Many veterans suffer from different ear conditions later in life like vertigo, dizziness, and tinnitus. As a result, these conditions can affect the way they work and live. Service members are exposed to innumerable loud noises which can cause permanent ear damage and disability.
Have you been experiencing uncomfortable feelings of spinning dizziness? Then you may be experiencing vertigo, which is often a symptom of an ear condition. Veterans like you may be entitled to VA disability benefits if you can prove your vertigo and ear conditions are a result of your time in the service.
If you’re not sure if you’re eligible, we’re here to help. Find out exactly what vertigo disability is and whether you can claim VA benefits for your condition.
In This Article About Vertigo and Dizziness VA Ratings:
- What Is Vertigo?
- What Symptoms Occur Alongside Vertigo?
- What Causes Vertigo?
- Meniere’s Disease and Vertigo
- Perforated Eardrum
- Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
- Vestibular Neuritis
- Is Vertigo a Disability?
- What Are the VA Ratings for Vertigo?
- Peripheral Vestibular Disorders
- Meniere’s Disease vs. Vertigo VA Ratings
- What Is the Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing?
- What Are the Principles That Apply?
- How Do I Establish Service Connection for Vertigo?
- Do You Need Help Claiming Vertigo Disability Benefits?
What Is Vertigo?
An individual with vertigo will experience a sense of spinning dizziness. They may feel like the room or surrounding environment is spinning around them in circles. Or, they may feel like their head is spinning.
This sensation can start and stop suddenly without warning. It usually lasts between 20 minutes and several hours.
While many people use the term vertigo to describe the fear of heights, this isn’t right. Vertigo can occur when someone looks down from a great height, but it often refers to any spells of dizziness that happens due to issues in the inner ear or brain. Its connection with heights is a sort of chicken and egg question. If you feel dizzy when you are up high, then of course you’d hate heights! The medical aspects of vertigo have nothing to do with heights, though.
What Symptoms Occur Alongside Vertigo?
As mentioned, vertigo is a symptom of many conditions but is common with ear issues. It can cause other symptoms too. These may include:
- Balance issues
- Feeling lightheaded
- A sense of motion sickness
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Ringing in the ear (tinnitus)
- A feeling of fullness in the ear (Meniere’s Disease)
- Migraines
- Nystagmus (whereby the eyes move uncontrollably, usually from side to side)
Many people who experience vertigo also suffer from chronic dizziness. And both conditions result from the same family of disorders, known as vestibular disorders. Vestibular disorders are named after the vestibular system or the areas of the brain and inner ear that regulate eye motion and balance.
Vertigo can occur when there’s a problem with the inner ear, brain, or sensory nerve pathway. Dizziness such as vertigo can occur at any age, but it’s most common in people aged 65 years or over. Vertigo can be temporary or long-term.
What Causes Vertigo?
Let’s delve deeper into the conditions that cause vertigo. As mentioned, vertigo is often a result of inner ear infections or diseases. Ear conditions that can lead to vertigo include:
Meniere’s Disease and Vertigo
Meniere’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that can result in vertigo and hearing loss. In many cases, Meniere’s disease only affects one ear.
Symptoms of the disorder include:
- Recurring experiences of vertigo
- Hearing loss that may come and go, particularly early on
- Ringing in the ear (tinnitus)
- The feeling of fullness in the ear
- The feeling of pressure in the affected area (aural fullness)
Unfortunately, there’s no cure for Meniere’s disease. However, there are several treatments that can help reduce the severity and the frequency of vertigo. You can get VA disability for Meniere’s as it’s own condition, but it can be complicated to diagnose. It may be easier to get a VA rating for vertigo all by itself.
Perforated Eardrum
A perforated or ruptured eardrum is a small hole or multiple tears in the delicate tissue that separates your eat canal from your middle ear, i.e. the eardrum. A perforated eardrum can lead to hearing loss and can make your middle ear susceptible to infections.
