Fibromyalgia is a medically determinable impairment, and can therefore provide a basis for a Social Security dsability claim.
However, many patients report that their doctors do not take fibromyalgia seriously. This was the topic of a recent fibromyalgia article in the Sacramento Bee, a California newspaper. Here is an excerpt:
Controversy swirls even as new FDA-approved medications have shown promise and recent brain imaging research has shown central nervous system changes in those afflicted. ...
It is this array of symptoms not linked to specific cause and effect – as opposed to how rheumatoid arthritis can ravage a patient's joints – that keeps skeptics in mainstream medicine from validating fibromyalgia as a legitimate disease.
Where, exactly, is this deep muscular aching? What's the cause of that nebulous numbness and dizziness? Why won't painkillers help? Where are the lab tests that can prove it exists?
Those are the questions that still dog fibromyalgia patients.
"They make you think you're a hypochondriac or something," says Jennifer Filbeck, 36, a former restaurant manager from Fairfield who's been unable to work since 2006. "Doctors treat you like you're crazy."
Not crazy per se, critics of the existence of fibromyalgia claim. Their argument: These people suffer from psychological conditions that manifest themselves in vague and hard-to-define physical maladies.
That article could have been written about patients in Maine and New Hampshire, not just California. It is surprising to me how different treating physicians have widely disparate views regarding fibromyalgia.
Nevertheless, for Social Security disability, what matters is not the cause so much as your functional limitations. If you are unable to work due to your medically determinable impairment, you are disabled. Period. Providing evidence establishing those functional limitations is the crux of a Social Security disability case.
Hat tip to @gachman for bringing the article to my attention.
The problem that we have as attorneys in Western Kentucky is convincing a few of the ALJs that fibromyalgia is a severe impairment. A "fibro" case is particularly problematic when the treating doctor and the ALJ are not taking the claimant seriously. If we can't convince the Judge that the diagnosis of fibromyalgia is a severe impairment because the doctor all but ignores it, we have a tough battle. Luckily, an appeal to the AC is not bad since the AC understands the rules about what is and what is not a severe impairment.
Posted by: Nate Craig | June 10, 2009 at 02:00 PM
Nate,
Thanks for stopping by. Yes, this is one more example of why it is important to know your judge. http://www.socialsecuritydisabilitylawyer.us/blog/2008/05/the-alj-for-you.html
Posted by: Gordon | June 10, 2009 at 02:25 PM