Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The Veterans Disability Nexus, where we provide unique insights and expertise on medical evidence related to VA-rated disabilities. Leah Bucholz, a US Army Veteran, Physician Assistant, & former Compensation & Pension Examiner shares her knowledge related to Independent Medical Opinions often referred to as “Nexus Letters” in support of your pursuit of VA Disability every Tuesday & Wednesday at 7AM Central.
Take control of your medical evidence related to your benefits and visit https://podcast.prestigeveteranmctx.info/veteran/ for more information and to connect directly with us!
Hey, It's Leah B from Prestige Veteran Medical Consulting. I am a US Army veteran, physician assistant, and former compensation and pension examiner. So welcome back. Today, I want to jump on here and provide you guys some essential information regarding veterans, affairs and disability issues, for those of you navigating the claims process. So today we're gonna focus on a condition that affects a significant number of veterans and that is dry eye syndrome.
Leah Bucholz:So we're gonna explore what dry eye syndrome is, its prevalence among veterans, associated risk factors and how many veterans get this service connected just as a secondary service connection to other disabilities. So what is dry eye syndrome? So dry eye syndrome occurs when your eyes don't produce enough tears or when the tears evaporate too quickly leading to inflammation damage to the eye surface. Some symptoms include stinging or burning sensations, some redness you can develop, sensitivity to lights, blurred vision, gritty feeling like you just can't get some dirt out of there. Something might feel stuck in your eyes.
Leah Bucholz:So that can be another symptom you can suffer from. So these symptoms can significantly impact your daily activities like reading, driving, using a computer. So I'm gonna go over some of my research articles here in a few minutes that I like to use and you guys can look them up. But studies have shown that dry eye syndrome is notably prevalent among veterans. So a study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology found that the prevalence of dry eye syndrome in veteran population was nineteen percent in men and twenty two percent in women, which is higher than the general population.
Leah Bucholz:And you can find that at iovs.arvojournals.org. Research also indicates a strong association between DES and certain psychiatric conditions common among veterans. For instance, veterans diagnosed with PTSD or depression have a higher likelihood of experiencing DES, or dry eye syndrome. So let me pull up some of those articles for you guys real quick. So one of the ones that I use a lot is depression, post traumatic stress disorder and dry eye syndrome, a study utilizing the national United States veteran affairs Administration database, which was published in August of twenty twelve.
Leah Bucholz:And that was published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. Those authors aim to study the scope of dry eye syndrome in veterans on a national level and to evaluate the relationship between psychiatric diagnosis and DES. Then another study called Dry Eye Syndrome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Older Male Veteran Population is another good one published in May of twenty thirteen and investigative ophthalmology. So these are good ones if you have PTSD and you've got dry eye syndrome, you can talk to your ophthalmologist, your optometrist, even your primary care provider to see if they think that there's a link in your case. That doesn't necessarily mean there always is a link just because you have one condition and the other, you might have other risk factors, right?
Leah Bucholz:And we're gonna get into some of those. Another article, Longitudinal Examination of Frequency of Risk Factors for severe dry eye syndrome in US veterans, which was published in 2017 in JAMA Ophthalmology said that mental health conditions such as PTSD contribute to dry eye conditions and promote eyelid laxity, particularly when obstructive obstructive sleep apnea is also present. The Association of Dry Eye Syndrome Severity and Comorbid Insomnia in US Veterans is another good article and that was published in September of twenty eighteen. And the addition of Eye and Science in Clinical Practice. Let me give you one more and then we're gonna move on.
Leah Bucholz:The association between dry eye disease and depression and anxiety in a large population based study published in March 2015 in the Journal of Ophthalmology. Those are some good articles that you guys can look at regarding mental health conditions and dry eye syndrome. So laser eye surgery, a lot of people had laser eye surgery. I had it twice on active duty, twice I had PRK. So I've heard a lot of back and forth about this.
