Surgery request options?

Hello, first thank you all you're awesome.

On 29 Oct when i talked with my PEBLO he said there is still an option to request ( dont know to who ) to have a surgery done to my left wrist (partial fusion), i had a soft tissue reconstruction in February but it's completely undone now. I just asked my PCM about it ( she is a nurse practitioner ) and she just repeatedly said she has nothing to do with that and if my hand doc at ortho wants to do it that's his deal. He has already said give him the word that everything is kosher with doing it during the MEB and he will schedule it. I can just ask my peblo about the request later but i'm not sure if its something i should pursue in my current situation. I have had a lot of overlapping of steps in the IDES process, and new information on my condition which may put me in a corner here. I am waiting for IPEB right now so they may not even want to let me do it ive heard its practically "life or limb". Would it be based off of how much the hand doc says i need it? at the same time im weighing if i would want to make this take longer and at the same time it depends on my IPEB results. I'm not in a ton of pain as long as i don't use my left hand for too much to cause a flare up i'm in a brace 80% of the time.

i don't quality for any specific wrist condition and i did find a 20 % arthritis with flare ups rating i could quality for, i also have carpal tunnel, cubital tunnel and scars on the same hand/wrist. Do i have a chance of some of them being grouped for a 30% DOD rating? my only unfit condition the MEB put is my ligament that i had surgery on and need those bones (3) fused now, so i dont know how that works, if it would only be unfits possibly grouped together?. I know I'm being a little OCD with this since it'll be atleast a month until i get results and move forward. I'm just trying to be prepared for any result.

 

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It ends up being up to the MTF commander. Hand doc says he wants to do the surgery and why and the MTF commander weighs the necessity of the surgery. Sometimes delaying a surgery will have a really good chance of making things worse or surgery less successful later. The hesitance they have of doing surgery that might reboot the MEB is a bit lower easier to overcome than a life or limb. So it really comes down to what the hand doc says about the why. As far as if you should or not, it is awful hard to recommend against taking care of your health. A 12 month delay is probably considerably shorter than how long you have to use that wrist. I'd be more concerned about if the wrist surgery is even what I want, I'm not a big fan of repeated surgeries, just fusing things again and again until you run out of bones to fuse.

Nerve problems and joint problems can be combined. How often it happens is really hard to say, like everything, it depends on the facts. Comes down to how are the cubital and carpal tunnel problems effecting work. If its a little numbness and tingling, probably just a VA rating, if there is paralysis in your dominate hand, almost certainly should be part of your DoD rating. Its fairly normal for the MEB to be started on just the joint problem, they see this all the time for the back. Sometimes the paperwork is good and the PEB can at sort things out, sometimes it takes extra work, such as an appeal. It sounds like you have a good amount of lose of use, so probably something you should fight for.