While this problem usually heals within a couple of weeks without treatment, sometimes a patch or surgical repair is necessary to heal it.
Symptoms of the disorder include:
- Ear pain that can subside quickly
- Mucus-like, pus-filled, or bloody drainage from the ear
- Hearing loss
- Ringing in the ear (tinnitus)
- Vertigo
- Nausea
- Vomiting
Perforated eardrums can result from middle ear infections, loud noises or blasts, severe head trauma, and more.
One of our VA disability lawyers talks about how head trauma (TBI) and PTSD work together.
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is one of the most frequent causes of vertigo. BPPV causes quick episodes of mild to intense dizziness in individuals. The condition is usually triggered by certain changes in the position of your head.
This might happen when you tip your head up or down, when you lay down, or when you turn over or sit up in bed. It usually occurs when calcium builds up in the ear canals, leading to sudden dizziness.
Symptoms of the disorder include:
- Dizziness
- Vertigo
- A loss of balance
- Nausea
- Vomiting
Vestibular Neuritis
Vestibular neuritis is a condition that affects the nerve of the inner ear called the vestibulocochlear nerve. When this nerve becomes inflamed, it affects the way information would usually be understood by the brain.
Symptoms of the disorder include:
- Sudden and severe vertigo
- Dizziness
- Difficulty balancing
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Difficulty concentrating
One of our clients talks about his tinnitus disability claim in this review of Woods and Woods
Is Vertigo a Disability?
At this point you may be wondering – ‘Is vertigo a disability?’ so you know whether you can receive benefits from the VA for it.
As we know, when the vestibular system is damaged by injury or disease, the affected individual can experience effects including faintness, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, and difficulty with balance, and moving around (disequilibrium).
In worse cases, vertigo and the effects that come with it can be so incapacitating that the individual is unable to work or live comfortably. In these cases, vertigo can be considered a disability, and such patients may qualify for benefits from the VA.
If you can prove a service-connection to your condition, anything that caused you injury during your enlistment or made an existing injury worse qualifies for VA disability. Even if you already had inner ear problems before you served, if you can prove that the service made it worse, you have a case.
What Are the VA Ratings for Vertigo?
The Department of Veterans Affairs considers its disability ratings for disability benefits on many vertigo problems based on the severity of symptoms. That means that the VA disability rating for vertigo will usually offer a higher rating for more severe symptoms.
Peripheral Vestibular Disorders
Peripheral vestibular disorders affect the ear’s ability to understand proper body balance. To be eligible for VA benefits from these conditions, there must be a diagnosis made by a health professional. A feeling of being off-balance isn’t enough for rating purposes.
If there’s hearing loss or liquid oozing from the ears, this can be considered as a plus.
The VA rates are as follows:
- Dizziness that includes sporadic staggering when walking: 30%
- Occasional dizziness: 10%
Here is a video explaining how VA math works to combine multiple disabilities to add up to a higher rating, but not always 100% disability.
Meniere’s Disease vs. Vertigo VA Ratings
As mentioned, Meniere’s disease is a condition of the inner ear that affects both hearing and balance in an individual.
To claim VA benefits from Meniere’s disease, it must be diagnosed by a health professional. Symptoms include episodes of vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus, and dizziness.
All three of these symptoms can be rated separately under hearing loss, tinnitus, and peripheral vestibular disorders, or shared under Meniere’s disease as follows:
- Hearing loss with dizziness less than once per month: 30%
- Hearing loss with dizziness and staggering that arises one to four times per month: 60%
- Hearing loss with dizziness and staggering that arises more than once per week, with or without tinnitus: 100%
What Is the Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing?
In September 2010, VA published ‘The Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing’. This is a list for VA rating staff to use to decide whether a veteran’s vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus, or ear conditions could be linked to their time spent in the service if developed more than a year after work.
The document lists every military occupational specialty (MOS) and values it depending on the likelihood of that MOS being subjected to noise that could lead to long-term hearing issues. If the rating is high, then the rating staff will grant a service connection with little or no other evidence required.
