Cardiovascular diseases?

Question:

I have a 10% VA rating for high blood pressure. I had a pacemaker installed on in 2016. Should I file for a VA rating? Thanks in advance.

 

Jim's Reply:

 

Yes, maybe. The need for the pacemaker must first be proven to be secondary to your high blood pressure (HBP). If you can prove that your HBP has caused or contributed to the need for a pacer to control the timing of your heartbeats, you may have a well grounded claim that the pacer is service connected (SC) secondary to the HBP. If you're having a touch of heart failure that will be enough to require a pacer and heart failure is often secondary to very high/treatment resistant hypertension.
 

If you do have a diagnosis of heart failure, you should file that as secondary to the SC HBP also.
 

As I so often do, I predict that to prevail you're going to have to have an Independent Medical Opinion that spells out exactly, precisely how and why your SC HBP caused the need for the device. Unless you have the IMO, the VA isn't going to see the secondary connection. More about that is here https://www.vawatchdog.org/imo-ime-medical-opinions-exams.html  Good luck.