Body system: Digestive SystemRegulation: 38 CFR § 4.114
Gastrointestinal dysmotility syndrome is when your digestive system can't move food through properly - your stomach and intestines don't squeeze and push food along like they should. This causes symptoms like severe nausea, vomiting, bloating, pain, and problems getting proper nutrition. The VA rates this from 10% to 80% based on how severe your symptoms are and what kind of treatment you need, with higher ratings for veterans who need feeding tubes or IV nutrition to survive.
Rating levels
- 80% — You must be completely dependent on either intravenous nutrition (nutrients fed directly into your bloodstream through an IV) or continuous feeding through a tube inserted into your stomach or intestines because your digestive system cannot process regular food. This means you cannot eat normally by mouth and rely entirely on these medical feeding methods to stay alive and get the nutrition your body needs.
- 50% — You need tube feeding on and off to get proper nutrition because your digestive system can't move food normally. You also have repeated trips to the emergency room for blocked intestines, food backing up due to slow stomach emptying (poor gastric emptying), ongoing stomach pain, or frequent nausea and vomiting that keeps coming back.
- 30% — You qualify for this rating level if you have ongoing digestive problems where your intestines don't move food through properly, causing symptoms like stomach pain, bloating, feeling too full after eating, heartburn-like discomfort, nausea, vomiting, bringing up food, constipation, or diarrhea. Your condition must be serious enough that you need regular doctor visits and follow a special prescribed diet to manage your symptoms, but you can still be treated as an outpatient rather than needing hospitalization.
- 10% — You qualify for this rating if you have stomach pain that comes and goes, along with a feeling of fullness in your upper stomach area (epigastric fullness means that uncomfortable "stuffed" feeling just below your ribcage) and bloating. The key requirement is that doctors haven't found any actual structural problems with your digestive system through tests like endoscopies or imaging - your symptoms are related to how your digestive system moves food through rather than physical damage to the organs themselves.