If the MOS has a moderate probability, additional evidence of noise exposure may be required. For example, you may have sporadically worked near loud engines or something similar.
For a MOS with a low probability of noise exposure, it’s crucial to provide enough evidence that proves you’ve experienced regular exposure to high levels of noise.
It’s important to note that this list was created as a guide for rating officials to follow when making decisions and it’s now no longer officially published by the VA. However, despite this, it’s still the standard used by rating staff when determining the hearing loss and ear condition claims based on MOS noise exposure.
Here, one of our VA disability lawyers talks about what we do when we appeal your case to the Veteran’s Administration.
What Are the Principles That Apply?
When applying for VA benefits for vertigo and hearing conditions, certain principles apply.
Special Monthly Compensation
If your hearing impairment is very severe, you may meet the criteria for the VA’s special monthly compensation.
VA Pyramiding
A single condition can only be rated by the VA once. But, if another condition exists that’s in addition to vertigo or an ear condition (and isn’t caused by it), then it can be rated too.
Probative Value – The Most Info Wins
If two exams record the diagnosis differently, the exam featuring the most comprehensive data and is performed by the most qualified specialist in that sector will be the exam the rating is based on.
At the C&P Exam for Vertigo: A Tie Goes to the Veteran
If there are two exams that seem to be equally as strong as the other with conflicting information, or if the condition can be equally valued under two different codes, then the one that offers the highest rating will be used. Every conflict should be settled in favor of the higher rating.
Accurate Measurements
It’s crucial that the required information used to rate a condition is recorded by the health professional during the exam. Using the information we’ve given you, you should understand what needs to be measured and recorded. Ensure that this happens efficiently for a correct rating.
Hospital or Convalescent Ratings
Some conditions require hospitalization or consistent medical care. Any condition that requires this care is rated 100% during this exhaustive treatment.
Once the treatment ends, the 100% rating will be used for a certain period. This period is three months unless another length (such as six months or one year) is stipulated in the condition ratings.
Some patients require more time to recover than others, so the health professional or rating authorities can lengthen this period if necessary.
How Do I Establish Service Connection for Vertigo?
To be eligible for VA disability benefits for vertigo and ear conditions, you must first prove that your issues are the result of your time in military service. For direct service connection, you must prove the three elements:
- A current, diagnosed ear or vertigo condition
- An in-service situation or event that may have caused or contributed to your issues
- A medical opinion clearly linking the in-service situation or event to your ear or vertigo condition
Once you’re diagnosed with vertigo or an ear condition, it’s time to file a VA disability claim for VA benefits.
A service member who worked in a MOS that placed them near loud engines or machinery on duty, in combat experiences, or firing weapons can relate ear issues and vertigo to military service as a veteran. This is even if these conditions arise many years after the exposure.
Vertigo and ear conditions may also be secondary issues to other service-related conditions, so be sure to check with your doctor or health care provider for a medical opinion. Then, file a disability claim for your medical conditions.
One of our VA disability lawyers talks about the importance of the Nexus Letter for service-connected disabilities.
Do You Need Help Claiming Vertigo Disability Benefits?
We hope we’ve helped you understand the VA vertigo disability benefits you may be eligible for if you suffer from vertigo and any ear conditions.
If you need help making a claim, we can help. Here at Woods and Woods VA Disability Lawyers, we have experience representing veterans and can help you receive your rightful disability compensation.
We understand that VA ratings for vertigo and other conditions can be difficult to get right the first time you apply, so get in touch to see how we can help you.
The VA is required to give you whatever combination of ratings will give you the most money. Once you have a C&P Exam, we’ll look at your ratings to see which combination adds up to the most money.
Anxiety from fear of heights is not the same as Vertigo. While they are both eligible for VA disability, they are rated very differently. Vertigo is based on dizzy feelings while anxiety is rated on emotional/psychological status.