If you suffer from severe migraine headaches and have no other severe or non-severe medical impairments, you may still be able to qualify for Social Security disability benefits be either equaling a listing contained in the Social Security Administration’s Listing of Impairments or demonstrating that your migraine headaches would preclude you from being able to maintain regular attendance and perform substantially gainful activity eight hours per day, five days per week, fifty weeks per year.
While there is no SSA listing for migraine headaches, you may be able to qualify for disability benefits if your migraine headaches are so severe that they equal another listing, such as Listing Impairment 11.03, which addresses the functional effects of non-convulsive seizures, which can manifest with similar symptoms as migraine headaches.
Regardless of whether or not the symptomatology caused by your migraine headaches equals Listing Impairment 11.03 or another listing, you may be able to demonstrate that your migraine headaches preclude your ability to perform substantially gainful activity if you have medical and other evidence, including medical treatment records and headache diaries, that demonstrates that, despite ongoing medical treatment and prescribed medication, you experience headaches that are both prostrating and prolonged, meaning that your headaches are incapacitating and last for at least a several hours at a time, on a very frequent basis, i.e. once or twice per week. This is because most vocational experts, who regularly testify at Social Security ALJ hearings, will find that any worker who would be unable to attend work at least once or twice per week without notice would be unable to perform substantially gainful activity in that no employers will tolerate such frequent but irregular and unplanned absences.
If you suffer from debilitating migraine headaches, Viner Disability Law may be able to represent you in your Social Security disability claim. Contact our office today for a free and confidential consultation.
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