ellipsisdream - My diagnosis has been Major Depressive Disorder with Anxiety. My primary doctor told me to focus on that. I thought he was wrong.

I also have spinal problems, and a bad knee and an arthritic foot. In filling out the 15 page thing about how my ailments affected my working ability, I wove in ALL the problems that I was having. SSA sent me for x-rays of my back, knee, and right foot. The x - rays did demonstrate that I had damage in each of those areas. Then I was sent to an MD for an orthopedic eval. It was shortly afterwards that I heard of getting approved. The x-rays actually showed that my back was in worse shape than either my doctor or I even knew.

There is no way for me to know whether my psych diagnosis alone would have got me approved. Maybe it would have. My gut feeling is that the process would have dragged on longer, if not for my physical problems being factored in. I am 59 y.o. I believe that got factored in also.

My treatment for depression goes back to age 25. I'm sure that helped. I have a long paper trail of treatment for depression. I have been on medications continuously from that age till now. In recent years, a great many different meds were tried without a good outcome. The paralegals I talked to at different firms, before I chose one, seemed to be most interested in the fact that I was on a lot of meds. They would write down every med. Also, I'ld been seem by a number of doctors over the years.

If approved, your checks start 5 months after the date of the onset of you're being disabled. My law firm and I selected mid-February as the onset of me becoming disabled from working. We used the date that I had been sent home from my job as not being able to perform well. So that meant we had to skip Mar, april, may, june & july. I was eligible to get benefits in August. However, you get paid the month after you are eligible. So my first check was in September.

Hope I've made a bit clearer how the process works.