Oklahoma Disability Attorney: Describing Your Symptoms

As any Oklahoma disability attorney will tell you, the best source of information on your symptoms that relate to your disabling medical condition is you. Symptoms are simply how the medical condition makes you feel, and no one can describe that better than you. You are aware of where, how often, and how much you hurt. Accordingly, it is up to you to describe your symptoms with as much vivid detail as possible. Your descriptions of your symptoms are quite important to your testimony because they are what prevent you from being able to work.

Simply having a condition is not enough to disable you; how the condition makes you feel is what stops you from working. People with the same impairment as you have could be working. When the judge asks you why you cannot work, then you should not simply respond with the name of your condition. Instead, you should describe the severity of your pain and symptoms. Your Oklahoma disability attorney can help prepare you for this testimony.

When describing your symptoms, you should be specific and use detailed descriptions. Simply saying that you hurt is not enough. You should tell them what your symptoms feel like: the nature of the pain; how intense the pain is; where the pain is located on your body and whether it travels to different areas; how often you are in pain; and how long the pain lasts. In addition, tell the judge if the pain feels different on different days, specific triggers start up your pain, and if relief can be had through certain treatments.

It is important that you are precise and honest when describing your symptoms to the judge. You should neither over nor understate your symptoms, since both can harm your case, as any Oklahoma disability attorney will explain. If you exaggerate your symptoms when you testify, and if your medical records do not corroborate what you have to say, then the judge will think that you are lying. Even if you do not willfully exaggerate, watch out for words that overstate, such as “extreme,” “always,” “constantly,” “excruciating,” and “never.”

Conversely, if you downplay your symptoms too much, then the judge will not find you disabled because you have persuaded him or her that you do not have much in the way of limitations. The safest way to ensure that your case will go favorably is to state the truth about your symptoms without using extreme language.

In order to do well at a hearing, you will need the knowledge and expertise of a qualified Oklahoma disability attorney. If you are facing a Social Security disability hearing and want to increase your chances of a favorable decision, contact us today.