If your Lyme disease symptoms have left you disabled from work, contact an experienced individual and nationally prominent disability insurance lawyer from DarrasLaw today at (800) 458-4577 or online to protect your legal right to long-term disability benefits. Symptoms of Lyme Disease and Your Individual or Group Disability Benefits
Lyme Disease and Disability Benefits: The Challenges Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a tick bite. Its symptoms are diverse and can cause physical disabilities, including heart disease, joint swelling, fatigue, and extreme pain, along with a variety...
There is no specific listing for Lyme disease. Manifestations of the disease, however, might be shown to meet the qualifying requirements, such as the inability to walk or use your arms, damage to your heart, severe inflammatory arthritis, or one of various cognitive problems or mental disorders.
Because Lyme disease doesn’t fit neatly into any category, is hard to diagnose, and comes with exacerbations and remissions, it can be difficult, frustrating, and time-consuming to wade through the red tape involved in the various stages of the application process. The language used in the application form is often vague and confusing.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a tick bite. Its symptoms are diverse and can cause physical disabilities, including heart disease, joint swelling, fatigue, and extreme pain, along with a variety of mental symptoms, including memory loss, attention and executive function deficits, anxiety, panic attacks, and delusions.
Can Lyme Disease Be Disabling? Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that ranges widely in presentation and severity. The infection can cause a diverse number of physical and mental symptoms, which can vary in severity from mild to debilitating. Yes, for many, the condition results in short and/or long term disability.
Complications of post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome Living with persistent symptoms of Lyme disease after treatment may affect your mobility and cognitive skills. It can also cause extreme lifestyle changes and emotional stress.
What are the symptoms? Neurological complications most often occur in early disseminated Lyme disease, with numbness, pain, weakness, facial palsy/droop (paralysis of the facial muscles), visual disturbances, and meningitis symptoms such as fever, stiff neck, and severe headache.
As with many infectious diseases, there is no test that can “prove” cure. Tests for Lyme disease detect antibodies produced by the human immune system to fight off the bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) that cause Lyme disease. These antibodies can persist long after the infection is gone.
Chronic symptoms of Lyme are a much longer list and may include vertigo, ringing in the ears, short-term memory loss, light and sound sensitivity, mood swings, anxiety, depression, heart palpitations, and serious cardiac problems.
Neurological Lyme disease, also known as Lyme neuroborreliosis, occurs when the Lyme- or TBRF-causing bacteria invade the central nervous system. Some describe neurological Lyme disease as a Lyme infection of the brain. Research has found that up to 15-40% of late-stage Lyme patients develop neurological disorders.
Late persistent Lyme disease If Lyme disease isn't promptly or effectively treated, damage to the joints, nerves, and brain may develop months or years after you become infected. It is the last and often the most serious stage of the disease.
Take away message: In the long run, Lyme does not affect your life as much as other health conditions. It is important to live a healthy lifestyle regardless of whether you are struggling with Lyme disease or not.
“Brain fog” is a term people commonly use to describe it. In some cases, Lyme disease can cause encephalopathy. Its effects include memory loss, confusion, difficulty forming words and thoughts, difficulty focusing, and personality changes. These symptoms can be very subtle when they develop late in the disease.
Lyme disease symptoms may also have a relapsing-remitting course. In addition, Lyme disease occasionally produces other abnormalities that are similar to those seen in MS, including positive findings on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brain and analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
Symptoms of late stage Lyme diseaseSevere headaches and neck stiffness.Additional EM rashes in new places on the body.Facial palsy, also known as Bell's palsy – paralysis of one side of the face.Arthritis or joint pain and swelling, especially of large joints (such as the knee)More items...
Recent studies, in fact, report that the ELISA and Western blot can miss up to 60 percent of well-defined Lyme disease cases.
Lyme Disease is treated with antibiotics. Often, antibiotic treatment results in a fairly rapid and complete recovery. The most common drugs used to treat Lyme Disease are:
Lyme disease has the potential to: make a person feel extremely ill with flu-like symptoms, produce widespread muscle pain, impair cognitive function, and even develop arthritis in some patients. About half of people diagnosed with Lyme disease will get a form of arthritis. [13] It is also quite common for those suffering from Lyme disease to experience extreme fatigue, resulting in severe headaches, impaired memory, and trouble concentrating. The effects of this condition can make it difficult for a person to continue working throughout the course of treatment, and sometimes long after treatment is completed.
The knowledgeable attorneys at Chisholm Chisholm & Kilpatrick LTD will integrate years of cumulative experience into your appeal . Insurance companies have a lot of resources at their disposal, and will not make your disability benefits available to you without a fight.
In order to transmit the condition to a human, the infected tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours. [4] [5]
Lyme Disease is an infection caused by the bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi. Human transmission is caused by a bite from an infected blacklegged tick, otherwise known as a deer tick. In order to transmit the condition to a human, the infected tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours. [4] [5]
Western blot (immunoblot) test. When testing for Lyme disease, immunoblot tests are used to detect two different classes of antibodies: IgM and IgG. A positive IgM immunoblot is used to identify the disease within the first four weeks of infection, but is known to give false positive results.
