JUST HAD MY PIP MEDICAL ASSESSMENT

i know!!!!

What has putting a scarf around my neck got to do with me having to prepare a meal.
A scarf is soft and light, my hands are painful, swollen, numbness on fingertips, electric shocks shoot down fingers if any pressure is put on them.

Also if you live with a family surely they don't expect you to cook a meal for ONE person!!

I can't do it, things like holding a potato with grip, peeling it, chopping it, i dont know just makes you want to scream!!!!!!!!

my doctor is referring me for electrical conduction tests, or she says its my fibromyalgia or a problem with my neck.

I know have to have full bloods done again, because some things were low, She's booked me into to have a scan on my liver as this showed something (think it might end up being a fatty liver due to excessive weight gain in a short period) because i don't drink.

I am also being referred to gynaecology

Just how sick do i need to be.

She would not let my husband speak initially, so i HAD to talk to her and then that goes against me as I'm now cured of talking to strangers!!!!

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

ok so i have been trying to get organised if i am going to mr

i think the assessor did not read my form.

1. I know she said how much was in there ALOT of information was her actual answer.

2. all the questions they ask you before the number activities like your history, meds etc, are all the answers she has given on the bottom of the justification for descriptor choice.

3. no box has been ticked for The claimant did not report significant functional problems with this activity in their questionnaire or at consultation, and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.??? I dont get this what more evidence could i give. i wrote pages for each activity and sub headed them Safety, To an acceptable standard, As often as is needed, In a reasonable amount of time, Side Effects, Aids and Appliances, Ability-Good/Bad Days, Varies and other. I will post an example of one of my answers at the bottom. I sent in hospital letters, a day in my life, diaries the only thing i didnt send was a letter from my doctor but she's doing this for me now.

4. Every answer written in the box is just certain sentences that may fit for each activity. and its all copied and pasted

heres my answer to preparing food, i just want to add this took a long time to do, my daughter helped but i only had certain times within the day i was with it to do it.

Q3
Activity 1 – Preparing food
Tell us your ability to prepare a simple one course meal for one from fresh ingredients. This includes things like
Food preparation such as peeling, chopping or opening a can, and
Safely cooking or heating food on a cooker hob or in a microwave oven

We want to know if you can do this SAFELY, TO AN ACCEPTABLE STANDARD, AS OFTEN AS YOU NEED TO and IN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME

Q3a
Do you use an aid or appliance to prepare to cook simple meal
Aids and appliances include
*perching stools, lightweight pots and pans, easy grip handles on utensils, single lever arm taps and liquid level indicators

Q3b
Do you Need help from another person to prepare or cook a simple meal.

Help includes someone:
Physically assisting you to prepare to cook food
Cooking your food for you
Supervising you to make sure you are safe, and
Prompting, encouraging or reminding you to cook food or how to do so.
This includes help you have and help you need but dont get


Safety

My illnesses include fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which quite often means that I am lying flat in bed. I currently take a whole host of medication as well, of which some cause me to have short term memory loss. The side effects of my medication as well as my illnesses means that due to this I have forgotten on a few occasions that I have put food on. This has resulted in either burnt food or burnt pans. I also put two pans on and thought I was cooking till my husband came in the kitchen saying he could smell gas. I had not noticed that the lids were not quite on the rings so the gas had not lit. I do not have a good sense of smell sometimes and this is why I had not smelt gas. While I had been cooking I would lose concentration and forget that food was on the cooker. I can become easily distracted by something else and I would simply forget that I had put pans on the cooker.

I do feel that I am not safe around the kitchen and my husband and daughter have taken over most of the cooking. My husband says that I can’t concentrate enough to remember what I had been doing and he worries incase I hurt myself or gas us all. The brain fog and cognitive dysfunction that accompanies Fibromyalgia, frequently reduces my awareness of hazards, such as judging how fast a car is driving, or remembering that I have left something on the stove.




I suffer from an “altered consciousness” due to the medication that I take and the side effects they cause. When we are cooking I tend to spend my time sitting at the table to try to help by occasionally checking the dinner. My husband sits with me to watch me, as well as the food. Someone has to supervise me because at some point I may go dizzy from the medication. If this happens my husband will make me sit down or lie down as I am not in control and it could potentially become a hazard.

