Did you wait till you were out to get your disability rating? If so, how long before you made your first claim?

It's best to do start your claim prior to discharge through a BDD (Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program). It'll make it a lot easier on you to get supporting evidence.

35 years after my EOS. I don't know what an exit physical is, does it actually exist? When I left it was pretty much "there's the gate, don't hit the sentry on the way out" ...

I filed during my last month on AD.

Never did

I waited just over 19 years to file. I had tinnitus and vertigo. I had been visited by vertigo off and on for many years before filing and filed because at that time it was pretty bad. I thought it might be Meniere's which I am actually glad that it wasn't because of the eventual outcome. I only have 20% but then again, I was in the peacetime Navy from 74 to 80. The hearing problems were the result of working in the engine room of my ship.
It took me 36 months for the first rating on the tinnitus and after the appeal it took 72 months for the vertigo. Six years total.

Waited about 18 years and had low expectations but thanks to the Columbia MO VA I have the rating.

Here is the published metric of how long the average claim takes. This is updated monthly. https://www.va.gov/disability/after-you-file-claim/

I waited until I was out. I knew nothing and nobody told me anything about how to go about it. When I was 17 I was in an accident (I had nothing to do with it) That landed me in the hospital for more than 5 weeks with a broken neck which was dislocated for 5 days and compressed fractures T11 &T12. I spent most of my senior year in High school with a brace on my neck. I applied in 1972 for aggravated neck and back. Well 40 years later I got 10% for back and a little later 10% for tendinitis and then 20% for an eye condition that I medicate several times a day. After being denied 5 times for the neck I said the hell with it even though the showed me having been in the hospital for 5 days - that is how long my neck was out of place with 18#'s pulling. It appears now that at 75 that I have been suffering from effects of agent orange. I expect to be denied again.
The good thing is I get to go to the VA for care.

No. I worked with the DAV who I gave a copy of my medical records while still on active duty. I do recommend others do the same. You’ll have better access to obtain any records and information.

I made my first VA diability claim 30 years after my date of separation and I found it really difficult to address my situation to the VA. I was never told about the VA after separation and I do not remember being told about it in my outbriefings. Still, I thank my military service because it help me getting a good job as a law enforcement federal officer after my service. Anyway, because of my federal job, I had a very good health insurance and I never had problems addressing health issues with them; but now, some of my health problems show up and can only be caused because of the long past years of my military service and it is extremely difficult to present them to the VA without being questioned or seen as a person that is trying to take advantage of the system. I have only a 20% disability rating, and I want to present a claim that I am being told that I need statements from service members that I never saw ever again and I never followed up on them. I am really having a hard time trying to show them that these health issues come from my military service time.