What your medications says about your Social Security Disability case

0:00 What's going on, everybody. My name is Anthony Reeves, and as always, I'm here to bring you the legal tip of the day. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about what medications tells me regarding the significance of your Social Security case. Now that's gonna sound kind of weird, but I want to make sure that I explain what I'm talking about.

0:20 As part of the five steps sequential evaluation about the Social Social Security Administration, the second step is do you have a severe medical condition, whether it be a mental or physical, that keeps you out of work for a period of twelve months or more. So what I do is when I'm evaluating cases, one of the things I'm going to ask you is what kind of medications you're taking? And what your medications are is going to give me a good hint to this degree of severity about your case. Now, I'm not just gonna solely rely on your medications, but it is going to give me a good indication. Let me give you an example. We're going to talk about it in two categories, one physical and one mental. Now this is not an

0:58 absolute, so don't sit here just because you have these situations. It's up sammed up. But there are some things that your medications can tell me as a Social Security attorney about your case. So from a physical standpoint, let's look at the first hand, If you're taking thailand on advil, I'd be profen. That's medication you can get over the counter. That means you can go into the drug store. You don't need a prescription, and you can just go up and grab it off the aisle and walk up to the checkout line and walk out the door. If you're taking over the counter medication, that does tell me you're in pain or that you have a problem, but it does not give me a feeling that you have a significant problem. Now

1:37 that doesn't mean that you don't have one. It just means that when I hear medications like those, typically medications can get over the counter, those are things that you're doing to kind of self treat your self, medicate yourself. So it may give me an indication that there's some things wrong, but I'm probably not gonna get really excited just for that by yourself. Okay. Now we're gonna go from that to the other extra Okay, And that is the more significant what we call control substances. The narcotics. That means the vic itence, oxy cotone, hydro cotone, the percocets. Those are significant medications that typically are not given to you unless it's by a pain management specialists or neurologists or your primary doctors. There are control substances that are being monitored carefully

2:22 because you can get addicted to them. When I hear people taking that or multi morphine salt a patch, stuff like that, that tells me that your pain is very significant and very severe. And what ends up happening is that most of the medications that I haven't just talked about fall somewhere in the middle, like the muscle relaxers like flexiil or soma. You know. So what I tell people all the time is that there's two extremes and everything else kind of falls in the middle. Over the counter thing tells me that you got some problems, but maybe not as severe. The narcotics tells me that you're on some serious pain, and then everything else kind of falls in the middle.

3:01 And that's one from a physical standpoint, what some of your medications tell me. Now, don't get me wrong, because from the example I just gave you, I just focused on the pain situations. I wasn't talking about medication for high blood pressure. It's the same gambit or medications for heart. If I hear that they're telling you to take aspirin for your heart conditions, that probably is not gonna make me jump. But if they tell me that you're taking nitro patches or put it under your tongue, that's going to indicate a more severe level of medication for your heart condition. So I tell people that anytime I'm getting medication, I'm looking for the range. Same thing diabetes.

3:40 If you're just taking lucafag or just or regular pills, that's going to tell me you have diabetes, but it won't be as significant to me as if you told me that you're taking shots and you're doing it two or three times a day. That's going to tell me something entirely different. So one of the things I tell people is that the medication you take is a good indicator after the severity of your condition. That's the physical, then there's the mental. When I'm looking at mental, same thing. Most mental medications you can't take over the counter. But if I'm saying paxel are zolof very very good antidepressants anti anxiety medication is awesome, but in terms of the severity, it may not catch my attention as much. Okay, However, if you

4:26 go the more extremes the geodoes the risk of it all which tends to be given for those persons who have are hearing voices, seeing things. It's what we call antipsychotics that indicates a more significant mental condition. So again, same extreme geodone riskerdoll lithium significant, paxel zoloff maybe not as much, but it does indicate a problem. And then there's a gambit of them in between.

4:51 Don't think that I'm saying again two one, if you have the great mes it means you gotta slammed down, or if you have measit, I'm not as strong that you have a week case. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that that gives me a really quick snapshot when I'm talking to you about the significance of your condition. Second of all, don't think that this is the only thing that either myself or other representatives, because I can't speak for how other representatives will avoue your case, but I will tell you that my experience for talking to other reps. That's not the sole thing they rely on, but it is a good indicator. So just keep those things in mind as you're looking at your case and wondering for yourself how significant your condition

5:30 is. Your medications can go a long way to talk about and telling people how significant your condition is. My name is Anthony Reeves. This has been broadly brought to you by the Reds law firm dedicated to representing the disabled and discriminated. Check us out at www dot Reeve's firm r ee B s FI r M dot com, or you feel free to go to my blog at legal Beat dot Anthony Reeves dot com. Have a wonderful day.