When I have these “altered state of consciousness” I cannot judge the situation that I am in. I cannot concentrate, my vision is affected as I am closing my eyes from extreme tiredness, my hearing is affected as I feel like I am drunk and cannot comprehend things going on around me. I tend to sway and stagger which has the potential to cause a danger to myself, someone else or something else. The most simple and complex tasks that I had learnt to do before I became ill, like using the washing machine, I can still perform without any problems. However, tasks I try to learn now, I usually fail at. I struggle to learn to use new appliances in the kitchen, such as a new microwave. It is most frustrating.

To an acceptable standard
I suffer with an occasional slight tremor in my right hand which makes the preparation of some foods like slicing tomatoes and mushrooms unsafe to do, as I shake whilst holding the knife. My husband always peels the potatoes. I cannot drain the vegetables because of the weight of the pans with the water in them. I am just not strong enough to do it. My hands become too painful to pick objects up heavy items without the risk of dropping them. If I carry anything too heavy my wrists can give way and I drop things, this is why I do not do things like draining the vegetables.

My husband works nights and will make me a flask of coffee and bring it to bed for me to have when I wake up. He does this due to the tremor I have mainly that is in my right hand. He worries that I am unsafe when pouring a kettle of boiling water as my hands shake under the weight of the kettle.

As often as needed
I am really depressed at the moment and most of the time I will just pick quick food like biscuits, crisps and chocolate instead of making something like a sandwich. If I am too tired or ill from my condition and the effects of the medication I am less motivated to want to eat. The only meal I really attempt to help with is a Sunday dinner. I only help to prepare the dinner and still need help like preparing the vegetables. All the other days my husband and my daughter do all the cooking with me watching from the side lines.

In a reasonable amount of time
If I do try to help, it takes me a great deal longer to do it than it does my husband or daughter and I think I am more of an hinderance than a help. I feel really bad inside that my husband and daughter have to do most of the cooking, so me and my daughter will try to look for easier meals for them to cook. My daughter checks to see what food we have got left and makes a note of it to help with the shopping. She cleans the fridge out and checks the dates, as I forget to check them and once we had a sandwich with mold on it because I had not noticed it. It made me and my daughter physically sick, so from then on my daughter checks the food and the dates of the food we eat. The only meal I only ever try really hard to cook is a Sunday dinner. I try to conserve my energy a couple of days in advance to help me. I cannot do it all by myself and have resigned myself to it but a Sunday Dinner is a tradition in our family. My daughter dishes the dinner out while my husband cuts the meat. This is the only meal I have any real interest in as it is important to me to keep our family traditions.

My concentration is also affected, by the cognitive dysfunction that accompanies Fibromyalgia, My family have to supervise me in case I forget or just fall asleep. Chronic Fatigue can make me fall to sleep really quickly, I have been known to fall asleep standing up or during a conversation, which also makes it dangerous for me to be unsupervised in the kitchen. My condition affects me like this all the time.

Side Effects
I will try to prepare some food but most of the time I am not just too tired, in too much pain or too depressed to even want to cook and I definitely could not do this activity repeatedly. Because of the pain and discomfort in my wrist and sometimes my shoulder and elbow it is hard for me to physically prepare vegetables. When I do try to help like helping out with the Sunday dinner, once the meal is done I have to go to bed for the rest of the afternoon, as I am exhausted from keeping getting up and down checking the dinner and trying hard to concentrate. By the time I have tried to help out with the preparation I am so tired that my family have to prepare the dishing out and serving of Th.

e dinner. I find it difficult with the pain in my lower back due to the prolapsed disc and arthritis to stand or sit for any length of time and I have to keep swapping and changing, so I sit for a while and stand for a while. I also suffer with painful cramps in my legs, the muscles in my lower legs just go into spasm and cause cramp which is quite painful and when this happens my husband helps me to try to get rid of them by moving my foot, then he gently massages my legs. The cramps are particularly painful and makes my legs painful and weakened.


