CV with health problems and not worked for 20 years

Profligate

Hi
I think I remember reading in a pp that you were now jobseeking after being found fit for work at an ESA WCA?

If that is you, and you do still have some health issues (some muscloskeletal type, maybe?), do try to ensure you are clear with the jobcentre about the nature of your illness/health issues and how they affect you.
See Citizens Advice https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/employment-and-support-allowance/help-with-your-esa-claim/what-to-do-if-youre-not-awarded-esa/

The Claimant Commitment/ Jobseeker's Agreement you are required to adhere to as part of your jobsearch activity for JSA or Universal credit has to be reasonable and achievable for you, taking into account your own particular circumstances and health .

If you have some disability, the jobcentre must make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 for you.

Claimants face sanctions if they do not meet the requirements set out in the Claimant Commitment - therefore it's really important you are clear about what you can/can't do. Maybe see if your GP would write a letter to support this.

Also, if you do want to take up a volunteering commitment to increase your skills, you should discuss this with the jobcentre & hopefully they will agree it's beneficial, and will take the volunteering time off your work search requirements.

Good luck

Iwanttobefree

Mojisola wrote: »

I'd love to know what the cure is.

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Me too.

Here's part of a letter I wrote in 2011 to my NHS trust when my CFS was really bad (and before anyone else asked, it took me days to write)

(sorry, just checked, link in below quote is no longer active)

I haven't worked now for nearly 10 years. Going from 42K a year to living off £192 a fortnight is bad enough. Having absolutely no possibility of any light at the end of the tunnel is mind numbing.

At the moment I do feel very down. I am extremely annoyed. It's the start of the 6th month of this year and I have managed to do very little as I am so tired all the time. I don't think I'm suffering from clinical depression, I am simply absolutely sick to the teeth and frustrated at the lack of progress with my illness.

I've mentioned it to my doctor. He says I'm under the hospital and as I've been diagnosed with CFS, there's not a lot he can do.

Personally I feel that the CFS title is a bit of a cop out. It seems like you run a few basic blood tests etc, rule out various things, then if you can't find the cause, stick the patient under the CFS umbrella.

Or to put it another way, almost every illness out there has fatigue as a side effect. I've read loads of things on the internet and seen various things on TV where people were suffering exactly the same symptoms as I am yet were caused by a whole range of different things.

I know two other close friends with CFS. Both have illnesses that are absolutely 100% different to mine. One has to go round in a mobility scooter, the other comes out in bruises and looks like she's been beaten up. Yet we all have the same illness???

I appreciate hospitals have limited budgets but when you think that for 10 years, instead of me paying tax on £42K+, my family have been supported by the tax payer including free glasses, dentists, prescriptions etc, and the fact that while I'm not getting any worse, I'm also not getting any better, I would have thought it's in the countries financial interest to spend the money on trying to find out and fix what's wrong with me so I can lead a normal life again and go back into the working world?

A quick google and the first web site I look at says fatigue can be caused by the following

• Anemia
• Anxiety or panic disorder
• Autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease and spondyloarthropathy
• Blood disorders such as anemia and hemochromatosis
• Cancer
• Chemical dependency
• Depression and other mental disorders that feature depressed mood
• Diabetes
• Eating disorders
• Fibromyalgia
• Heart disease
• Hypothyroidism
• Infectious diseases such as infectious mononucleosis, Lyme disease
• Lead poisoning
• Leukemia or lymphoma
• Muscular dystrophy
• Neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and post-concussion syndrome
• Physical trauma and other pain-causing conditions, such as arthritis
• Sleep deprivation or sleep disorders
• Superior canal dehiscence syndrome
• Wilson's disease
How many of these have been ruled out?
Is it worth doing a MRI scan of my brain and possibly my chest to check everything is as it should be?

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/symptoms/fatigue/causes.htm

has a list of 2704 different diseases/conditions that also cause fatigue

I am 45 years old and I suspect I have a good 20 - 40 years left to live. It must be better for the country's finances to get me better and keep investigating everything until you find the cause, rather than simply forget about me?