Leah Bucholz:So we're gonna jump into that too. But many veterans undergo refractive surgeries such as LASIK, PRK often during their time in service. While these procedures can improve their your vision, it can also increase that risk of dry eye syndrome. So I'm gonna jump on some articles about that, but I've had a lot of people say they've had denials, I've read denials that say, Hey, this was an elective procedure, so it doesn't count, you don't get it because it was an elective procedure but I've seen tons of veterans overcome that. It's always best to follow-up with an accredited legal professional if you're in that setting.
Leah Bucholz:But I have seen a lot of those overturned. So you may wanna talk to a VSO, credit claims agent about your case if you've been denied before because you may be entitled to that disability. So let me pull up some of those articles. And this is a pretty well known link here. I think the bigger hurdle here is getting over some of those cases where they say you're not eligible.
Leah Bucholz:But that's more of a legal issue. But let me give you a couple articles anyways. Dry eye more likely to develop after LASIK than PRK. That was published in January 2020 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Refractive surgery and dry eye, an update published in the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology in 2023, has some good details in it.
Leah Bucholz:Chronic dry eye and photorefractive kerat this is a mouthful. Keratectomy and laser in situ keratomileus manifestations, incidents and predictive factors. That was published in the Journal of Cataracts and Refractive Surgery. One more, Dry Eye After Refractive Surgery published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology in 2020. Those are some really good articles that have a lot of data that can support like the link.
Leah Bucholz:Again, think sometimes that might be more of a legal issue in some cases, but I don't know. That's definitely something to consider if you've got dry eye and you have LASIK or PRK while on active duty because you may persist and continue to have long term side effects, especially if it's combined with environmental allergens or environmental exposures like on deployments. So there's a lot of people I've seen that get service connected for dry eye syndrome that onset during their time overseas, burn pit, things like that. So if you've had laser eye surgery during service and you're now experiencing chronic dry eye, it might be worth considering. So what are some other risk factors associated with dry eye syndrome for veterans?
Leah Bucholz:So there's several factors. We talked about surgery, we talked about mental health conditions. There's environmental exposures that can be related. So we talked about deployments, regions with harsh climates, exposures to wind, dust, dry conditions. We talked about those psychiatric conditions like PTSD and depression linked to higher dry eye syndrome, chronic pain conditions.
Leah Bucholz:So veterans with chronic pain conditions may experience higher rates of dry eye syndrome. You can look that up on agmc.com and then look for veterans suffering from dry eyes. There's a article there. So VA disability claims for dry eye syndrome. So if you believe that your disability is related to your service on either a direct basis, if you were diagnosed in service or on a secondary basis to some other condition or some medications maybe you're taking cause you to have dry eye, you could go head over to va.gov.
Leah Bucholz:They have really great instructions on how to file claims if you're, able to do that on your own and you feel comfortable, or you can follow-up with a VSO or an accredited claims agent or an attorney if you've got that evidence of a current diagnosis and you feel that you can demonstrate this link between your service and the issue. You can ask your primary care, your optometrist, your ophthalmologist to write a short statement for you and your records not required. Sometimes it can be helpful. And for ratings purposes, I don't really, it's not my area, but I have some notes here for you. It's under CFR 4.79.
Leah Bucholz:It's often related analogously to another eye condition. So rated based on severity, common ratings are at ten percent for one eye, twenty percent for both eye involvement. So again, I hope this was helpful to you guys. Dry eye syndrome seems to be such a like something that people don't really think about, but it's just like allergies or any other condition, that can be related to service and to your exposures. So I hope this was helpful.
Leah Bucholz:I would love to hear some feedback from some of you guys that may have been rated for this or struggled with it or over came it and got service connected because I always like to hear, stories of how that worked out for some people. And I always hear back from people, years later after I make some of these videos that say, hey. This really helped me, and I was able to get service connected. I never thought about it. So I love hearing those stories too.
Leah Bucholz:A lot of you guys will ask me for articles. You should be able to look them up based on the information I gave you. I usually post a blog as well. And in that blog, there will be links. So if you head on over to my website, you can grab them from there as well.
Leah Bucholz:So thanks for watching. Please drop some comments, and I'll talk to you guys soon. Alright. Bye.