jelli thank you for a great post. I have spoken to my GP today. She has been really supportive so far, needed to talk to her about a few things about work and referral to pain clinic while waiting for neurosurgeon (12-15wks wait!) and told her about applying for DLA, asked what if any supporting medical info I should include. She said don't bother sending anything in unless they ask as she will be asked to provide medical info. She was really supportive about that too, told me to 'lay it on thick' and not try to make things about to be ok, like I have a tendency to do.
My biggest problem is that although she is the GP I see for pretty much all this, I am technically registered with the other GP so all correspondence will go to him, and so the medical report will be sent from him. Now he knows a lot about my condition too, but he is much less aware of how badly things are affecting me. The female GP sees me regularly, and if I take my children in asks me how I am, checks I am doing ok, and seems to 'know' so much more, she accepts telephone calls from me regularly to check info, get medicine.
How do I get it recorded how much I am struggling on record so both GPs know, without it looking like I am 'fishing' or 'priming' for DLA? Which I won't be?
For the most part I think I am ok with completing the form without 'professional' help, I write reports based on people based risk assessments etc in my own job so know how to take info and seperate it and make it clear and to show certain points, so think I can do that on the form, but certainly guidance such as you have given about not using certain words like 'good days' rather refer to them as bad days and better days.
I know people who have said to me 'talk about it/fill it in as your worst day' but this is clearly a fluctuating condition, obviously so, so, I don't want to lay myself open to being seen as 'dishonest', or have someone spy on me walking to the shops, even though that hurts badly, sometimes I can do it with a lot of pain. Sometimes I can't get out of bed because I can't move for pain.