The Veteran's claims for service connection for chronic skin and gastrointestinal disabilities, including as due to an undiagnosed illness, are being remanded due to the need for additional medical opinions.
The deciding factor: The previous medical opinions relied on lack of contemporaneous treatment records without addressing the Veteran’s statements about when his symptoms began during deployment.
- Claimed conditions
- chronic skin disability, chronic gastrointestinal disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 28, 2019
- Citation
- 19114763
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,456 · Granted: 23% (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 19114763.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has dismissed the appeal of the issue of entitlement to service connection for gout due to withdrawal by the Veteran. The remaining issues of service connection for chronic gastrointestinal disability, erectile dysfunction, bilateral hearing loss, and tinnitus are remanded for further development.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for sleep apnea, hypertension, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, and diabetes mellitus based on the presumption of exposure to Gulf War conditions. Service connection was denied for fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), esophageal stricture, a chronic skin disability, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and nephrolithiasis.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to incomplete information regarding asbestos exposure during service, which is necessary for a determination on the Veteran's claim of chronic skin disability.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case for further development regarding service connection for a chronic skin disability. The Veteran's claim for bilateral pes planus is granted with an initial rating of 30 percent prior to September 18, 2017 and 50 percent thereafter.
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