Combination of symptoms together

Hi Orangeblossom

You could include some information about how your multiple conditions affect you in the additional info section, but I would make sure that it is clear in each section. For example, if a person suffers from chronic depression, osteoarthritis (in their spine), fibromyalgia, and severe asthma, each of these conditions will impact their daily living in different ways across the various questions.

So if a claimant was trying to answer the question about preparing food they might say -"I am unable to prepare a meal because of the lack of motivation, pain, exhaustion, poor mobility, poor balance and shortness of breath caused by my chronic depression, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and severe asthma...." - and then they could give more details about not using knives (due to chronic depression) - unable to sit for very long (pain from osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia) - unable to take meals out of a microwave because of poor balance (osteoarthritis, fibro) - not safe in the kitchen - because of severe asthma attacks that happen randomly two or three times a day.

Of course, if a condition isn't relevant to one of the questions - you don't mention it - but when you have multiple conditions, which the majority of people do - I would mention it against any relevant question, explaining why the symptoms impact your ability to undertake a particular activity. Sometimes it feels like you are repeating yourself - but I don't think that matters. If you don't tell them - they will make assumptions.

BIS

Hi Orangeblossom,
...to add to what BIS has said...
Think about the effect of fatigue and interaction of medicines- it maybe that treatment for condition 2 is not optimised because the tablets conflict with condition 1 etc Pain etc might also be greater (subjectively rather than objectively as it is yourpain that is relevant) as a result of having more than one health problem.
I hope this helps.
LL26