Financial help with being self employed with endometriosis?

[EndoJoys]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone has had a successful experience with claiming financial help due to the set backs from endometriosis?

I’m self employed, and work freelance (product photo stylist). My job is physical, I’m either standing all day or crawling around the floor / holding my body in weird positions to get the work done. I have to be aware of my cycle when booking in work- fortunately I tend to know the days my period will be here and impacting me the most but this does mean purposely taking time out of work. Even if on average it’s a couple of days a month, that’s a lot of days a year I’m missing out on some much needed income!! I don’t have a job that I can simply work from home on those days. (And mentally I’m drained those days too!)

I saw that Universal Credit could be claimed for endometriosis, but unsure how likely it is that claims are successful. Especially when self employed.

If anyone has any similar experience at all then I’d love to hear

Thanks in advance!

[Looppydee]

hello!

I don’t know about being able to claim back anything, however I am self employed and have had this exact issue. As I have a desk job I manage better through the excruciating pain, but it is life altering and I couldn’t imagine having a physical job with this condition and sympathise completely.

My only advice would be if possible to obtain private medical insurance (tax deductible for self employed) and then look at treatment for the endo after a few months? Do you have any savings that would enable you to be off work recovering for a while? I understand the pain of the financial hit during recovery, but hopefully it might make things better in long term, if possible. Could family help with a loan for expenses during the period for example?

I am very averse to having an operation and have struggled for years until my life has become almost unlivable, but finally has an operation last Monday. I had 11 fibroids removed by one surgeon and then an endo surgeon remove the endometriosis from my rectum and colon 😢

Understanding and accommodation for this illness seems to be minimal - I had one manager tell me a few months ago that i was making up this ‘endometriosis’ condition to avoid having to come to the office - but I hope things are better in the arts 🙏🏼

Lots of love to you, I hope you find a way through this X

[EndoJoys in reply to Looppydee]

Hi,

Thanks so much for your reply!

Oh gosh! Wishing you a well and speedy recovery! Hopefully you feel some sort of relief after you are all healed.

It’s horrible to be told things like that. I’m seeing lots more conversation about the condition on tv and in the media recently, so hopefully some awareness spreads to everyone that thinks it’s all made up. I don’t often speak about it in my workplace where it’s heavily male, but open up to the women in some of my jobs who are very understanding and usually know someone also suffering.

I’m currently on the waitlist for a second surgery after I had a bad flare up in the spring. I’m unsure whether I still want to continue with that as I’m generally ok most days now. It’s the full body aches that I just have to deal with really, but the not being able to physically or mentally do anything when I have my period is the most frustrating and it’s annoying to miss out on work to just lay! I’m not doing anything productive or fun with this time. I don’t even have the brain power to read my book!

I’ll have to have a further look into all of this, but I’m feeling it’s unlikely there will be any help under these circumstances 😔

Back to the never ending research hey! That’s all we do when it comes to this condition!

Wishing you all the best 🩷

[Purpleindigo]

Hey,

If you have very severe endometriosis, you could apply for PIP. From my understanding, you can apply when you have a chronic condition that affects daily life. You would need to have an assessment done and most likely some supporting information from your endo consultant.

You can continue to work whilst recieveing PIP and there's no maximum hrs you're allowed to work. I think with universal credit they may restrict the hrs you're allowed to work and still recieve the payments.

Hope this helps! X

[EndoJoys in reply to Purpleindigo]

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply!

That’s all good to know! I’m going to look into this further. I think I’ve seen some people mention PIP- I don’t know how successful it would be because nothing is easy for us, right. I’ll definitely look into this though , aswell as the UC working hrs terms.

Thanks again, appreciate it! 🩷