Determining how your chronic pain limits you physically can be tricky. You may be able to stand or walk for an hour without resting, but only by gritting your teeth against the pain. Or perhaps a long walk feels fine at the time, but you pay for it later with sore muscles or exhaustion. When applying, you need to be realistic about how your pain would limit you in full-time employment. If you can only stand or walk an hour at a time by ignoring a great deal of pain, you probably cannot stand or walk an hour at a time every day to do a job. (This would mean that you are limited to doing sedentary work, or even “less than sedentary” work.)
And don’t forget to write down all the things you do to relieve your pain throughout the day. Do you have to put your feet up periodically? Do you need to lie down or nap every day? Is it important that you are able to stand up and stretch your legs when whenever you want? Do you have to apply heat or cold packs throughout the day? These are physical limitations that affect your ability to work some full-time jobs, so you need to include them in your application. Remember, if you (and your doctor) don’t write it down, Social Security won’t know all the ways your pain limits you. (For more information, see our article on why your doctor needs to document your functional limitations.)
In general, pain is not something that can be established by objective testing or observation. Only you can know whether and how much it hurts. For this reason, your credibility is very important to establish disability based on chronic pain. This is why it’s important not to exaggerate your symptoms. However, if Social Security denies you benefits because it doesn’t believe your symptoms are as bad as you say they are, the agency must have clear and convincing reasons to reject the claims in your application or your testimony.