The majority of initial claims are initially denied. However, if you truly have problems, do not let that stop you pursuing an appeal.

IMO, a letter of disability is only as good as what it states. The Social Security Administration makes the disability determination and does not look kindly or consider a doc stating that the person is disabled. The letter from your doc, written by you and signed off on by your doc or by your doc, should detail explicitly exactly how your symptoms impact your ability to retain employment.

Also, given that employment is considered to be 8 hours a day 5 days a week, you have to be able to maintain that pace and your symptoms and doctor visits should not cause you to miss a lot of work. For example, if you have bladder/bowel issues that cause you to have accidents or be in the bathroom frequently (1-2 or more times an hour), and given that each bathroom visit will remove you from work for about 5 minutes (unless you take a long time or have to change), then you could be losing about 10 minutes an hour at 2 bathroom breaks an hour times 8 hours or 1 hour and 20 minutes of work (80 minutes). Increase the frequency or severity of bathroom breaks and you're reducing the number of jobs in the national economy that you can perform.

leftlane has the right idea. There is a section in the SSA regs called "The Grids" that help show you whether or not a finding of disability can be determined given the degree of heaviness of work (e.g. sedentary, light, heavy) and your age as main factors. However, if you have what are known as "non-exertional" limitations, that takes you out of "The Grids" and moves you into a totally different realm.

Documentation of your symptoms by your doctor is important. Get your records. See what your doc puts in them. And if your doc isn't documenting things that are important, make sure he/she does. Because there's a saying out there that "if your doc doesn't document it, you ain't got it." You can testify to things, but a lot of things come down to a judges credibility determination (i.e., whether or not he/she believes you) and whether there is medically documented evidence to back up your claims.

Journaling can help document the symptoms. ITA. As I said, it depends on credibility. I can believe I'm Queen Elizabeth and have a whole journal of my royal days, but that doesn't make it so. If, however, I have a doc who says that he visited me at the royal palace and saw me there and I have XXXX symptoms, you have a whole better chance of being believed. If, however, I have a doc who says that I have psych problems and believe that I'm Queen Elizabeth, then maybe I may have a shot at getting disability for a mental condition and my journal becomes evidence of my psych disorder.

When in doubt, seek an attorney to help you with getting benefits. They're contingent fee cases and if you go early on enough, the fee will probably be relatively small. The fees are set by statute. IMO, the fee payment is well worth it for the continuing benefits that you stand to obtain. They will far outweigh anything you ever have to pay to an attorney.

Be very aware of the 5 step process for disability determination. You need to make sure that your case fully represents all aspects of all your medical/psychological conditions no matter how embarrassing they are to you personally. You're not out to win a likeability prize here, you're here because you have problems and cannot work. You need to make the judge or the disability determination people fully FEEL and UNDERSTAND the extent of your problems. If you provide information to SSA and they do not request all your docs provide records, you should get the records from your docs and send them in yourself.

It's always a good idea to photocopy anything you send to Social Security as they do lose things and they do ask repetitive questions. And for people like us, it's a good idea to have a copy of our medical records anyway.

No, you are not always asked to go see a SSA doc. Sometimes you are. But SSA is supposed to give greater weight to a doctor who treats you regularly than they are (except for exceptional circumstances) to an SSA doc.

Oh, one other thing. There are things known as "residual functional capacity" questionnaires that your doc can answer. What they do is look at how much ability you retain to do certain things despite the fact that you are sick. So if you have MS and can walk 20 miles without stopping, that's great--maybe not for disability purposes, but great. But if you have MS and can only walk 40 feet without assistance and stopping, that's great too. Both show what you are capable of doing despite having MS.

Best of luck.