If you are over 50 and applying for Social Security Disability, the side effects of your medications can do more work in your case than you might think. They can be one of the strongest pieces of evidence you have and most claimants never bring them up.

Once you hit 50, one of the main things the SSA wants to know is whether you can still do the work you used to do. If they decide you can still return to your past job, the rest of the case gets a lot harder. So a big part of what we are doing in a disability claim after 50 is showing, in plain terms, that going back to that old job is not realistic for you anymore.

This is especially tough when your past work was sedentary — a desk job, an office job, something where you were sitting most of the day. The SSA can look at a sedentary job and say, well, you do not have to lift much, you do not have to be on your feet, so what is stopping you from going back to it? That is the wall a lot of older claimants run into.

This is where the side effects of your medications can change the picture. If your medications make you dizzy, groggy, or fuzzy-headed, or they affect your ability to focus or understand information, those are real limitations the SSA has to deal with. A sedentary desk job still requires you to think clearly, follow instructions, and stay sharp for hours at a time. If your medications take that away from you, you cannot do that job anymore, and that matters even more if your past work was highly skilled or technical in nature.

Many people have been taking their regular medications for so long that their side-effects have become invisible to them. The way their medicine makes them feel has become a part of their baseline way of feeling. It is worth taking the time to research the common side effects of your medications and self-evaluate whether you are experiencing them. Disability claimants routinely claim they have no side effects from their medications when that is simply not the case.  

The place to get this in front of the SSA is your adult function report. When you fill it out, do not just list the medications. Describe what they actually do to you on a normal day, when the dizziness hits, how long the grogginess lasts, what kinds of tasks you cannot finish anymore because you cannot focus. That is the level of detail the agency needs to take side effects seriously as evidence in your file.

Medications keep a lot of people functional enough to get through the day, but the trade-off — dizziness, brain fog, drowsiness, is exactly the kind of limitation that can win a disability case after 50. Do not leave that evidence on the table. If your medications cause side effects that get in the way of working, make sure your function report, and your doctors, know about it.

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If you want to book a call with our team to discuss applying for disability, call us at 972-532-6375 or book a time using this link.