Severe Headaches and Social Security Disability: Winning Strategies

What evidence do you need to win disability benefits if your inability to work arises from chronic and severe headaches?

As I discuss in this video, there are two ways I approach headache cases.

If you contend that chronic, treatment resistant headaches are the main reason you are cannot work, you will need convincing evidence. Since your headaches cannot be easily imaged using an MRI or CT, disability judges rely on your medical records. Treatment records and prescriptions from your family doctor are not likely to be sufficient - judges want to see ongoing treatment with a specialist like a neurologist or pain management doctor.

Social Security has offered further guidance to judges in the form of Policy Interpretation Ruling SSR-19-4p ( ) which explains how judges should evaluate cases involving “primary headache disorder.” This ruling advises judges to look at headache cases the way they might look at epilepsy cases in which seizures cannot be controlled with medications.

I read this ruling to mean that if you are basing your disability claim primarily on a headache disorder, your medical record needs to show extensive treatment by a specialist and unsuccessful results of multiple types of medications.

If your level of headache or the treatment you have received is not at the level discussed in SSR 19-4p (http://bit.ly/2OBuUQ5), you can still win but you need to show that your headaches add to your work capacity limitations that arise from other medical or mental health problems.

As is the case when headaches are your primary disorder, medical records from your family doctor usually will not convince the judge - most judges want to see that you have sought treatment from some type of specialist. Remember that complaints of headaches are common among disability applicants and you need to distinguish your case from others. #headachesanddisability #ssdiandmigraineheadaches #chronicpainandsocialsecuritydisability
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