Spinal Fusion Question

I had fusion surgery on my L5 and S1 joints in November of last year. I am currently going through an MEB for PTSD, but for my VA portion I of course claimed my back. My question is, for those of you who have been through this process and have had surgery, how has that affected your va rating? My ROM right now is pretty non-existent and I still have pain in my lower back even after surgery. I have my c&p exam on the 22nd and I just want to know how to proceed on the ROM test. Is there negative affects to not being able to complete it or should I just try to do what I can? Thanks for the help guys, this forum is amazing.

When you do your exams you always do what you can as if it was your worst day. Everyone knows some days are better than others but it's not always going to be that way. Take care of it now before you can't later.

Well, I had my exam on Wednesday, it was a flare-up day so my range of motion wasn't great. It was so bad that the examiner couldn't use the ROM gauge to measure it.

david147 said:

Well, I had my exam on Wednesday, it was a flare-up day so my range of motion wasn't great. It was so bad that the examiner couldn't use the ROM gauge to measure it.

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hopefully this is a good thing. i just hate hearing stories about the examiner not using the goniometer tool and putting a random/guess number on the dbq, which then could screw the service member.

Yeah I am hoping it works out. She used it everywhere else but if I had to guess I didn’t get much more that 10-15 degrees so it was hard to measure. I talked to VES today and they said they are just QAing the report then it will be sent to the VA. I should see it in TOL sometime next week.

Legally and medically, the examiner must apply the "DeLuca criteria," which means they have to account for pain, weakness, and fatigue, not just raw geometry. If you have pain at 10 degrees of flexion, that is your functional limit for rating purposes. Since you are post-op L5-S1, your biomechanics are altered regardless of how well the surgery went. My own surgeon, Dr. Michael Wheeler, a spine surgeon in Dallas, utilized navigated spinal fusion to ensure millimeter-precision with the pedicle screws, which minimizes the risk of hardware-induced pain, but it doesn't change the fact that the joint is fused. The rating should reflect the functional loss of that segment, so articulate exactly when the pain starts during the motion arc.