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    Do You Need Financial Assistance Due to Narcolepsy in South Carolina?

    You want to work. You need to work to support yourself and your family. But narcolepsy weighs you down.

    It smothers your concentration, stunts your stamina to get through the day—and even raises the risk of an episode that could strike at any moment and truly be dangerous.

    When people have health problems that short-circuit their ability to work, they can get financial assistance from Social Security Disability benefits. Benefits let you worry less about money and focus more on your health and wellbeing.

    But can you get Social Security Disability for narcolepsy? In other words, is narcolepsy a disability that qualifies for benefits in the eyes of Social Security?

    Narcolepsy isn’t on Social Security’s official listing of impairments that can be disabling based on medical evidence alone regardless of your age, education, or work experience.

    But if narcolepsy makes it impossible for you to work, there is an available path to getting benefits.

    In South Carolina, an experienced Social Security Disability lawyer from Robertson Wendt Disability can show you. We’ve helped thousands of people in Charleston, Columbia, Beaufort, Florence and every corner of South Carolina.

    Talk to us about how narcolepsy disrupts your livelihood—and how disability benefits could help you reach a more secure, stable life.

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    How to Qualify for Social Security Disability with Narcolepsy

    Though Social Security doesn’t specifically recognize narcolepsy as automatically qualifying for disability benefits, any health problem that prevents you from working and is sure to last at least a year can be the basis of your Social Security Disability claim.

    What you’ll need with a case of narcolepsy is a rating of what Social Security calls your “residual functional capacity,” or RFC.

    Your RFC is a measure of what activities you can do no matter what your ailments and diagnoses are.

    These are some of the activities your RFC looks at:

    • How well can you understand, remember and follow instructions?
    • Can you work well with supervisors and co-workers?
    • Can you manage the pressures that come with work settings?
    • How much can you sit, stand, walk, lift, carry, push or pull?
    • How well can you reach, handle objects, stoop or crouch?

    Your doctors and other health care providers help establish your residual functional capacity. The information to answer the questions above comes from medical evidence generated by your treatment.

    Your South Carolina disability attorney from Robertson Wendt Disability knows how to get the information you need.

    You pay no fee for an attorney to work on your claim before you win benefits. And you can start with a free, initial conversation with our disability law team.

    Get My Free Consultation! »

    The medical evidence we mentioned will focus on documenting your symptoms of narcolepsy, showing that they are severe, and showing how they interfere with any job you could be expected to do.

    The National Institutes of Health describes the kinds of symptoms people with narcolepsy typically experience.

    If any of these narcolepsy symptoms are severe enough, they could give you a strong Social Security Disability claim:

    • Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS): feeling drained no matter how much sleep you got at night
    • “Sleep attacks:” where you have a sudden, overwhelming need to sleep but feel fine in between attacks
    • Sudden loss of strength and muscle control: called cataplexy, often triggered by strong emotions, resembling the way your body becomes inactive during sleep, sometimes mistaken for a seizure
    • Sleep paralysis: losing the ability to move or speak while you’re still awake but drifting toward sleep
    • Hallucinations: often nerve-wracking images that appear during sleep paralysis
    • Insomnia: trouble sleeping at night that can also involve sleep apnea breathing problems, vivid dreams, acting out dreams, restless legs and more
    • Automatic behaviors during semi-consciousness: when people have narcolepsy attacks but keep on doing a routine activity in a disordered way even though they don’t remember it

    For some people with narcolepsy, these events happen occasionally. For others they happen often.

    Documenting the frequency of your narcolepsy episodes will be an important part of your Social Security Disability claim.

    You’ll need medical test results, sleep studies, observations from doctors, effects of different medications, reports from people you know and more to confirm to Social Security that narcolepsy interrupts your life to the point that you can’t stick with a job.

    You should also factor in any other health problems you have that may complicate your life even more.
    It’s one thing to have complicated health problems. It’s another thing to deal with a complicated government benefits program.

    The Social Security Disability lawyers at Robertson Wendt Disability are the ones who bridge the gap.

    While you cope with the confusing, challenging effects of narcolepsy, get someone looking out for you to secure the kind of support you need for a safer, healthier situation.

    Call Us Now! »

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