HI DESI,
yes, you are elligible if you cannot work and you have medical doctors to say that. it is tricky. i got it first try also though. when you fill out forms, describe your worse possible days, don't describe the good days ... if you have any. and be very descriptive. use extra lines and paper if necessary. the more info they have, the better chance you have to get it.
good luck. Joan

Thank you so very much Sue and Joan!
I have been keeping a journal for 3 years. Thank God for that. I wrote down every single day about what Doc. I was going to, how I was feeling that day, the extent of pain. So, I really had my journal before I had my RSD. In MHO it is very, very helpful in getting your thoughts, complaints.. feelings down on paper. So, hopefully, I can use this. I encourage everyone to have and keep a journal. It is so worth it. Here, I wasn't even diag. with RSD until this April.. wow.! when I read some of the stuff that led up to it.. amazing! Thanks again, girls! Love, Desi

http://www.rsdhope.org/Showpage.asp?...5&PGCT_ID=2621

I think you will find this document very helpful when filling out questionaires for SS. Try using the same terminology they use, it makes it less likely for them to misinterpret what you mean. Sometimes it's as simple at that, using the right words.

Best of luck!

Well, thank you kindly Rogue. this is the 5th. Dr. I'm seeing today at 10:00 A.M.(took me 2 months to get in) he is only 10 min. away by car. He's a hand/wrist specialist. I haven't had no sleep. He wants all of my "original records". hope he can help too. Thanks again, Rogue.. sorry for going off topic! Love, Desi

Desi,
Let us know what the doc says. Hopefully he can come up with something to help...we will be waiting.
Mary

I don't know if you deal with depression or not. But I noticed around here that what has helped most everyone to get it is depression. After all of my years of fighting for mine, the depression is what they put on my file. Also I got the governor involved with my fight and he got it for me in one week and as I said depression is what they used even though I had already been diagnosed with about 20 medical problems. At the time I was so bad off mentally that I couldn't help myself or I could have gotten it sooner.

Another thing, and you already have this but they told me that I needed to go to specialist for everything I had wrong with me and at the time I had no insurance so I couldn't. My PCP had helped me fight for it and because he was just a PCP they wouldn't take his word. But he never missed any of my diagnoses, he got them all right.

I have seen people around here get approved within 6 months, others it took over 2 to 3 years. My husband got his years ago on the first try. He went up in front of the judge and he ok'd it right on the spot with no lawyer. I've seen 3 people around here get it with no lawyer and sooner. I sometimes think it's the lawyers that delay the hearings because of their court dates for other things. The lawyer I had couldn't leave the golf course long enough to go for me.

Good luck and get to work on this right away. You can do it.

Ada

desi,
whatever you do just don't give up. there are so many people i know that faked an illness and got ssi without working a day in ther life. my doc got so mad when they denied me the 2nd time. she said she was so sick of people coming to her office asking her to fill out disabity paperwork for a cough. She was so mad she wrote many letters to them about me. yes some people really need it, but its the ones using the system that are hurting people like us. sorry to sound so bitter, but because they took so long to approve me, i lost my house. don't let them screw with you.
love sue k.

Ya know, Dream, I do believe you're right! I had never thought of that. But I got turned down at every step, had to keep plugging away (they hate that). RSD wasn't good enough, no.They then received the paperwork on the hiv, they gave no answer, just insisted I see a psychologist. It was after this that I finally got my first check!

I wasn't anywhere near depressed enough, though. In the last 2 years I had found God and a great man, my outlook was fine. I was a tough little broad, I guess. I had just been hurting so long, I knew how to mask it well. He was quite the doc, ended the session by telling me he thought I had been reamed for too long. He insisted I take a $20 he kept trying to hand me, lol... I've never heard of a dr. doing that before.

But as I exited, he asked one last truly strange question. "so, do you see the little people that live in the walls of our houses?" I gave him the oddest look, of course... and then answered. "You mean the Borrowers? I think they're really cool. They're responsible for all the little stuff that goes missing yet shows back up again later in a place you had checked 10 times. But they don't actually STEAL anything, it never leaves your home and they eventually give it back".

This is, of course, a book I adored when I was like 8, lol. But it seemed to be the answer he was looking for, and I left. That has always made me wonder what his report said about me, lol... but I never related that to getting my disability, stoopid me... I guess I was just so "broken" it never dawned on me that all my physical problems wouldn't be enough to count.

I asked .. even begged my surgeon if AI could go back to work soon, he said yes, you can when your hand heals(He didn't know at the time, nor I that I was having symptoms of RSD) he said the surgery made it worse. Thank God I didn't let him do my other wrist(Surgery) or I would have had it! wow! Thanks for the good advice Joan. your a "gem" Love, Desi