Long, rambing, mostly incoherent post (re B12)

[Saoirse2016]

Okay, so a few months ago, I was injecting once a week, then twice a week and so on working my way towards every day...I was injecting EOD, when I got a form from the social welfare demanding to know why I'd not gotten a job etc (they do this to me every 6 months or so).

Part of the form asked (indirectly) are you available for work 24/7? Well no one is FFS, and I stupidly said I couldn't work mornings on account of having Type 2 Diabetes, and I've been unable to find a job that's working from home.

3 days later I'm told they're stopping my JobSeekers Allowance. Since the stipulation for JSA here in Ireland is to find a job suitable for you, I tried to appeal the decision, but my email was bounced back as undeliverable [this happens every time I try to email the Social Welfare].

I walked the near 2 miles to the dole office and the woman there looked confused as to why they'd stopped my JSA, and the more she read and re-read the reason the more confused she looked!

I got a form for Supplementary Welfare Allowance and one for Disability Allowance (since they'd essentially said "can't work due to health issues").

I've sent 7 forms for Disability Allowance over the past 30 years, been rejected every time and never gotten to appeal because they make it nigh on impossible to appeal.

Well they shot themselves in the foot this time by taking my JSA off me for health issues!!!!

I had to speak to the GP as supposedly you have to have a medical exam before they'll fill out the medical report for the form. I wasn't given a medical examination, and I had to have the usual argument when the GP tried to put Kallmann Syndrome on the form.

I pointed out that my main problem these days is peripheral neuropathy (they'd been told 6 times that I have Very Bad neuropathy in my feet - not that anyone checked my hands) so she wrote that down.

Apparently the neurologist that I saw 5 years ago thinks it's diabetic neuropathy, but I think it's the lack of B12 (and said so!!) also I was on metformin when I was first diagnosed T2D, and it's now known that it causes problems where you can't absorb B12 through your digestive system.

I was trying to tell the GP that, but she started getting all shirty at me and for the second time told me I can always speak to another doctor in the practice if I'm not going to listen to her/take her advice.

She did order blood tests for the B12 deficiency. I'm to go on the 17th June.

Since I've no idea what day of the week, or month that it is (hell I haven't even taken my Christmas tree down yet!!!) I stopped giving myself the injections so I wouldn't have a really high level of B12 - and that was 3 weeks ago...!

All the walking into and back from town (minimum of a mile one way) and it's been really hot and sunny here,, I think I've used up all my stores of B12. When I realised the bloods are next Monday I didn't want to take any in case it skews the blood tests, but this morning, between the heat, and my needing to put the dishwasher on, and do some laundry, I bloody nearly fainted!!!

So I caved and gave myself an injection - which worked almost immediately, and I'm feeling much better now an hour or so later.

Hopefully it won't affect the blood tests, and I'll ask to see a different doctor for the results when they get them, and point out that they used to give my mother a B12 injection monthly, so if she was getting it monthly, why am I being left to suffer? At the end of the day they've given me loading doses at least 5 times in the last 10 years [or less].

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[Narwhal10]

Hi Saoirse2016,

I am sorry to read that you fainted and are feeling poorly. You wanted to feel better so gave yourself an injection. No big deal. Very often the Department of Works & Pensions (DWP) make a few mistakes which impacts those who need it.

You are trying to get your Job Seeker’s Allowance reinstated because they made an error. This was clarified by your trek to an office where you engaged with a Real Woman who I hope you took her name.

Contacting them via email is not possible which leaves you options of ringing them or writing to them. I am inclined to go for the latter and send recorded delivery or whatever so you know that it has got there.

Now, the Supplementary Welfare Allowance Forms and Disability Allowance Forms are yours to complete properly, comprehensively and accurately. Daily Living Activities such as washing, dressing, walking across a room, bending down to unload a washing machine, getting in and out of a shower or bath. Whether you can do these things Safely, in a reasonable amount of Time, Repeatedly and To an Acceptable Standard. No GP nor Consultant nor Diabetic Nurse will have ANY idea of how you manage these. Nor the little tricks, adaptations or ingenious ways that you have come up with. Only you know. So, you tell the DWP what you can and cannot manage Realistically and without your ‘coping mechanisms’.

You can also include a Diary of a Typical Day or over a week.

You quite clearly state on the Forms, GP unable to give a Medical Examination. If the GP writes Kallmann Syndrome on your forms, tell the DWP that this is incorrect, if it is the case and explain that you have Chronic Health Conditions which were both undiagnosed and misdiagnosed for years. This is just being honest.

You can put copies of letters of appointments or printouts of snapshots of text appointments from Diabetic Nurse and even the Neurologist from 5 years ago and say that for the latter you have had no Follow Up.

Do include receipts or a typed up letter of anything you pay for yourself for your Health such as incontinence pads, foot and hand supports with your Name and National Insurance Number. Plus, things like cleaning services because your physical health stops you from doing your own housework.

On this occasion, it best not to quibble with the GP and upsetting her. Simply because this is about money and your income. Please do contact Citizen’s Advice (I hope you are in Northern Ireland) and tell them your current situation of your JSA being stopped. Plus, you have these new Forms to complete. They can guide you through the process and help with an Appeal.

Please know that the number on the computer of your Vitamin B12 test taken on 17 June 2024 will not tell ANYONE that you fainted on 12 June 2024 because of Heat Intolerance. However, you can tell the DWP this. How your Illness Affects You.