I had a hiatus hernia diagnosed in the 90s. I asked them to operate as it was so bad. They refused, going on about budgets and would rather treat me with medication.

A long story short, I became physically exhausted, grumpy, loosing it at work due to tiredness hence loosing my job. Moved 200 miles away from friends and family so we could afford to survive on my wifes earnings.

Screwed my career, screwed my pension.

Would wake up in the night choking with acid reflux in my lungs, eyes going purple as I had an hour long coughing fit and lost my voice for a few hours (happening more and more regularly)

Eventually a new GP agreed it needed to be looked at again.

Sent for tests, then to another hospital for further tests, if I scored something like 16 I would benefit from an op, I scored over 60.

Referred to specialist who was really annoyed they hadn't operated all those years ago. went on waiting list and eventually had an op called a Nissen Fundiplication that turned my diaphragm into a one way valve. (can no longer vomit, drink fizzy drinks etc)

And I've had zero ME/CFS Tiredness since I woke up from the op just over 4 years ago.

I do however still suffer from the side effects I got with it, depression, I can no longer handle the slightest bit of stress, it exhausts me, and my short term memory is sometimes really bad (not talking about forgetting someones age, I'm talking about things like going to take a tablet and my wife saying she just got it for me and I just took it and me having zero recollection.

But being able to wake up every day without that ME/CFS tiredness is brilliant. I do still get tired for other reasons, depression, sleepless nights do to other issues, but it's a different sort of tiredness.

So basically for me anyway my theory about ME/CFS was right.

And had they operated on me when I wanted, I would probably be still living in Guildford, a nice salary and a nice pension.

Still, at least I have a roof over my head and a lovely wife

Mojisola

Iwanttobefree wrote: »

Referred to specialist who was really annoyed they hadn't operated all those years ago. went on waiting list and eventually had an op called a Nissen Fundiplication that turned my diaphragm into a one way valve. (can no longer vomit, drink fizzy drinks etc)

And I've had zero ME/CFS Tiredness since I woke up from the op just over 4 years ago.

So you didn't have ME. You had chronic fatigue as a result of another health problem.

Iwanttobefree

Mojisola wrote: »

So you didn't have ME. You had chronic fatigue as a result of another health problem.

But thats exactly what I'm saying, there's person after person diagnosed with CFS/ME has eventually had it cured by an unrelated operation.

They were all diagnosed with CFS/ME.

I was told I had the classic symptoms and was under one of the leading UK ME specialists (now deceased) .

And they admitted to me that no one knows the cause of it and everyone has it differently, and they agreed with my opinion when I was diagnosed, ie if a solution cant be found after a number of tests, you are put in the CFS/ME group.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to say CFS/ME doesn't exist or is put on etc. It was the most horrible thing I've ever experienced.

What I am saying is that the 3 people I know fairly well that also have CFS/ME, all have completely different symptoms to each other and to what I had, the one similarity being tiredness.

When I went back to the hospital and said my tiredness has completely disappeared after my op, i was told they had seen this happen many times before.

When I had my CFS/ME and questioned the specialists, they agreed with me that we are lumped under an umbrella after x amount of tests, but that the NHS can't realistically run tests for every possible thing, and often as in my case, it wasn't until they operate, thats its cured, and no test would show that.

My GP only yesterday was talking about when I had ME before my op cured it, as was an anaesthetist last year that I've seen a few times before various ops at my local hospital.

I spent years writing letters to everyone (MPs, Health Trust, NHS Ombudsman, Health minister etc etc etc trying to get more done for my ME/CFS. I ended up being seen once a year for 30 mins and told there's nothing they can do and I need to try and pace myself and do less than the little I was actually managing to do.

You appear to be telling me because they found what was causing mine, that I didn't have it, Well you can think what you like, but that's not what any of the specialists I've seen say including the ME specialists.

I was asked how mine was cured and I spent the time answering, I don't intend getting into an argument with arm chair doctors when I know what the specialists have said and I know what my GP says.

And of course there will be many people that have it for other reasons that an operation wont fix, and many people get it after operations etc etc etc (it';s a big umbrella that encapsulates many many different forms of ME)