A worked example showing how each of the 12 PIP activities can be described for someone with chronic migraine. Every answer is written in the first person, in the plain wording assessors look for, and each one weaves in the reliability factors that decide how an activity scores.
Chronic migraine is nothing like the headache most people picture. An attack can take your sight, your balance and your ability to be in any room with a light on or a television playing. There is often aura first, with a blind spot and flickering zigzag lines across your vision, then hours of severe pain with nausea and vomiting, and the only thing that helps is lying in a dark, silent room until it passes. When attacks come several days a week, that is not the odd ruined afternoon. It is most of your life. The problem on the form is that between attacks you can look and sound completely well, so the gap between how you seem and how many days the attacks take from you is the hardest thing to get across.
The second half of an attack gets left off forms far too often. The day after, the pain has gone but you are wrung out, slow, muddled and unable to hold anything in your head, and you are still not safe or reliable at ordinary tasks. That recovery day belongs in your answers, because it is part of the attack, not a separate good day. So does the unpredictability: you cannot know at breakfast whether you will spend the afternoon in a dark room, so nothing can be planned, promised or done to a schedule.
This is where the reliability rules do the work. An activity only counts as something you can do if you can do it safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time. During an attack almost nothing meets that test: you cannot chop or use a hob when you cannot see properly and you are being sick, you cannot read when light hurts your eyes, and you cannot repeat a task you had to abandon halfway. A fluctuating condition is judged on how you are on most days rather than your best ones, so what matters is how many days a week you are in an attack or recovering from one, and what you cannot do on those days.
The answers below are written with that thread running through them: not whether chronic migraine stops you every single day, but whether you can do each activity properly on most days. Not every one of the 12 activities will apply to you, and leaving one alone is the honest answer, because an honest form is a stronger form. The DWP always makes the final decision, but describing your real days accurately gives your form the strongest chance of being understood.
What to cover for each one. Your paid form writes the full answers for you.
This question is about the act of taking food and drink, not about appetite or nausea, so being too sick to face food during an attack does not belong here. If you can cut a meal up, get it to your mouth, chew and swallow without help, leave this one alone and say so plainly. Someone bringing food and drink to your bed during an attack is not what this question measures, so it would only count if an attack leaves you needing help to cut food up or get a drink to your mouth.
Describe how you have to watch and judge every attack to decide when to use acute medication, because there is a limit to how often it can safely be taken, and mention any diary, app or notes you keep. Explain the help you need with preventer tablets or injections, such as a dosette box, alarms, or someone reminding you and checking you have not taken too much. If vomiting means tablets do not stay down, or someone has to fetch and give them to you during an attack, say so and say how often it happens.
Explain that during an attack the bright bathroom light and the noise of the shower are unbearable, so washing either does not happen or waits a day or two. Describe the dizziness, unsteadiness and sickness that make standing in a shower unsafe, and mention any shower stool, grab rail or someone staying within earshot. Say how many days a week you go without washing properly, because that is what shows you cannot do it repeatedly or to an acceptable standard.
Migraine does not usually affect getting on and off the toilet or controlling your bladder or bowel, so most people can leave this one alone. It would count if you are so dizzy and unsteady during an attack that you need a grab rail or somebody with you to get there and back safely, or if you have not made it in time because you could not move. Only claim it if it is genuinely true, because being honest here makes the activities you do struggle with far more believable.
Describe the attack days when you stay in the clothes you slept in, or need someone to bring clothes and help you, because bending, reaching and moving your head makes the pain and nausea worse. Explain how much longer it takes on a recovery day and what goes wrong, such as clothes on inside out or odd shoes. Make clear how often this happens in a normal week rather than letting it read as one rare bad day.
If your aura affects speech, describe it plainly: words coming out wrong, losing the word you are reaching for, or not being able to follow what is being said to you. Explain that sound sensitivity during an attack makes conversation painful, so people have to keep it short, repeat things or write them down. Be clear that between attacks you can speak and understand normally, because an honest boundary here makes the rest of your form more believable.
Say how often you cancel plans at short notice, and mention anyone who has to arrange things for you or come with you before you will go. Explain that bright, busy, noisy places either bring an attack on or become unbearable once one starts, so you avoid seeing people rather than risk being caught out. Keep this to how you manage with people face to face, not to how far you can walk.
Explain what happens to bills, forms and everyday sums on attack and recovery days, including post left unopened and payments missed, and mention anyone who checks your account or goes through statements with you. Describe mistakes that have actually happened rather than saying you find money hard. Give a sense of how often the difficulty is there in a typical month so the pattern is clear.
Describe what happens when an attack or aura starts while you are out: whether you can carry on, whether you can get yourself home, and whether you have been left stranded or disorientated part way through a journey. Explain the effect of sunlight, traffic noise and strip lighting on public transport, and any company or prompting you need before you will set out at all. Remember this activity is about planning and following a route, not about how far you can walk.
Be honest that between attacks walking is not usually the problem, then describe the attack days when pain on movement, dizziness and unsteadiness leave you barely able to get from your bed to the bathroom. Say how far you could manage on one of those days, whether you have to stop, and whether someone needs to be with you in case you fall. Explain that a fluctuating condition is judged on how you are on most days, which is why the attack days belong here.
The tips above are general pointers. Your paid form gives you a full, ready-to-copy answer for all 12 activities, written from your exact conditions, medication, aids and bad days, not a general example. This is a worked example for chronic migraine; yours is written for you. £99.99 one-off.
This is a worked example, not a script. It shows one honest way a person with chronic migraine might describe their attacks and the days that follow, so you can see the level of detail and the plain wording that assessors are trained to look for. Please do not copy it word for word. Your own answers should reflect your migraines, how many days a week they take, whether you get aura, what your recovery day looks like and the help you actually get or go without, because that is what the assessment is about and that is what makes an answer ring true.
Being honest about what chronic migraine does not change makes the difficulties you do describe far more believable, so there is no need to stretch every question. The strongest migraine answers are the ones that are specific about attack days, the dark room, the aura and the recovery day, and honest everywhere else. If you would rather start from your own words, tell us about your health and we will write your answers from your own conditions, in the same first-person style, ready for you to read, edit and copy onto your PIP2 claim form or AR1 review form.
An example shows the shape of a good answer. FillMyPIP writes answers from your own conditions, medication, aids and bad days. See one activity of your own form written free at www.fillmypip.co.uk.
Guidance only, not legal or medical advice. Not affiliated with the DWP. Karol Slusarczyk t/a Benefits Expert, ICO registered (ICO:00014179042).
Tell us about your chronic migraine in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
Fill my form - free preview →