These include problems involving the digestive system, including gastrointestinal hemorrhage, chronic and/or end stage liver disease and complications thereof, inflammatory bowel disease, short bowel syndrome, malnutrition, and liver transplant.

Weight loss is a common sign of these disorders, as are pain, fatigue, bleeding and constipation or incontinence. The need for frequent hospitalization is also common. These problems are significant insofar as they limit an individual’s ability to perform the physical and mental tasks of work or, in the case of professionals, to do so on a safe, consistent and regular basis.

Establishing disability based on one of these disorders requires documenting the diagnostic findings and clinical signs that accompany them and showing how the symptoms they produce limit an individual’s ability to work. One must take account of the effect, if any, of prescribed treatment in ameliorating the individual’s symptoms. It’s unlikely that that a person with nothing more than acid reflux will qualify for disability benefits. However, people with more severe digestive disorders generally have a good chance of being awarded benefits if their claims are properly developed.