What makes you eligible for disability?

Working always makes my migraine much worse (chronic) should I be able to get disability?

• I suffer from Chronic Migraines that means that at least 15 days out of the month, often as many as 20+ day I suffer from debilitating migraine attacks which affect my vision, cause me to hallucinate, suffer from severe nausea and vomiting, become unsteady on my feet, struggle to speak. Light, sound, touch, smell and people are unbearable when I am having an attack to recover I need to take my meds and lie down in a dark room and hopefully fall asleep for a few hours until the pain lessens. I see a neurologist and take antiepileptic medication to help reduce my migraine but that is not enough. For me my chronic migraine does get better when I have been on disability for a few months as I am now. I am able to sleep and rest as I need to, I can avoid the enviromental and psychological stressors that trigger my attacks and generally manage my condition so that over a few months I will start to get less migraine attacks and while I cannot lead a "normal" life I can do somethings like go for a swim or to visit a friend. However when my health improves to this level my disability payments stop and I have to find work, this would be find but my migraine is not cured, only "managed". Once back at work with in weeks or days my migraine attacks begin to increase due to enviromental stressors I can not protect myself from, this pushes my rescue medication use up which in turn raises the frequency of my attacks further. Add to that the pressue and stress I come under from my employer because I am failing to do the job I was hired to do and it's a lethal mix for my health. I always end up getting let go of or back on sickness pay until I recover and it all starts again. This even happened to me when I worked in a library! Much of it made worse by the ignorance many people have about migraine, the don't understand how bad it can be for some people. I am looking into work from home so I can support myself and manage my health but I am still not sure I could make enough to live on. I'd love to work, to be able to have the career I trained for, to travel, to go out dancing, or even to the pub for a drink but I can't do any of those things because to much stimulation makes me ill. I only feel ok when I lead a very, very quiet life. Is it reasonable for me to ask that I be able to claim disability long term if I keep getting seriously sick everytime I have to work or do you think I should have to work even if it means I lose my hard won health. Tell me what you think? JMITW it is the same in the UK and I have tried many jobs, I believe working in a library is considered one of the least stressful jobs a person can have but after 8 months working there part time I was asked to leave after I collapsed when a member came in wearing a strong perfume when I was having a bad day. They were nice but there were no more adjustments they could make for me. If I could find home work that would be my best option but even that is tricky. Ben, thank you for your comment, I realise many people struggle on with multiple health problems and I will no doubt have to as well. I have had flexable sick leave but when you are taking 10 or more full or partial sick days a months as I have done employers don't put up with that, however if I try to struggle on and stay at work I end up collapsed in the toilets vomiting or even vomiting on my desk, has happened a few times.

• Answer:

  this says you are in the UK, in the US, you don't get disability just because you can't do the job you were trained for..you have to be unable to do any job there are jobs that aren't mentally stressful...is it the physical strain of having to maintain activity. some people walk around saying they have a migraine--drive, run machinery with only mild discomfort----they don't know what a migraine is in the US, we have a government program called vocational rehab. you need to find a job that does not involve interacting with clients or customers.....a business can make a rule that no staff can wear perfume.. there is a product testing place near me----it is perfume free--no staff, no participants....its low key maybe something like taxi dispatch... but if you can't find a job that won't trigger it---then you should qualify