Hi all, if you were refused PIP by DWP and have not appealed i urge you to do so as MS is a life changing disease.
I applied June 2019 then appealed, last year Oct following my face to face assessment Sept. This was refused, i then appealed by Tribunal which took place July 2020 via telephone. A Doctor, Judge and a representative from DWP asked questions based on the what was reported up until the date of assessment (sept 2019) they did not want to hear about now.
Anyway, this was not a scary experience. In fact it was easier than the DWP assessment, they wanted to hear how the RRMS impacts on my day to day life.
The decision was upheld and i was awared PIP standard rate.
4x 2 points awared and 4 points awared fot mobility. Interestingly DWP scored me ZERO in all areas!!! I will be back dated from june 2019 and entitled to PIP until june 2022.
Be brave, fear nothing and make sure you stand up for MS by claming what you are entitled to. Do not be put off by a Tribunal. My opinion is DWP have no idea what they are assessing with MS, lack understanding to the hidden yet highly self limiting symptoms that do not fit nicely into their generalised tick box questions. DWP are likely to score people with ZERO like me, dont be put off... appeal with a smile! Surely living with MS is far harder than anything a Tribunal can throw at you. Good luck all.
This looks very encouraging indeed !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35065905
Panorama episode concerning this looks like it's on ...
Can You Stop My Multiple Sclerosis? Panorama will be shown on BBC One on Monday 18 January at 8.30pm.
Scully
As someone who's been very interested to follow the research currently being carried out on CCSVI, and given its something lots of people have debated on this forum, I thought it would be interesting to post the latest news.
The largest study to date testing the venous-obstruction theory of multiple sclerosis failed to support it, leading the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Society to declare the theory dead.Reported here by leaders of the group, known by its Italian abbreviation AISM, the study of nearly 2,000 individuals with blinded central imaging analysis found the condition in only about 3% of MS patients and in only slightly fewer healthy controls or patients with other neurological conditions.Key data were released at a press briefing by principal investigator Giancarlo Comi, MD, of the University of Milan, and other study leaders in advance of Comi's formal presentation, scheduled for Saturday at the annual meeting of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.They characterized the study as the largest yet conducted on the so-called chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency theory ( CCSVI), advanced in 2009 by Paolo Zamboni, MD, of the University of Ferrara in Italy.The CCSVI theory quickly took the MS community by storm, leading many patients to seek venous angioplasty and stenting procedures in hope of obtaining relief or even a cure, as Zamboni and some other vascular surgeons claimed was possible.But the theory also drew substantial criticism, especially after numerous other researchers were unable to reproduce Zamboni's original findings of 100% presence of CCSVI in MS patients and 0% in non-MS controls. Some groups were unable to detect CCSVI in more than a small fraction of patients, while others found that it was relatively common but without specificity for MS.In the new study, sponsored by AISM and called CoSMo, ultrasound analyses were performed on 1,874 individuals at 35 clinics throughout Italy. A total of 107 were subsequently excluded because of technical problems with the images or because participants were found not to meet the specified inclusion criteria (such as age or disease duration)....
The full article can be read in our RSS newsfeed.
Just to let you know for anyone who's interested, an item is on You and Yours on Radio 4 about CCSVI. You'll be able to access it on iPlayer if it's too late. xx.
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