Query regarding seizures and PIP Appeal

Under the Justification for descriptor choice on my daughters PIP assessment form, the HP has given one of the reasons as "For the majority of times doesn't have seizures" . She has done so on 5 occasions.

Am I correct in thinking that this could be challenged ? It seems a strange statement to me, as
she could have another seizure at any time.

Your advice would be appreciated please.

You don't say whether you are the stage of reconsideration?

It's probably true to say that your daughter doesn't have seizures for the majority of time, BUT that is not to say that the seizures are unpredictable and/or frightening and/or dangerous. Does it make any mention of the after effects of these seizures, and the length of time of recovery from them, and how they affect your daughter's quality of life?

If you can keep a diary of when the seizures occur, how long the recovery time is, and whether you can find any obvious trigger for the seizures, you will be in a better position to question the view of the HP, and also (by reading the guides on the site) whether you can better frame your responses to the questions on the form. I hope you will then be able to decide whether tribunal is the next step. Good luck.

Thank you for replying so promptly. I should have explained that my daughter has appealed and that her tribunal is on 14th December. We are preparing her submission at the moment.

No, the Nurse did not ask about the after effects, recovery time or effect on my daughter's quality of life.

Your advice has been really helpful, thank you so much.

Val,

The nurse should have asked about any warning signals your daughter has about her seizures and how long they last and whether or not there are ongoing effects after having a seizure. I think it's definnitely worth pointing this out to them if you can show that they affect your daughter's life more than 50% of the time in some way. For instance is she allowed to drive, does she need supervising with any kind of appliance or machinery which is not necessarily to do with cooking. For me, I've been advised to not take baths unsupervised or iron my clothes amongst other things. I believe giving examples like this are useful because it shows that if it's dangerous for you to do these things it's dangerous to cook.

In my letter from the decision maker the've actually said: 'Your seizures are brief. YOu take no medication for them and you do not receive specialist intervention'. Absolutely blazing mad because the assessor was told that there was an ongoing neurology investigating into them and that I'd actually went to my gp months ago begging him to put me on some kind of medication to help me because they were so frequent happening one after the other up to 100 times a day every day. Also he was told that I'm intolerant to most medications. I've since been to the neurologist again who's basically said he doesn't want me on any kind of medication because he believes it will make me worse.

The reason I'm telling you this is because I hope it will help you understand the things they are saying to other people. Basically they are saying to folk if they dont take medication then your seizures arent that bad and if you do take medication then they're controlled.

Do not give up though. They've made the error by not giving you the opportunity to put forward information.