RA and FM

I am currenlty recieving high rate dla and low care rate, my medical needs have changed somewhat this past 3 years and
I dont know what to do?
I was dignosed with FM in nov 09 and RA 2 and half years before that, iv been put on crutches and had adaptations done to the house due to my disablitites, as with most other medical problems the days vary, with the ra i can be ok in the morning and a hour later be swollen and unable to walk, the fm just aggrivates my condition, i was giving dla because of a back condition resulting in discs coming out, now im far worse what do i do? im affraid mostly that they will take my claim off me, i have last week been awarded ESA support allowance without having to go through the medical.
Help would be gratedul my OT therapist recommendes i upgrade my dla form saying iv a good case but i dont know what to do.
Im currently on the chemo drug methotextrate which i inject at home and various ther drugs designed to help me conditions.

Hi Zoey,

A bit of an impossible question to answer without knowing a great deal more about you than it would be sensible to share on a public forum, I'm afraid.

Look through the DLA guides. They explain the qualifying criteria for middle and higher rate care.

If you think you have a clear case and you can get supporting evidence then do your very best to go through the grounds for a supersession with a welfare rights worker and see what they think.

But, in the ned, there's always a risk if you ask to have your award looked at again, I'm afraid.

Good luck,

steve

zoeybeaumregan wrote:

with the ra i can be ok in the morning and a hour later be swollen and unable to walk, the fm just aggrivates my condition.

If you do make a new claim (not saying here whether you should or not) I think you need to make this clear. Along with "I can do this on a better day, this on an average day and this on a bad day".

On my medical for ESA the ATOS doctor made me feel totally stupid for having what he called "a dual diagnosis" ie having both Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia. Not knowing very much about the nature of FM or RA, as I said - I let him make me feel stupid and ended up apologising to him for audaciously being ill with a dual diagnosis. So much so, that I left Fibromyalgia off my DLA claim recently - just in case that the DWP thought I was stupid having the two conditions. The ATOS doctor had really convinced me that it was impossible to have the two conditions together, so I put down what I thought was the more severe of the conditions, even though the Fibromyalgia gives me the most problems. It's only since I've been getting my appeal papers together and have obtained a report from my current GP about my present conditions - something which the DLA decided not to do - who plainly has written that I have Rheumatoid arthritis, and that I do have Fibromyalgia; that I've discovered can both be suffered at the same time. In fact, the one condition, can be a complication of the other!!

So it makes me wonder now if this was something the ATOS Doctor didn't know, or was it something that he'd been instructed to challenge?

Jenny