Can you get Social Security disability for CRPS and RSD?

Indiana disability claimants with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) often experience severe pain that prevents them from holding down a full-time job. The condition is also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy, or RSD, and Social Security treats the two terms as describing the same syndrome. If you or someone you know is struggling with it, you may be eligible for Social Security disability benefits.

What CRPS is

CRPS is a chronic pain syndrome that usually develops after trauma to a single limb, though it can also follow surgery, illness, or injury elsewhere in the body. Even a minor injury can trigger it.

The defining feature is that the pain reported is out of proportion to the severity of the injury that caused it. The pain is often described as burning, and it can be constant. Along with the pain, the condition typically produces signs of autonomic dysfunction in the affected region, involving the skin, the tissue beneath it, and the bone. Pain that begins in one limb may spread beyond the original site over time, and when the condition is left untreated the signs and symptoms may worsen.

The underlying mechanism is not fully understood, though dysfunction of the sympathetic nervous system has been strongly implicated.

There are two types. Type I, which is what reflex sympathetic dystrophy refers to, develops without a confirmed nerve injury. Type II, historically called causalgia, follows a documented injury to a specific peripheral nerve.

How Social Security evaluates CRPS

Social Security does not have a listing for CRPS or RSD in its Listing of Impairments.

That does not mean you cannot win your claim.

What many claimants do not know is that Social Security issued a policy ruling addressing this condition directly: SSR 03-2p, Evaluating Cases Involving Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome / Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. That ruling is binding on everyone who decides your claim, from the initial examiner through the Administrative Law Judge, and it sets out in specific terms what establishes the condition.

What establishes CRPS as a medically determinable impairment

Under SSR 03-2p, CRPS can be established where there are persistent complaints of pain that are typically out of proportion to the severity of any documented precipitant, together with one or more of the following clinically documented signs in the affected region:

• Swelling
• Autonomic instability, meaning changes in skin color or texture, changes in skin temperature, abnormal sweating whether decreased or excessive, or abnormal pilomotor erection, which is gooseflesh
• Abnormal hair or nail growth
• Osteoporosis
• Involuntary movements of the affected region

Note how little this asks compared with what most claimants assume. You do not need all of these. One clinically documented sign, alongside the disproportionate pain, is enough to establish the impairment.

The point that decides many of these claims

Here is the detail worth understanding, and it is the most useful thing on this page.

The sign has to have been documented at any time following the triggering event. It does not have to be present at your consultative examination, at your hearing, or at any particular appointment.

This matters because the signs of CRPS are frequently transient. Swelling subsides. Skin color and temperature fluctuate. A limb that was mottled and cold in March may look unremarkable in September. It is entirely normal for the medical evidence in a CRPS file to appear inconsistent, with signs recorded at some visits and absent at others, and SSR 03-2p recognizes this rather than treating it as a reason for doubt.

The ruling goes further than that. It states that where longitudinal treatment records document persistent limiting pain in an area where one or more of these signs has been documented at some point since the precipitating injury, adjudicators can reliably determine that the condition is present.

If an examiner or judge has questioned your claim because your symptoms were not observed on the day you were examined, that is not the standard the ruling sets. What matters is the longitudinal record: the full history of your treatment, including the visits where the signs were documented.

If your claim was denied on that basis, it is worth appealing rather than starting a new application. Appealing protects your original filing date and the back pay attached to it, and you generally have sixty days from the date on the notice.

CRPS can medically equal a listing

Because there is no listing for CRPS, it cannot meet one. It can, however, medically equal a listing, either on its own or in combination with another impairment. This is worth exploring with your treating physician, since it takes a medical opinion to make the argument.

If you do not equal a listing

Most CRPS claims are decided on residual functional capacity, meaning what you can still do despite the condition. As with any claim, your condition also has to have lasted, or be expected to last, at least twelve months.

Many Indiana residents find that because of this condition they cannot sit, stand, walk, or lift the objects necessary to maintain employment. Some find they cannot be at work the required number of days to stay employed. Others find the chronic pain makes it impossible to stay on task. Where a person simply cannot do the work an employer expects, Social Security may agree that they cannot perform their past job or any other job in the economy.

Several features of CRPS matter here and are worth documenting specifically:

• Use of the affected limb. Where CRPS affects a hand or arm, the loss of fine and gross manipulation can rule out most sedentary work, which is otherwise where many claimants would be placed.
• Allodynia. Many people with CRPS cannot tolerate light touch, clothing, or air movement on the affected area. This is difficult to convey and easy to leave out, but it is disabling in ways that a lifting restriction does not capture.
• Cold and temperature sensitivity. Many workplaces cannot accommodate the environmental restrictions this creates.
• Medication effects. Nerve pain medication and opioids frequently cause drowsiness and difficulty concentrating, which are limitations in their own right.
• Depression and anxiety. These commonly accompany chronic pain conditions, and Social Security is required to consider all of your impairments in combination.

Your age, education, and work history matter at this stage too. A claimant of 50 or older with no transferable skills is in a considerably stronger position than a younger claimant with identical limitations, and at 55 the vocational rules shift again in the claimant’s favor. Since June 22, 2024, Social Security also looks only at work performed in the previous five years rather than fifteen.

The medical evidence your claim needs

Because of the nature of this condition, it is usually very important to seek appropriate medical treatment and maintain a good medical record. Useful evidence includes:

• Documentation of the injury or event that triggered the condition
• Treatment notes recording the specific signs listed above, on the dates they were observed
• Records from a pain specialist or neurologist
• Imaging, where osteoporosis in the affected region has been identified
• Records of treatments attempted, including nerve blocks, physical therapy, and medication trials
• Notes describing what you can and cannot do with the affected limb

If your treating physician can describe your functional limitations in their progress notes, it may improve your chances considerably. A medical source statement addressing how often you would be absent, and what you can do with the affected limb across a full workday, is more useful than one describing the diagnosis in general terms.

Statements from people who see you regularly, including family, friends, and former employers, can also support your claim by describing how your symptoms affect your daily functioning.

Talk with an Indiana disability attorney about your CRPS claim

If CRPS or RSD is preventing you from working, you may be entitled to Social Security disability benefits.

The single most useful thing you can do for a CRPS claim is go back through your records and find the visits where a sign was actually documented. It does not matter that the swelling has gone or that your skin looked normal at your last appointment. What matters is that it was written down at some point after the injury, and that the record shows the pain has persisted since.

Contact my office for a free consultation, and I will go through what your file already establishes and what it still needs.