[Owen]

Your phrasing is a problem. You can have hearing loss, declared service connected, but 0% because not sufficiently severe.

You said you have 10% tinnitus and not service connected. This is not possible. You can’t get 10% assigned unless it is service connected. You get nothing assigned for anything unless there is “a current diagnosis, evidence of the injury occurring on active duty, a nexus by a med professional concluding that the current diagnosis is at least as likely as not to exist because of active duty service.”

So you can’t have 10% rating for tinnitus unless it is service connected. If it was not service connected, there would be nothing.

[KitJ]

You are absolutely correct, sir. I stand corrected.

I had to go back and check my files. The 10% Tinnitus rating IS service-connected. I was going by faulty memory.

BTW, that word pronunciation confounds me. I’ve heard it pronounced “Tin-it-us” and “Tin-nye-tus”. I tend to use the latter.

Thanks for your correction.