I do advise to do thing at a time, get your Benefits sorted because it is a big Task then tackle frequency with the GP.

Hope this helps.

🐳

“I am Holly, the ship’s computer, with an IQ of 6,000. The same IQ as 6,000 PE teachers.”

[Saoirse2016 in reply to Narwhal10]

Sorry for the delay, my hands decided to seize up on me...

>I am sorry to read that you fainted and are feeling poorly.

I didn't faint, I felt like I was going to though, big black splotches in front of my eyes, and everything!!

>Very often the Department of Works & Pensions (DWP) make a few >mistakes which impacts those who need it.

Ireland's Social Welfare (they keep changing the name of it, and I gave up as to what it's currently called) makes mistakes all the time. They answer to no one and have no accountability, so they get away with it.

>You are trying to get your Job Seeker’s Allowance reinstated because they >made an error.

No, I've been trying to get Disability Allowance for over 30 years. A physio asked my [then] GP to sign me off onto Disability due to a sacroiliac injury. That GP refused to, and every GP I've spoken to since has laughed in my face when I've spoken to them.

>Contacting them via email is not possible which leaves you options of >ringing them or writing to them.

I'm 99.9% certain they've blocked my email. I discovered an old Gmail address and that one got through. They have blocked me on Twitter.

>I am inclined to go for the latter and send recorded delivery or whatever >so you know that it has got there.

The Social Welfare here are incompetent, they keep no record, or log, of anything they receive be it email, snail mail, phone, walk-in. That way when they fu...mess up there's no paper trail and you [on the receiving end of the mistake] can't do anything about it.

>Now, the Supplementary Welfare Allowance Forms and Disability >Allowance Forms are yours to complete properly, comprehensively and >accurately.

They've been filled out and sent off, I'm getting S.W.A. and am waiting on a decision on the D.A. (previously it took them 8 months to get back to me).

The new forms have a section for you to fill out detailing how your illness/injury/health issues affect your life. Supposedly it gets read by a doctor and not some numpty sitting at a desk.

>You quite clearly state on the Forms, GP unable to give a Medical >Examination.

GP wasn't unable to perform a medical examination, she just didn't... When I made the appointment the receptionist typed in "medical examination for Disability Allowance form" the GP ignored this.

She'd no idea why I was there to see her, and she didn't seem to know that I had bloods done a couple of months ago...

>If the GP writes Kallmann Syndrome on your forms

I yelled at her not to. And for once, she listened and didn't write it on the form.

>explain that you have Chronic Health Conditions which were both >undiagnosed and misdiagnosed for years. This is just being honest.

Yes, but the doctors will deny all of that. They don't have my old (pre 1992) medical files, and they don't want them. They ignore me completely and totally. They obey the word of my narcissistic mother

1: "Don't listen to anything Saoirse tells you, she's tapped in the head"

2: "Saoirse hates me, she thinks I'm a terrible mother, she keeps making up stories about me"

3: "Saoirse isn't sick, she's just lazy. She was in hospital and they proved there was nothing wrong with her"

Thus it was, and thus it will always be, I get nowhere speaking to any doctor in that clinic. They all have to report to my mother's GP if I see anyone, and she recites the protocols and that's the end of that. And there's no way anyone's going to admit to that!

>You can put copies of letters of appointments or printouts of snapshots of >text appointments from Diabetic Nurse and even the Neurologist from 5 >years ago and say that for the latter you have had no Follow Up.

I don't have any letter, or anything to attach,. I asked the GP what the podiatrist and the diabetic nurses names were to put on the form, She didn't tell me.

>Do include receipts or a typed up letter of anything you pay for yourself >for your Health such as incontinence pads

They don't reimburse you for things you've already bought.

>foot and hand supports.

I don't have any, there's a website for medical aids, but everything on it is waaaaay out of my budget.

>Plus, things like cleaning services because your physical health stops you >from doing your own housework.

I don't have a cleaner I cannot afford to pay someone €20 an hour for however many hours a week I'd need them.

>On this occasion, it best not to quibble with the GP and upsetting her.

She's the one who's upsetting me, she's toeing the party line of "don't listen to Saoirse, don't refer her on to anyone, and never ever treat her for anything she's whining about. Prescribe an antidepressant and tell her to piss off."

Ask me how I know this!

>Please do contact Citizen’s Advice (I hope you are in Northern Ireland)

I am in Ireland, as in the Republic of.

Citizen's Information (as it's called here) don't have an office anywhere near me, ocassionally they have a van parked somewhere in town, but I have no idea how to find out when they'll be doing that. Also a woman there years ago took a spite to me as my parents' owned our house outright (having paid off a 30 year mortgage - the very nerve of them!!) and won't help me with anything, and in the good old Irish manner, everyone in the Citizen's Information network has heard of me and - you've guessed it! won't help me.

>Please know that the number on the computer of your Vitamin B12 test >taken on 17 June 2024 will not tell ANYONE that you fainted on 12 June >2024 because of Heat Intolerance.

I'm hoping my B12 levels will be less than the mandated 200 something somethings so the GP will give me a prescription (cheaper than having to buy it! also adds to my D.A. claim)

>However, you can tell the DWP this. How your Illness Affects You.

Think I said heat affects me on the form, I had to reprint the form and re-do it because my hands just weren't playing, so I not sure what I wrote on the form that was sent in, and thanks to the Brain Fog and the urgent need to get the form to them A.S.A.P. I forgot to photocopy the form...

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