The Board remands the claim for a new VA examination to consider the Veteran's symptoms without the use of medication.
The deciding factor: The December 2019 VA examiner did not comment on the ameliorative effects of the Veteran's medication, which is required under Jones v. Shinseki, 26 Vet. App. 56, 61-63 (2012).
- Claimed conditions
- lumbosacral spine strain (low back disability)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 20, 2025
- Citation
- A25090072
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,762 · Granted: 24% (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 A25090072.
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.
- Granted
The Veteran's LLER was granted a 40 percent rating as of September 12, 2020. Prior to this date, the claim for an increased rating was denied.,A 60 percent rating for asthma was granted as of September 12, 2020. The Veteran's BHL is assigned a non-compensable rating.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's low back disability is granted as service connected.,Service connection for bilateral hearing loss is denied.,The Board has found that the Veteran's left and right lower extremity sciatica are not related to his service-connected low back disability, and thus these issues are remanded for further development.
- Granted
The Board found that the evidence is in equipoise, supporting a finding that the Veteran's currently diagnosed low back disability is etiologically related to service. Service connection for this condition has been granted.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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