What will my rating be after this operation?

I had a quadruple bypass in January and was in Vietnam. There is mild aortic valve sclerosis without stenosis. My current EF after surgery is 55-60%. Based on this information would my rating be in the 30% or 10% range ? 

 

 

Reply:

Your bypass surgery tells us that you are diagnosed with Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD). IHD is presumptive to agent orange exposure. IHD is evaluated using either METS or Ejection Fraction (EF) calculations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_fraction

When using these numbers we find that VA rates an EF of 55% to 60% as below:

 

http://www.benefits.va.gov/warms/bookc.asp#j

7005 Arteriosclerotic heart disease (Coronary artery disease):

With documented coronary artery disease resulting in:


Chronic congestive heart failure, or; workload of 3 METs or less results

in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope, or; left ventricular

dysfunction with an ejection fraction of less than 30 percent...100%


More than one episode of acute congestive heart failure in the past year,

or; workload of greater than 3 METs but not greater than 5 METs

results in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope, or; left

ventricular dysfunction with an ejection fraction of 30 to 50 percent...60%


Workload of greater than 5 METs but not greater than 7 METs results

in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope, or; evidence of

cardiac hypertrophy or dilatation on electrocardiogram,

echocardiogram, or X-ray...30%


Workload of greater than 7 METs but not greater than 10 METs results

in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope, or; continuous

medication required...10%

 

 

Since VA drops the EF numbers over 50%, I'll guess you'll be rated as 10%..."continuous medication required". If you have a record of a METS number, the rater will probably use that.

 

Aortic valve disease isn't presumptive to agent orange. As you don't have any stenosis in the valve, it won't (or shouldn't) be a part of the rating.

 

 

The normal EF is around 60% to 65%. You're fairly lucky that your heart doesn't seem to have lasting damage and that the pump is nearly normal.