A worked example showing how each of the 12 PIP activities can be described for someone with endometriosis. 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.
Endometriosis is hard to put on a form because almost all of it happens out of sight. There is the deep pelvic pain that never fully lifts, the flare days when you cannot stand upright at all, the bleeding heavy enough to soak through in under an hour and ruin clothes and bedding, the pain passing urine and opening your bowels, the bowel symptoms that arrive with a flare, and the flat, crushing fatigue that sits on top of all of it. Then there are the painkillers, which take the edge off but leave you drowsy, slow and often sick. On a settled week you may look completely well, which is exactly why a careful, matter-of-fact description matters so much.
The biggest trap is the good week. Endometriosis moves in cycles, so what you can manage in a settled spell is often nothing like what you can manage in a flare, and a good week is usually followed by days you lose altogether. The rules are clear that the good week is not the test. 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. If you can start a meal but have to abandon it and lie down, if washing takes you three times as long, if strong painkillers make it unsafe for you to be at the hob on your own, or if you can only manage a task on the days between flares, then you cannot reliably do it, and that is what your answers need to show.
Bleeding and continence are the parts people leave out, and they are often the parts that matter most on this form. There is nothing undignified about writing down how often you have to change, that you have bled through your clothes in public, that passing urine burns, that you cannot strain to open your bowels without feeling faint, or that you have a grab rail beside the toilet. An assessor can only take account of what you actually tell them, and leaving it out to spare your own embarrassment is the single most common reason this condition is underrated on paper. The example below shows how to put all of it down plainly, activity by activity. The DWP always makes the final decision, but describing your day 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.
Explain how pain, nausea and the sickness your painkillers cause mean you skip meals or eat almost nothing for a day or two in a flare, and mention bloating that makes eating uncomfortable. Note any prompting or encouragement you need from someone before you will eat at all on those days, and any weight you have lost or gained. Keep this to eating itself, since the cooking belongs on the question above.
List everything you actually take and do: painkillers and how often, hormone treatment, injections or a coil, anti-sickness tablets, heat therapy, and any pelvic physiotherapy or exercises you were given. Mention help you need to keep to the regime, to remember doses when the pain is bad, or to cope with side effects such as drowsiness, nausea and low mood. Say roughly how much time this takes each week and include the appointments and monitoring that go with it.
Describe how standing, bending and reaching in the shower pull on your pelvis, and what you do instead, such as sitting on a shower seat or holding a grab rail to get in and out. Explain how much longer washing takes in a flare and on heavy bleeding days when you have to wash more often, and whether you sometimes go without because you cannot stand up long enough. Say plainly whether you can wash below the waist and reach your legs and feet without help.
Describe why you now wear loose clothing with nothing tight at the waist, and how bending to tights, socks and shoes drags on your pelvis. Mention how many times a day you have to change clothes on heavy days, and any aid or help you rely on, such as a sock aid or someone fetching things for you. Explain that in a flare dressing takes far longer than it should, or that you stay in nightclothes because you cannot manage it at all.
Endometriosis does not usually touch speech or hearing, so this one is only worth claiming if pain or strong painkillers leave you unable to take in what is being said. What counts is being too woozy or too distracted by pain to follow what a nurse, a receptionist or a phone advisor tells you, so that somebody has to repeat it, sit in with you or make the call for you. If you can hold a conversation and take in what you are told, leave this one alone.
This question is about reading and understanding written information, not about eyesight alone. What counts is being unable to take in an important letter or form because the pain or the medication has left your concentration too poor, so that someone has to read it to you or you miss what it said. Be careful not to stretch it: poor concentration that still lets you read the words is not the same thing, and if you can manage letters and forms on your own, leave this one alone.
Explain how constant pain, exhaustion and the worry of bleeding through your clothes have left you withdrawing from people, and how much encouragement you need before you will see anyone. Describe how often you cancel at short notice, what that has done to your friendships, and any low mood or anxiety that has come with it. Keep this to how you cope with people rather than to the travelling.
Endometriosis does not usually affect the sums themselves, so only claim this if you genuinely need prompting or help with money decisions. What counts is missing bills, losing track of budgeting or making mistakes you would not normally make because pain, exhaustion or painkillers have left you muddled, and somebody now checks the accounts or handles the paperwork for you. Money being tight is not what this question is asking about, so if budgeting is fine for you, leave this one alone.
Explain what actually stops you going out, whether that is pain that arrives with no warning, needing to know where every toilet on the route is, or the fear of bleeding through on the way. Mention anyone who has to come with you or talk you out of the door, and any journey you have had to abandon partway. Keep this to leaving home and completing the journey, not to how far you can walk.
Say how far you can walk on a normal day and what stops you, whether that is the dragging pelvic pain, pain down your legs or the fatigue. Explain that on a flare day you cannot stand upright at all and do not leave the house, and how long you need to recover before you could walk that far again. Include any aid you use, and describe your worst and most common days rather than your best ones.
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 endometriosis; 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 endometriosis might describe a flare, 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 endometriosis, your worst and most common days, the aids you actually use 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.
Two things are worth repeating. First, write about the whole month rather than the settled week; if a good week is followed by four days you lose entirely, put both in, and say how many days out of every twenty-eight you are like that. Second, be plain about the bleeding, the pain passing urine and the bowel symptoms. It is a medical form, not a conversation, and those details are exactly what an assessor needs in order to understand your day. Notice too that not every activity has to be claimed, because being honest about what endometriosis does not change makes the difficulties you do describe far more believable. 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.
Tell us about your endometriosis in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
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