The stress you put on your body during your time in the military can lead to more than occasional soreness in your arms, legs, and back. If it goes on long enough, you can develop a medical condition known as spinal stenosis. This condition includes a narrowing within your spinal canal that can cause trouble after you leave the service.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) recognizes spinal stenosis as a disability that can qualify you for veterans’ benefits, including monthly disability compensation. Here, we will cover what you can receive in VA benefits for this condition and the causes and symptoms of spinal stenosis.
The Stone Rose Law firm helps veterans with medical diagnoses of spinal stenosis make claims for disability payments and other benefits. To learn more about how we can help you make an initial benefits claim, a supplemental claim, or appeal a denied benefits claim, call us at (480) 498-8998 to speak with a VA benefits specialist.
Spinal stenosis is a medical condition in which the spaces within the spine narrow, putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerves. This pinching can result from spinal injuries, thickened ligaments, or bone growth due to heavy lifting, long marches, repetitive movements, or combat and training injuries.
The most common types of spinal stenosis are cervical and lumbar stenosis. Cervical stenosis occurs in the neck and often leads to neck pain, while lumbar stenosis occurs in the lumbar spine and often causes pain to radiate into the legs.
Osteoarthritis is another frequent cause of spinal stenosis. This condition wears down the cartilage in your spine, causing the vertebrae to rub together. This also contributes to disc degeneration, leading to abnormal bone growth in the form of bone spurs that can grow inward toward the spinal canal.
Other causes of spinal stenosis include surgery, bulged discs, spondylolisthesis (spinal instability), tumors, bone fractures, infectious or inherited diseases, and rheumatoid arthritis.
The most common symptom of spinal stenosis is difficulty moving your spine. The nature of your symptoms will vary depending on what part of your spinal canal the condition is affecting:
Both forms of spinal stenosis can also be accompanied by pain and numbness in your arms, legs, hands, and feet. This pain can start intermittently and become more constant over time.
Severe cases of spinal stenosis can lead to additional problems with bladder function, bowel incontinence, and sexual functions.
The VA disability ratings for spinal stenosis range from 10% to 100%, depending on the severity of your symptoms. The VA determines symptom severity based on tests that measure the flexion of your spine (measuring the angle of how much you can bend your spinal column) and your spinal range of motion.
What follows are the specific disability ratings levels the VA can assign to your spinal stenosis condition.
| Disability Ratings for Spinal Stenosis | |
| Rating Percentage | Symptoms |
| 10% | This includes muscle spasms, tenderness, and muscle guarding in the spinal column area, which has yet to affect your gait or spine shape. |
| 20% | This rating includes muscle spasms and muscle guarding that begin to affect gait and the spine’s contour. These symptoms can cause the back to stiffen and contribute to medical conditions like scoliosis, reversed lordosis, or abnormal kyphosis. |
| 30% | The VA will determine if you have favorable or unfavorable “ankylosis,” or a joint stiffness caused by abnormal adhesions and bone rigidity. |
| 40% | Symptoms for this rating include favorable ankylosis of the thoracolumbar spine, unfavorable ankylosis of the entire cervical spine, or forward flexion of the thoracolumbar spine at 30° or less. |
| 50% | This rating level includes no range of motion in your middle or upper back and unfavorable ankylosis of your entire thoracolumbar spine. |
| 100% | Total disability means that your entire spine suffers from unfavorable ankylosis and cannot move in any direction. |
This disability rating usually comes with symptoms that include muscle spasms, tenderness, and muscle guarding in the area of the spinal column. At the 10% rating level, these symptoms do not affect your gait or spine shape.
Muscle guarding describes how your body responds to pain when you move. Your natural reaction to pain from spinal stenosis can cause your muscles surrounding the affected area to tighten up for protection, effectively creating a natural splint.
Muscle guarding can also decrease mobility, cause muscle weakness and atrophy, and lead to more pain and back issues, which in turn causes more muscle guarding.
The VA will look for the following limitations to establish a 10% disability rating:
At this level of disability, muscle spasms and muscle guarding begin to affect gait and the contour of the spine. This can cause the back to stiffen, contributing to medical conditions like scoliosis, reversed lordosis, or abnormal kyphosis.
The VA considers the following flexion and range of motion restrictions as supporting a 20% rating:
At this level, the VA determines if you have favorable or unfavorable ankylosis. “Ankylosis” describes joint stiffness resulting from abnormal adhesion and rigidity of the bones in a joint.
