Veterans may find that the negative effects of insomnia can cause reduced productivity and focus at work or even increased absences. Insomnia is a common sleep disorder that can make it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get the quality rest your body needs. Because of these and other negative effects on health, the VA offers disability compensation for sleep disorders. This makes it possible for you to get a VA disability rating for service-connected insomnia.
Veterans could also be eligible to get an insomnia VA rating secondary to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other mental health issues, or physical pain caused by military service. Keep reading to learn more about insomnia causes, symptoms, and how you can get an insomnia VA rating.
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In this article about insomnia VA ratings:
What is insomnia?
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that can make it hard for you to fall asleep and stay asleep. While needs vary, most adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Missing out on valuable hours of sleep can have an impact on how well your body functions over time. With low-quality sleep, you’re likely to notice symptoms like fatigue, irritability, and an inability to focus.
Other symptoms of insomnia include:
- Difficulty falling asleep at night
- Waking up during the night or too early
- Waking up feeling tired after a night’s sleep
- Tiredness during the day
- Depression and/or anxiety
- Memory loss
- Increase in accidents or errors
- Persistent worries about sleep
There are two major categories of insomnia. Acute insomnia lasts for a few weeks, but less than a month. Those with acute insomnia are typically worried about a specific upcoming event or stressful work situation. After that event passes, sleep starts to come easier.
The second category, chronic insomnia, is more common among veterans. With chronic insomnia, symptoms last for months or even years and are sometimes caused by trauma or PTSD, other mental health issues like depression, or physical pain.
Insomnia in veterans
Of the 2.5 million who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, one-half to two-thirds of those veterans reported insomnia symptoms after discharge. Others who served in Korea and Vietnam also complain that insomnia symptoms plague them, sometimes for decades, following their military service.
Research shows that military involvement including enlistment, deployment, and exposure to combat stressors often presents physical, social, and emotional demands that can trigger sleep disturbances. The culture of the military may even lead to some veterans downplaying the importance of sleep, and attempting to make up for a lack of sleep with caffeine and energy drinks. In addition, from training to deployment, veterans likely had to try to sleep in noisy, crowded, and sometimes even dangerous environments.
Crossing multiple time zones, throwing off your circadian rhythm, overnight watch duty, irregular work hours, and risk of injury could all disrupt your quality of sleep during military service. They also can and often do continue to affect veterans years later.
These factors, paired with other mental and physical conditions veterans may develop after discharge, can lead to major sleep deprivation and insomnia. When the effects of service-related insomnia keep you from living a normal life, VA benefits for insomnia could be available to help.
Insomnia VA rating
Fortunately, the VA recognizes insomnia as a disorder that can potentially be disabling because symptoms can lead to decreased health and ability to function as well as decreased performance at work, or an inability to work.
Veterans’ disability lawyer, Zack Evans said: “Insomnia is rated under the diagnostic code for mental health symptoms. It’s considered a symptom or a complication of an underlying mental health disorder. Sometimes it can be rated as its own condition. PTSD, depression, and anxiety can sometimes all present with insomnia as a component of the symptom complex.”
The VA rates insomnia and most other sleep disorders using the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders. The VA may grant you a rating of 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, or 100% for insomnia, based on how severe symptoms are, how frequently they occur, and how much the condition interferes with your life.
A 0% rating means you have service-connected insomnia, but your symptoms are not severe enough to interfere with work. A rating of 100% means your service-connected insomnia causes total and complete impairment when it comes to social and occupational functioning.
How to get an insomnia VA rating
There’s no time limit on submitting a claim for your insomnia. Symptoms of insomnia often don’t start immediately following discharge, or even during military service. Insomnia can take years to develop because it is often caused by other conditions like PTSD, depression, anxiety, or even physical pain. Knowing how your insomnia symptoms developed can help you make a service connection for VA benefits.
To file your claim, you must submit proof of your insomnia diagnosis. You may be asked to attend a C&P exam or sleep study. Next, it’s important to present convincing evidence showing how your insomnia is connected to your military service, or how another service-connected condition led to your insomnia. You can do this with reports and documents from your time serving, a medical nexus, and lay statements or buddy statements.
