Obtaining Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) can be a time-consuming and stressful experience. Two out of every three applicants initially are denied. Fibromyalgia shut down Diana Caradine during a time when she needed employment the most. After a divorce, she struggled to maintain her job as a waitress while withstanding excruciating pain throughout her body. Read how Allsup helped Ms. Caradine continue to pay for the basics in life.

 

 

 

Santee, California - In the fall of 2005, the illness that changed Diana Caradine’s life struck her “like a Mack truck.”

 

Ms. Caradine remembered, “I felt terrible, I ached all over. I had trouble getting out of bed. I thought I had the flu for two months.”

 

Ms. Caradine, now 50, struggled to continue working as a waitress at a popular San Diego restaurant specializing in homemade pot pies. Carrying heavy containers of ice, trays of food and water pitchers became nearly impossible. Standing for long periods of time was excruciating.

 

Worse, her memory was shot and that’s a major problem for a person in food service. “I would forget. I just always felt like I was in a fog,” she said.

 

It was a job she loved, a place like home. She had worked the early shift for 15 years as she raised her four children. But there was an 18-mile commute through big-city traffic to get there. “It was just a lot when you didn’t feel good,” Ms. Caradine said. “You have to be fast, and I just couldn’t catch up.”

 

A few months after she first started experiencing crushing fatigue and severe pain, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The disease causes widespread muscular pain, fatigue and memory problems. It can’t be cured, but medications are given to try to ease the pain. She also was diagnosed with depression, a common symptom of fibromyalgia. Another issue has been chronic insomnia, also typical.

 

“It took my life real quickly,” Ms. Caradine said. “I couldn’t do any of the things I normally did.”

 

Soon it became clear that working was no longer an option. Recently divorced, Ms. Caradine worried about keeping a roof over her head.

 

One day she was at the local library, emailing her son who was serving in Iraq at that time. She also spent a few moments looking at fibromyalgia information on a website devoted to the disease. There, she noticed an online advertisement for Allsup, a company she had never heard of.

 

After researching the Illinois-based company, she learned that Allsup was founded in 1984. Since then, it has successfully guided more than 150,000 people with severe disabilities through the complicated Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) process to receive the benefits they paid for with FICA taxes while working.

 

She soon got in touch with Allsup, and was hopeful when they discussed her situation. “I knew it would take a while, but Allsup had been in business more than 25 years and had handled a lot of fibromyalgia disability cases,” Ms. Caradine said. “I had a lot of faith.”

 

Allsup helped Ms. Caradine fight for her Social Security benefits for nearly two years. It was a long journey through two appeals and an appearance before an administrative law judge. “Allsup was the only thing that kept me together,” she said. “They told me what to expect. Once I got out of my hearing, I felt like a ton of bricks was lifted.” Her Allsup representative praised her about how she handled the hearing. That gave Ms. Caradine much-needed hope.

 

Not long after her hearing, she received word that she had won her fight for benefits. “I screamed and grabbed my daughter and cried,” Ms. Caradine remembered. The news was also huge for her 21-year-old daughter. Her mother’s primary support, she had been working long hours at a grocery store to pay the pair’s rent. 

 

“Allsup saved my life. They really did,” Ms. Caradine declared. “I could never have handled this case without them. I didn’t have the knowledge or energy to handle it, and they did. They were wonderful. Now, we can have food, gas and pay our rent on time.”

 

Ms. Caradine is eager to recommend Allsup to others because her representatives were so compassionate and responsive.