Social Security Disability SSI and Chronic Pain
Currently, I'm reading a book about headaches and migraines and the sections regarding pain response and "referred pain" are pretty interesting. What's also interesting is the phenomenon in which a person who has been subjected to pain for long periods can 1. become even more sensitive to experiencing pain and 2. can unknowingly adopt physical and psychological patterns that exacerbate and perpetuate the pain.
Of course, pain is subjective and this is why social security disability and SSI claimants who have fibromyalgia, chronic pain, back conditions ("mild" degenerative changes can cause excruciating pain) and migraines, just to name a few conditions, have trouble with the disability evaluation system.
It's hard to get someone else to understand your complaints of pain simply because they cannot feel your pain. And this applies several times over to doctors who, in the absence of definable causes and explanations for symptoms, are often dismissive of a patient's complaints.
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Other Posts
Working while collecting Social Security Disability or SSI - It may not be worth it
Social Security Disability SSI Degenerative Disc Disease and Back pain
Applying for disability
Social security disability appeal
Disability MS
posted by Disability Blogger at 7:27 AM
1 Comments:
Excellent article. I understand first hand the frustration at getting the medical community to believe I am in constant pain. In 1998, I had a migraine that lasted TWO MONTHS and had to undergo every test known to man. When the MRI and other scans came back clean, I was told I had a pyschological problem. Two years later, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and three years after that, Sjogren's syndrome.
Right now, I have a migraine that has lasted six days. But I know better than to go to the ER or even a primary care doc, because I know from experience they can do nothing for me. So I just wait, knowing it will burn out eventually.
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