Interstitial Cystitis – Insurance Recovery Analyst, 63 years old

Our client suffered from interstitial cystitis which caused her to take 2 to 3 bathroom breaks per hour, each break lasting approximately 5 minutes, and she was also missing approximately 2-3 days of work per month due to flare ups and bladder issues. She was forced to stop working because of her symptoms and she filed a Social Security disability claim in addition to short term and long term disability claims through her employer. Her Social Security claim was denied at the original claim and reconsideration levels, Disability Determination Services found that she was able to perform medium duty work despite her symptoms.

We appealed the decisions and an Administrative Law Judge found that our client had the physical ability to perform work at all exertional levels but her symptoms from interstitial cystitis would cause her to take breaks every hour for a total of 15 minutes and that she would be absent from work 3 or more days per month, which would not be tolerated by an employer, and found that she was disabled. The client chose not to collect early retirement benefits while her Social Security disability application was pending.