[1] Researchers estimate that about 329,000 cases of the condition occur annually in the United States. [2] .
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a tick bite. Its symptoms are diverse and can cause physical disabilities, including heart disease, joint swelling, fatigue, and extreme pain, along with a variety of mental symptoms, including memory loss, attention and executive function deficits, anxiety, panic attacks, and delusions.
The key to winning a disability claim is documented medical evidence. You must continue to try and get treated -especially if your symptoms are continuing! Having a confirmed diagnosis is a BIG PLUS! It is a long process, so go ahead and file, and seek medical care. As of 2017 (when I finally got approved) Lyme IS now in the SSDI bluebook. However it was the documentation of all the complications (and gross negligence of supposed health professionals) that got me classified into three disability categories (there are hundreds of recognized illnesses AND combinations of symptoms/illness they look at). Many people won’t win with just the Lyme diagnosis, but all the combinations of problems Lyme causes are what adds up to disability.
Because of the great variety in symptoms and the difficulty obtaining a diagnosis, many people suffering from this debilitating disease are unable to work. However, for those same reasons, they face challenges when applying for disability benefits, whether SSI or SSDI, far beyond those faced by people with other more common disabilities.
Because Lyme disease doesn’t fit neatly into any category, is hard to diagnose, and comes with exacerbations and remissions, it can be difficult, frustrating, and time-consuming to wade through the red tape involved in the various stages of the application process.
Of course every case is different, but Social Security has a special ruling for CFS/ME, and it does not recognize Lyme Disease. There is also a special ruling for Fibro.
If you aren’t able to make the distinction, your claim could be denied. Many disability claimants attempting to get benefits on their own do end up being denied, which requires filing an appeal, causing the claim process to drag on for an uncomfortably long time.
I just wanted to add that there are paralegal services which can also help you file paperwork. I used Allsup, but there are many options, including hiring an attorney.
Your individual or group long-term disability insurer may limit benefits for mental health disorders at 12, 18, or 24 months. As such, your individual or group long-term disability insurer may group you into this category to avoid paying years of individual and/or group long-term disability benefits.
Lyme arthritis typically manifests in larger joints such as the knees and elbows. This is the most common complication.
Many patients with Lyme disease respond well to antibiotics, provided they start taking them within a few weeks of the contact. The complications from undiagnosed Lyme disease and PTLDS, however, can leave you permanently disabled.
The Three Stages of Lyme Disease and Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome . Lyme disease typically manifests in three stages, and may develop into (PTLDS). The first stage is called Early Localized Lyme Disease, which typically manifests with fever, sore throat, chills, and a rash.
A tick bite spreads the disease, but it can take 30 to 60 days to manifest after infection. Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed due to this delay.
A bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi, which the deer tick transmits, causes Lyme disease . The tick must attach to a person for 36 to 48 hours to transmit the disease successfully. Deer ticks are the size of poppy seeds, so they’re easy to miss.
Other than a blood transfusion with infected blood, there are no other known means of transmitting Lyme disease. You cannot catch the disease from family members, or even by eating infected meat.
The disease is carried by deer ticks found in the northeastern and central northern regions of the United States, as well as by the western black-legged ticks which are found mostly on the Pacific Coast. These ticks can spread the disease to animals and humans through their bite, and subsequently into the bloodstream or lymphatic system.
To learn more about Lyme disease, visit the following links for more information:
If left untreated, it can cause serious complications. Even after treatment, symptoms of pain, fatigue, and confusion can continue for more than 6 months. This is known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS).
Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is spread by black-legged deer ticks in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Upper Midwest, and Pacific coast. If you have a tick attached to you for 36 hours or more, you could develop Lyme disease. Early symptoms start between 3 to 30 days after your bite, and include:
Lyme disease is transmitted to humans when a black-legged tick or “deer tick” bites a person. It is a bacterial infection. The symptoms of Lyme disease appear in stages. Symptoms can overlap between stages. The common symptoms of Lyme disease include:
One of the reasons they fight these claims is that it can be challenging to obtain the correct diagnosis of the disease. Without strong medical evidence to support your disability claim, the insurance provider can deny the claim. The best chance you have of fighting the insurance company is to consult with a long-term disability lawyer.
If your long-term disability claim was denied, contact the Law Office of Kevin J. McManus by calling 816-203-0143 to discuss your case with a Kansas City LTD attorney. Do not delay. If you have received a denial letter, you have very little time to file an appeal.
Yes, Lyme Disease and other tick born illnesses could qualify for long-term disability benefits depending on the circumstances of the case. However, insurance providers often will deny and aggressively fight against Lyme disease and similiar long-term disability (LTD) claims.