The Veteran's claims for service connection for left and right ankle gout, left and right hand gout, and vision loss were denied as there is no evidence of a current disability related to his active service.
The deciding factor: There was no medical evidence linking the Veteran’s gout conditions or vision loss to his military service.
- Claimed conditions
- Left ankle gout, Left hand gout, Right ankle gout, Right hand gout, Vision loss, refractive error
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 10, 2019
- Citation
- 19102635
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,030 · Granted: 17% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 19102635.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's claim for a compensable disability rating for hearing loss was dismissed.,Service connection for sleep apnea, left ankle gout, right ankle gout, left foot gout, and right foot gout were granted as secondary to hypertension.,Service connection for degenerative arthritis of the spine was granted as secondary to residual fracture of the left ankle and bilateral knee degenerative arthritis.
- Partly granted
The Board has denied service connection for right knee gout and left knee gout, but has remanded the claims for right ankle gout, left ankle gout, right foot gout, and left foot gout. The Veteran's current diagnoses of bilateral ankle and bilateral foot gout are related to his patellofemoral pain syndrome.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the issues of entitlement to SMC at the housebound rate, right and left knee disabilities for extraschedular consideration. The Veteran's service-connected conditions include major depressive disorder, cervical spine disability, total knee replacements on both knees, gout in multiple joints, and other musculoskeletal conditions.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for gout of the hands and denied service connection for a cervical spine disability. The claim to reopen the previously denied claims was also granted, but no effective date is assigned as it pertains to new evidence received.
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