ME/CFS - HOW TO COMPLETE ESA50

You may also find this website helpful :

www.actionforme.org.uk/get-informed/welf...upport-allowance-esa

bro58

Thank you all for the really good advice - I have a couple of follow up questions which I hope you won’t mind answering

I have found it extremely hard - almost mind-bendingly so - to decide what boxes to tick for the descriptors - Like you Elaine, I had been planning to tick the “no” for similar reasons, of repeatability, reliability and safety etc and in the information I have sketched out to put in the form have built those words into most of my answers - basically what I am saying for most of the descriptors is that 1) I cannot do the thing the majority of the time because I cannot do it safely or repeatedly or cannot guarantee because of my illness that I could do the thing any time I was called on to do so but 2) there are times when I am so incapacitated I couldn’t do the thing at all -for example when I get severe migraine attacks which leave me completely incapacitated and last a couple of days at a time -in some of my answers I am spelling this out so that it is clear to the HCP that that is how I am affected - I have a medical report from a specialist to submit which backs this up but it was done in 2010 and the guy has now retired.

Gordon - thanks for the advice about the mobilising descriptor - I planned to address the wheelchair issue in my answer by saying that I have not been advised to use a wheelchair but would be unable to do so because the effort of trying to propel one over only short distances would cause so much pain and fatigue that it would cause an exacerbation of my already existing severe fatigue and I couldn’t do so repeatedly

Gordon - thank you also for the excellent advice about the need to explain how I managed to fill out the form despite having cognitive problems - the short answer is “with great great difficulty”. What I was planning to say was that I had kept a copy of my IB50 and supporting information and while my condition has deteriorated since then most of the information which I need is in that documentation so I have the information to hand it is just a case of working out which descriptor it is relevant to. I have only been able to do a little at a time - a descriptor a day and the mental effort in trying to do it has made my condition much worse - [there were many days I wasn’t able to deal with it at all because I was so sick] - what I have done is talk through each descriptor with my Dad who has made notes of how it applies to me, reminding me of things that have happened and when I had needed practical help from others and why and I have used those notes to fill in the form - is that the kind of thing you were thinking I should include?

Irish eyes - thanks for the tip on the medical - good luck with yours - let me know how it goes since it might give me an idea of what I can expect if I have one

Many thanks to all for posting replies - you have really helped me!
Steph