If you have PTSD and Sleep Apnea you can file for Sleep Apnea secondary to your PTSD.
Please NOTE: If you are 100% or have IU do not reopen your claim.

You will need to get your doctors put it in your records by showing him this study and nicely asking him about it. You will need to do the same thing to the C&P exam to see what he will say. Remember BE NICE. Just ask him if he has seen it and with he thinks.  Keep in mind doctors do not like to be told anything even by a nurse.

Fatigue is one of our biggest problems of PTSD and one had a full knowledge as to why. That was until some research at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C did their research study on the issue. Their research was completed published in late 2010. The researchers found out well over 50% of patients with PTSD also had sleep apnea. The final report that you will need for you claim and doctors can be downloaded at this hyper link:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CHEST/23074

You may be asking, “What good is it to me?”

That is easy, more and more veterans are getting diagnosed with sleep apnea and it is something a veteran who has served in the Iraqi area of operation any time from 1 August 1990 until a day yet to be set(so even today) cannot claim under section 3.317. This is because sleep apnea is a diagnosed illness and as the way the law was written it is ruled out as an undiagnosed illness.

If you have PTSD and Sleep Apnea you can now file for the sleep apnea as a secondary to your PTSD. If you tried to file it under the UI section you can now file for the sleep apnea again but as a secondary to the PTSD. If you have an appeal going with the sleep apnea under the UI section you need to add to the argument that the SA may also be caused by your PTSD and send in the research. You can give more than one argument for the same claim illness.

You will need to download the articles for yourself, your VSO, your doctors and the C&P examiner. Have your VSO file the claim. In many cases your VSO will want you to get your doctor to give a nexus of the PTSD and the sleep apnea first. This will help your claim. Show your doctor the two papers pointing out the highlighted parts and make sure to give a copy to your PTSD doctors too.

You will need to get your doctors put it in your records by showing him this study and nicely asking him about it. You will need to do the same thing to the C&P exam to see what he will say. Remember BE NICE. Just ask him if he has seen it and what he thinks.  Keep in mind doctors do not like to be told anything even by a nurse.

If the examiner did not agree with the study, then your VSO will need to attack the C&P ASAP. Many of the examiners are PA’s and Nurse-P and are not as experienced as your doctor. The RO will go off the C&P only so get the C&P exam ASAP to see how it went.