Lay Statement For Migraines | How to | 4 HOT Tips & Tricks

As with anything, you won’t get far without a diagnosis and subsequent treatment for headaches and/or migraines.

Make sure you engage your Primary Care Physician and potential Neurologist to get the appropriate diagnosis.

Once your records reflect a diagnosis, you have step 1 of 3 in the Caluza Triangle (Current Diagnosis).

It would be best if you also spoke to your doctor about the source of the migraines. Tell your doctor about the history. Have a conversation about your migraines. They will often give you the headache and migraine etiology, allowing you to understand your theory of service connection better. 

If you haven’t started to do so, immediately start taking logs of your migraines and headaches.  Migraine Buddy App is wonderful for this.  Make sure as you take these logs you have some logic to the pain scale.

For Example:

Make sure to put this on your lay statement so that the examiner and rater understand your pain scale criteria!

You can’t write your letter if you don’t understand the headache and migraine criteria. To write an effective letter, you must understand the rating criteria. It begins with understanding HOW the VA rates. In addition, you must have a minimum understanding of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

A quick look under the code establishes that you need to rate for the following:

What is the VA asking for with migraine and headaches on the CFR?  Frequency and Severity.

If we look at this and establish how often you have the headaches and how they affect you. Therefore, the difference between the 30% & 50% migraine ratings is simply one thing: “severe economic adaptability.”

Therefore, if you have missed work several times: establish that. Have you been written up for being absent? Have you been sent home numerous times? How has this affected your income?  All of this information must be included in your lay statement.

To understand more you can check out our article  Yes, Veterans Can Get a VA Disability Rating for Migraines!

Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQs) are what the VA examiners fill out at the Compensation & Pension (C&P) Examinations.  It is important to understand all aspects of the DBQ to identify if the VA examiner is asking all the questions.  You must ensure they have the correct information to make a proper determination on the rating criteria and the nexus of the service connection (if required) during the  C and P exam for migraines.

There are four main things you should always address in an effective lay statement:

• What are you filing for?
• Why do you believe this should be service-connected or increased?
• What are your symptoms?
• How do the symptoms affect you occupationally and socially?

Before you can write to these four questions, it is crucial to prepare your claim as described in the previous section.

Before we dive into the details of the four key questions you should address in your lay statement, you need to understand how to “write around” the rating criteria.

As you write your lay statement for migraines or headaches, remember that you MUST write around the rating criteria. ‘Writing around the criteria’ means that you should be able to point out specific things that allude to your symptoms, which should align with the rating criteria.

Looking at the rating criteria again:

All of the criteria are specific to frequency and severity. Severity being “prostrating.” If you go on in your letter about how moody you are, it does not get you far. In other words, moody does not matter. You got a rating for “less frequent attacks” as you have not aligned your symptoms with the rating criteria. Stating that your head hurts doesn’t do the trick, either.

Therefore, you will want to write something like: “based on my attached logs, I missed x days of work because of my migraines.”

Now, with that verbiage, we have something. It directly relates to the fact that you can’t work. It also directly relates to how often. Therefore, if we write this effectively, we should be able to wrap up frequency and severity in a concise manner. You have just established your rating with one sentence. Now, that’s compelling writing. If you are under-rated due to a bad C&P, you can directly reference this letter for an argument in a Supplemental Claim, Higher Level Review, or Board Appeal.

If the VA did not specifically call out that your statement was NOT competent or credible, you should be able to push back very hard & ask why the VA did not use your lay evidence appropriately.

Your medical records should also back this up (such as ER visits during a workday or Primary Care records stating you have x number of migraines a month); it is a no-brainer. This statement should immediately show what the rating is.

This is the one thing that veterans constantly forget to do.  In your statement, you should state what you are filing for.  It doesn’t do any good to write a lay statement when the reader has no idea what it is about.  The first sentence should always establish what you are filing for.  You should include any secondary conditions to migraines. Some examples are:

The simplest of items, but often forgotten can make or break your lay statement for migraines.  If the reader does not know what the context is, they will often not read it.  Additionally, establishing EXACTLY what you are filing for preserves your argument in the future.

If you are not service connected for migraines or headaches yet, you will want to establish why you believe the migraines are service connected by establishing:

This should be pretty simple, but with a lot of logic behind this paragraph.  For instance:

These very simple sentences put it all together, and in a very short time, you are able to establish the theory of service connection.

