Citation Nr: 18142695
Decision Date: 10/17/18	Archive Date: 10/16/18

DOCKET NO. 15-24 251
DATE:	October 17, 2018
ORDER
Service connection for tinnitus is granted.
FINDING OF FACT
The Veteran’s current tinnitus began in and has continued since service.
CONCLUSION OF LAW
The criteria for service connection for tinnitus have been met.  38 U.S.C. §§ 1101, 1110, 5107(b); 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.102, 3.303, 3.307, 3.309.
REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION
The Veteran served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force from August 1966 to August 1970.  This matter comes before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) on appeal from a September 2014 rating decision.  The Veteran testified at a September 2018 Board hearing.
1. Entitlement to service connection for tinnitus.
The Veteran asserts that his tinnitus is related to noise exposure in service.  
He served as an aircraft maintenance specialist in the Air Force.  His reports of hazardous noise exposure in service are consistent with this occupational specialty.  As such, acoustic trauma in service is established by competent and credible evidence.  
The Board concludes that while the Veteran’s tinnitus was not diagnosed during service, it was noted as chronic in service, and there has been continuity of the same symptomatology since service.  
A nexus between a current disability and an in-service injury or event may be established by evidence of continuity of symptomatology, if the condition is a chronic disease enumerated under 38 U.S.C. § 1101. Walker v. Shinseki, 708 F.3d 1331, 1338-40 (Fed. Cir. 2013).  Tinnitus is considered an organic disease of the nervous system, and as such is an enumerated chronic disease. See 38 U.S.C. §§ 1101, 1112; Memorandum, Characterization of High Frequency Sensorineural Hearing Loss, Under Secretary for Health, Oct. 4, 1995; see Fountain v. McDonald, 27 Vet. App. 258, 271-72 (2015) (finding tinnitus to be an “organic disease of the nervous system,” which is listed in 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(a)).  
The Veteran is competent to identify tinnitus, as this condition is observable by his own senses, and to report a continuity of symptomatology.  See Charles v. Principi, 16 Vet. App. 370, 374 (2002).
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Here, the preponderance of the evidence establishes that the Veteran has had recurrent tinnitus since service.  See January 2015 private treatment record; July 2015 substantive appeal; August 2015 private audiological evaluation report; April 2018 private Ear, Nose, Throat report. As the evidence establishes that the Veteran has tinnitus and that there has been a continuity of symptomatology since service for a chronic disease, the Board finds that the criteria for service connection for tinnitus have been met.
 
Paul Sorisio
Veterans Law Judge
Board of Veterans’ Appeals
ATTORNEY FOR THE BOARD	P. López, Associate Counsel