Winning a Fibromyalgia Disability Case (Part 1)

In a fibromyalgia disability case, you need to prove one thing – that you are not able to work. If you remember nothing else about Social Security disability, you should remember that your capacity for performing work is the only thing that matters to a Social Security judge.  Your underlying medical condition – fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, or any other medical problem, is only important to the Social Security Judge if your symptoms limit you from performing a job 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

In most cases, the judge’s decision really boils down to a judgment call about whether you could hold down a simple, sit-down type of job that requires no training; that allows you to sit, stand, and adjust your position; and that is not production oriented.  In fact, in most hearings, the Judge will call a ‘vocational expert’ to testify about work you have done in the past and about simple, minimally demanding jobs that exist in the national economy.

As a claimant’s lawyer, my job is to identify medical records that suggest work limitations.  In many cases this means I need to review all of the medical records, then create a functional capacity checklist that includes both the limitations associated with your fibromyalgia case and the impairment categories used in Social Security cases.

We then ask your doctor to complete the checklist for submission to the Judge.  We do not ask the doctor to decide if you are ‘disabled’ – that is a legal decision for the Judge.  Instead, we ask your doctor to help ‘translate’ medical conclusions into specific work limitations.

Many fibromyalgia patients get used to living with their symptoms and fail to mention all of them to their doctors or to the judge.  It may be helpful to use a calendar to keep diary notes about how you feel, what symptoms you experience each day, and the impact on your performance.  Make lists.  Ask for your spouse’s or children’s observations.

If you are considering or currently pursuing a disability case based on fibromyalgia, I invite you to get a free evaluation of your case by filling out the simple online form on the right side of this page.