If you are requesting a rating increase for headaches or migraines, you should really address how this current service connection has gotten worse.  For example:

Two sentences just wrote around the ratings.  Quick and to the point.

Symptoms are a significant point in your letter. The symptoms will establish (in the case of headaches) credibility for your statement. You have to understand the types of migraines or headaches you have. Just saying, “I have headaches,” doesn’t work. Go for understanding the headaches. Look in your medical files to see if the medical professionals have established “cluster headaches”, “tension headaches”, “migraine aura”, etc. To reference these documents is not a horrible idea.

EXAMPLE:

As you can see, we are not trying to be doctors.  Referencing the medical records is a really good idea inn this case, and we are still referencing frequency in this sentence.

Now that we have established the symptoms, it is time to go on to how this affects you occupationally and socially.

This section should have additional evidence that you may or may not have. It would be best if you spoke very deeply (but quickly) about how this affects your ability to make money. That is the biggest thing. Establishing social aspects is seeking sympathy from the rater and the examiner, which is OK. But, if you look at the letter of the law, it is really about working and the ability to make money.
In a case like this, in our final section, we may want to establish something of the following:

These sentences show the severity of your prostrating migraine symptoms and how they affect your day-to-day life and financial stability. You must address these factors to write an effective lay statement for headaches and migraines.

When it comes down to it, you are dealing with a person when this eventually gets adjudicated. People make mistakes – they have bad days and things going on too. Therefore, you must understand the Code of Federal Regulations to establish the service connection and rating criteria when writing your statement.

When you write a lay statement, the VA must consider that evidence. Unless they can refute the documentation, it is “competent and credible.” 

If you did the first step correctly, the lay statement summarizes established and firm medical evidence and a competent report.

The migraine logs are also significant, showing a real-time record you use. It is difficult to refute it. The importance of the logs cannot be overemphasized, as you are swearing to the log’s truth when you submit it. Do not make up the log — that is illegal and could get you a stay in jail for perjury.

Getting additional evidence from friends or family members is essential. These statements must be completed by someone who is of sound mind, over 18, and has direct knowledge of your condition. In addition, the people you request to write a letter must have intimate knowledge of your symptoms. While writing a buddy statement, answer the following questions:

As you can see, it is the same format, with a tweak or two. When getting “buddy statements,” these should use VA form 21-10210. They can also use VA form 21-4138, but VA form 21-10210 is preferred.

Also recommended is one or two statements as a maximum for a few reasons:

You have to put yourself in the adjudicator/examiner’s position. Do you think they will read them if you provide them with ten lay statements for migraines? Probably not. Make the letters effective. Get letters from the most competent source based on if you are trying to get service connected (preferably someone who has observed the direct or secondary symptoms) or someone who can speak to an increase claim: bottom line – the less, the better.

OK, so you have gotten this far in the article.  Have you noticed that we actually wrote an example letter throughout this article?  If you followed along, you will have seen the example statements that were made throughout this article.

When the statements are pulled from the article, we can assemble an example lay statement (of course you need to modify this for YOUR statement and YOUR own writing style): — (DO NOT USE THIS LETTER, PLEASE…IT IS ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL).

Here is the lay statement VA example:

Writing a lay statement for migraines should be quick and to the point. This letter is long but is an example of a good statement of claim. A basic rule of thumb: If it takes you longer than 15 minutes to write this statement – you are not doing it correctly. Reread this article!

To get additional VA Form 21-4138 lay statement guidance and examples (such as for sleep apnea), please click here for a full list.

When writing an effective lay statement for migraines, you want to ensure that you are honest and factual. You don’t want to exaggerate your symptoms or leave anything out that could be important for the case. First, establish the specific condition you are filing for—state how your symptoms are service-connected or worsened due to your job. Next, state the symptoms that are causing problems because of your job. Finally, conclude with a statement about how your migraines have affected your life. With these tips, you will write an effective lay statement for migraines and get the compensation you deserve.

Once you receive your C&P examination from the VA, you may want to read our blog entitled 5 Ways to Identify a Bad C&P Examination

For further assistance, get a hold of The Blue Cord Patriots for a Free Strategy Session!