Aids and appliances
I will try to prepare some of the fresh vegetables like green sprouts but I have to keep stopping to rest my hands, so it takes me a quite while longer to do it than it would my husband or daughter.
We have a veg peeler for quickness but sometimes if the vegetables are too large for me to hold (as I only have small hands), I physically cannot grip them and I lack the strength to hold them. It is for extra safety for me and my daughter, but my husband usually peels the potatoes as my daughter hates doing it
We do have an assortment of kitchen gadgets like a small chopping machine to chop smaller vegetables but it still needs the veg to be cut like carrots, you have to cut the ends and then take the outer coating off before even using the chopper.
We have an electric can opener as I can no longer use a manual due to not having the strength to hold and turn it.
I have small blister type spots on the palms of my hands which is a side effect of the vitamin c tablet and they make my hands sore, so I am unable to prepare food at all when I have them.
I also have those rubber things to help you to open jar lids but I still do not have the strength to open a new jar and my husband or daughter have to open the jar initially.
I can no longer use an electric knife due to pain in my wrist and just not having the strength to press to slice the meat but also as my husband feels that it is to unsafe for me to use.
Even with my glasses on I sometimes cannot see some of the food labels which tell you the instructions


I cannot reliably learn to complete new tasks I don’t really know how to use the microwave. I have tried to read the instruction booklet but I have problems both with understanding and remembering instructions. My daughter has wrote the instructions of a general heating and laminated it for me. It says Top, bottom, turn the dial, bottom. This is the only instruction I use as it is a basic heat button or I just keep hitting the 30 second button but then forget how many times I have pressed it. I don’t follow sequences well and need them broken down into very small steps or I will miss parts of the explanation and then do it wrong.
I dont usually buy ready made microwaved food anyway but particularly now I know there are dangers to the body for people with Fibromyalgia and obviously fresh food is always better as you know what has gone in it.

Ability-Good/Bad Days, Varies
If I am ill and don’t get out of bed, I often miss meals in the morning and lunchtime. I don’t want to have to wake my husband or my daughter up to ask them to get me something to eat. I just stay in bed and try to sleep until someone gets up and I do at least have a coffee that my husband has made me when he came to bed.
My daughter helps me to make sandwiches at lunch time. To be honest I spend most the time sitting at the table for moral support whilst any food is being prepared. I am not reliably and unaware of hazards.
I feel really bad that this condition is just so disabling it hurts just doing the things everyone just takes for granted like just opening a packet, which I can’t do as I do not have the strength to pull them apart. I have to go and get the scissors to open up the packet.
Most of the time I feel bad, I know I am depressed. I am trying to come to terms with my diagnosis and what it means to me. I know I have to take a back seat and take care of myself but I do feel a failure. The guilt eats me up watching my husband cook a meal when he gets home from work, knowing that I cant help him due to the pain and discomfort.



Other

Also could i just ask the consideration/writing up time

someone mentioned theres was 300minutes i had a look at mine and it was 20 min. is this just the writing up after i left the assessment . what about the time that is given to reading it before hand

can anyone help

Hi just an up date

I sent this Email to the DWP:

Notice of Mandatory Reconsideration - PIP

Ref: N


To whom it may concern,


Please see to it that this email is handed to the department that deals with Mandatory Reconsiderations (MR) for PIP.


I attended a PIP assessment on 05.01.16 conducted by Capita on behalf of the DWP.

I am now in receipt of the Consultation Report form – PA4. Unfortunately the contents of the form, when compared to what was actually said and done in the assessment, is misleading, misrepresentative, and littered with untruths, errors and omissions, and I reserve the right to submit an official complaint regarding HCP misconduct at a later date, once I have all the evidence.

However, the purpose of this letter is solely to notify the DWP of my intention to submit my case for MR, as I do not agree with the DWP’s decision.

I am currently waiting for additional medical evidence from my own HCP, as well as all the documentation pertaining to my assessment from the DWP via a Subject Access Request (SAR). Therefore, I will present a more detailed case for MR in due course. Please do not make a decision until you have received a detailed MR letter and additional evidence.



Yours sincerely,

I asked my doctor to help with a letter of support, i gave her everything needed which i had off this site and she thanked me as she gets asked to do them and does not know what to write.
I got the letter back yesterday and she has followed the protocol i gave her but all she has written is she says/ tells me/states, she has not wrote anything personal of her feelings etc, so I don't know whether to submit this as evidence for my MR She just wrote Mrs ? wishes for me to provide a letter to support her application for the enhanced award rate, that's all

As anyone got any advice please.