“They have shown me nothing but professionalism and quick responsiveness to any situation. Without this firm, I truly believe I would not have gotten all the benefits that I was eligible and entitled to receive. I have referred 16 veterans to this law firm.”
N.S.
Mental health issues like PTSD and insomnia
Nightmares and flashbacks to traumatic events experienced during military service are common symptoms of PTSD in veterans. Those with PTSD may try to distract themselves from traumatic memories during the day, causing worries and anxious thoughts to get worse at night. This can lead to an avoidance of sleep altogether, loss of sleep time, being easily startled by noise, and a dislike of silence.
On top of being unable to rest, veterans with PTSD might turn to drugs and alcohol to help induce sleep. The use of substances could even decrease overall health and functioning over time.
As with chronic pain or other mental health conditions, if you feel that your PTSD has caused you to develop insomnia, you can speak with a VA disability lawyer or medical professional. You could be eligible for a higher mental health rating because of your sleep issues.
Insomnia and physical pain
Anyone who faces chronic, physical, pain knows how hard it can be to get to sleep, and stay asleep. Those suffering from chronic pain that leads to insomnia might find that the pain lasts longer and can worsen over time due to the lack of adequate rest. On top of that, medications like morphine and codeine taken to reduce pain can disrupt sleep patterns.
The Sleep Foundation explains that people with chronic pain could also experience a self-perpetuating cycle of pain that includes insomnia, depression, and anxiety. After several poor nights of sleep, they may wake up feeling depressed, which can increase sensitivity to pain. Veterans with chronic pain related to military service might find it difficult to get a good night’s rest due to the pain and discomfort from their injury. To make things worse, the constant fatigue and pain can turn into depression and anxiety over sleep. If a medical professional agrees that your service-connected pain led you to develop insomnia, you may be able to receive additional disability compensation from the VA.
Unemployability and TDIU for insomnia
Sleep is a basic biological need. Without quality sleep, your body doesn’t have a chance to restore and balance itself. Sleep loss can make it difficult to maintain focus at work, possibly resulting in errors, slow reaction times, and missing important phone calls or information.
Emotionally, a lack of quality sleep can make you feel angry, irritable, and sensitive to stressful situations. Stressors from work can even bleed into your home life and could cause other mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. All of these combined symptoms could further affect your productivity in the workplace.
If you are unable to work due to your service-connected insomnia, and you weren’t awarded a 100% insomnia rating, you may be eligible for total disability individual unemployability (TDIU). TDIU pays the same monthly compensation as a 100% rating for insomnia without being rated at that level. You can apply for TDIU if you can’t work because of a service-related mental or physical medical condition or multiple service-connected conditions.
“If you were injured while serving this country and are reading this review, I encourage you to contact Woods and Woods right away. They are always standing ready to assist veterans in need.”
J.B., a Navy veteran in Virginia
How our VA disability lawyers can help
Contact the VA-accredited attorneys at Woods and Woods today for help receiving the compensation you deserve. Our team of lawyers, case managers, and legal analysts has helped thousands of veterans nationwide with their VA disability appeals. Calling for a case evaluation is free, and if we take your case, you won’t pay us unless we win.
Talk to Us About Your Claim:
(812) 426-7200
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The VA may grant you a rating of 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, or 100% for insomnia, based on how severe symptoms are, how frequently they occur, and how much the condition interferes with your life. The rating criteria is under the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders.
Yes. Veterans with chronic pain related to military service might find it difficult to get a good night’s rest due to the pain and discomfort from their injury. To make things worse, the constant fatigue and pain can turn into depression and anxiety about sleep. If a medical professional agrees that your pain led you to develop insomnia, you might be able to persuade the VA to add insomnia to your record and seek additional compensation.
Neil Woods
VA disability attorney
Woods & Woods
Neil Woods is the firm’s owner and president. He received his law degree from Western Michigan University.
