would it be worthwhile to try and get a summary of care(I believe is what it’s called) to try and raise the weight restriction on my Profile so I can at least (hopefully) do the 2 mile run? Or would that potentially affect the MEB and my VA rating if I chose IDES. But also if the found that they want to discharge me, I think I’d be fine with that since I don’t believe with my MOS/unit I could get enough retirement points to make it worthwhile staying in.
If my post is confusing and needs editing, I apologize. I’m not good at explaining this through text
I’ve been combing through the forum most of the day and figured I’d throw my situation out there and see if there’s a recommended route to take or at least some advice.
Currently in my 10th year of the Army Reserves and have been battling chronic shoulder pain for the last 3. I deployed recently, aggravated the shoulder pain/issues, and received an LOD. After I returned home I jumped into documenting every through the VA right away and received an 80% rating for my shoulders, BH, and tinnitus.
In the last 3 years of having shoulder pain I’ve had plenty of physical therapy thanks to my civilian, military, and VA practitioners with no progress since surgery isn’t an option. A few weeks ago the VA finally threw in the towel and signed off on a packet for getting a P3 profile. Once the army signed off on it I saw they gave me a “deadman’s profile” where I can’t perform any of the 3 APFT events. I’m assuming that’s because the practitioner who filled out my profile packet limited me to lifting no more than 25 pounds with the primarily bad shoulder.
So now I’ve been referred to the MEB process and have been told to choose between IDES or LDES. With my current 80% rating through the VA should I pursue the LDES to try and retain the rating and possibly a quicker decision? If I went with IDES I’m not concerned with being re-evaluated since I have plenty of paperwork supporting my rating decisions, but I’d be more concerned with how time consuming it would be since it was a nightmare going through QTC for the initial claims through the VA.
My main objective here is to preserve time in since I can’t take a PT test with the current P3 profile and am flagged from failing an APFT when my shoulders first started having issues. Would it be worthwhile to try and get a summary of care(I believe is what it’s called) to try and raise the weight restriction on my Profile so I can at least (hopefully) do the 2 mile run? Or would that potentially affect the MEB and my VA rating if I chose IDES. But also if the found that they want to discharge me, I think I’d be fine with that since I don’t believe with my MOS/unit I could get enough retirement points to make it worthwhile staying in.
If my post is confusing and needs editing, I apologize. I’m not good at explaining this through text