Specifically, the VA will look for:
The criteria the VA uses to assess this level of disability include:
At this level, you will have almost no range of motion in your middle and upper back due to unfavorable ankylosis of your entire thoracolumbar spine.
This total disability rating indicates that your entire spine suffers from unfavorable ankylosis, preventing any movement in any direction.
You must also be experiencing one or more of the following symptoms:
The standard way the VA rates spinal stenosis is through limitations in range of motion, flexion measurements, and ankylosis in your spine. These do not depend on whether you are experiencing pain.
Alternatively, pain or instability in your spine might also make you eligible for an intervertebral disc disease syndrome VA disability rating. This rating will depend on the number of incapacitating episodes (meaning an incident in which your doctor prescribes bed rest) you experience in a given year:
| Disability Ratings For Intervertebral Disc Disease Syndrome | |
| Disability Rating | Symptoms |
| 10% | At least one week of incapacitating episodes |
| 20% | At least two weeks of incapacitating episodes |
| 40% | At least four weeks of incapacitating episodes |
| 60% | At least six weeks of incapacitating episodes |
Spinal stenosis is not a presumed disability, meaning that you must apply to the VA for benefits through the traditional procedure:
To support your claim application, it is helpful to include additional supporting medical records from your doctor and any medical treatment you may have received while you were still on active duty. The most valuable medical evidence will be images from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scans, or X-rays.
Other supporting documentation can include written statements by people who have witnessed the effects of your spinal stenosis condition on your work and daily life activities, also known as “buddy letters.”
Once the VA receives your application, it will notify you of that fact and begin its assessment of your supporting evidence.
A C&P examination involves visiting a VA examiner who will examine flexion measurements, range of motion, and ankylosis symptoms.
If you do not have medical imagery evidence supporting your application, you will likely have to undergo one or more imaging scans.
You must keep your C&P appointment. Failing to attend can delay the processing of your claim or even result in a claim denial.
You can show a connection between your spinal stenosis and military service in two ways: directly and secondary.
Direct service-related injuries are those in which you can show a clear linkage between your time in service and your present condition. For example, demonstrating that a back injury sustained during service led to spinal stenosis would be considered a direct service connection.
If you already have a VA disability rating for a different medical condition that led to the onset of spinal stenosis, you may be approved for a secondary connection for spinal stenosis. Examples of how this can happen include a VA disability for a vertebral body fracture or a herniated disc.
A VA rating for spinal stenosis can also be the basis for other disabilities to be secondarily connected disabilities. For example, if your service-connected spinal stenosis leads you to experience peripheral nerve problems, the VA may decide that these nerve issues are a secondary condition service connection disability.
Once both connected conditions are assigned disability ratings, the VA combines them into a combined VA disability rating based on a “whole person” analysis.
If your spinal stenosis prevents you from gaining or holding gainful employment, you may qualify for total disability even if you do not have a 100% single or combined VA disability rating. You can do this by showing total disability based on individual unemployability, or TDIU.
There are three ways you can qualify for TDIU through a spinal stenosis VA rating:
The VA does not always approve initial veteran spinal stenosis disability claims. If this happens, you may need to provide more supporting evidence. In some cases, the VA itself could be responsible for making a mistake in assessing your claim.
If your claim is denied, you have a few ways to respond. You can submit a supplemental claim to the VA with new and relevant evidence for it to consider. You can also appeal the VA decision through the VA’s appeal procedures, which can be relatively informal (requesting another VA examiner to review your application).
At Stone Rose Law, we are VA disability advocates for veterans with VA disability claims. We are board-certified VA claims lawyers who serve on behalf of disabled veterans nationwide. Our VA-accredited attorneys provide affordable, high-quality legal assistance for veterans appeals.
Our veterans’ lawyers provide highly professional legal representation to veterans with spinal stenosis, helping them through the VA process to receive all the VA disability benefits they are entitled to.
A Stone Rose disability lawyer can help you calculate your potential disability benefits, prepare your spinal stenosis disability claim, monitor your claim status, and consult with you before disability examinations—all at no cost.
If the VA denies your original claim, our VA benefits law firm will assign a VA disability appeals lawyer to help you pursue a VA appeal with the Board of Veterans Appeals while providing free representation on a contingency fee basis.
This means you won’t pay any fees to your VA disability lawyer unless we win your appeal. For more information about how one of our VA disability lawyers can help you with your VA disability compensation claim or appeal, request a free assistance consultation at (480) 498-8998. Or, if you prefer, you can reach us online.
