Case Strategy for Disability
Claims Based on Kidney Disease

The Social Security Administration accepts kidney failure and kidney disease as sufficient reasons to win a favorable decision for benefits. Because kidney failure and kidney disease lead to severe illness, it is understandable that a person with the kidney ailment will not be able to work.

Many claimants that have kidney disease or kidney failure experience high blood pressure, high blood sugar, dangerously high levels of protein and creatine in the blood, swelling of the legs, generalized water retention, and an imbalance of minerals in the blood.

Because the kidneys are vital organs in the body that need proper functioning in order for the body to remain healthy, a diseased kidney means that the body is not able to function properly. A person with kidney disease or kidney failure is not at all able to carry out the daily tasks of a job and is generally given a favorable decision from the Social Security Administration without much of a battle.

Those with the kidney disease or kidney failure are not able to do even the most simple of jobs because of some of the following reasons:

• the need to get up and walk around every 10 minutes (in order to restore circulation to the legs)
• fatigue related to poor blood chemistry
• high blood pressure that causes headaches
• neuropathy
• side effects from medications
• bladder issues due to poor fluid control in the body

A solid medical history from the claimant’s primary care physician and any specialist’s reports will be necessary at the Social Security Administration disability hearing.  Records of past employers may be helpful as well, especially if they highlight the claimant’s inability to work productively. The judge may still bring in a vocational expert to help make his decision. The vocational expert will take into consideration the disease process and certain jobs in today’s national economy. He will deduce whether or not the claimant with kidney disease or kidney failure is able to work.