Opinion ID: 222841
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Perkins's Fibromyalgia

Text: Perkins maintains that [t]he ALJ failed to comply with the Commissioner's policies in evaluating the severity of [her] fibromyalgia. Blue Br. at 20. Perkins's counsel argues that the ALJ who decided Perkins's case has never granted benefits to any of counsel's firm's clients with fibromyalgia, and that the ALJ substitutes the medical community's recognition of the disease, the Commissioner's position on the disease, and the Eighth Circuit's precedent on the disease with his own feelings that fibromyalgia either does not exist or can never be disabling. Id. at 23-24. Contrary to Perkins's assertions, however, the ALJ recognized that Dr. Meidl raised the possibility of fibromyalgia on June 7, 2007, in his treatment notes. The ALJ also acknowledged that Dr. Luvell Glanton, a pain management specialist, diagnosed Perkins with fibromyalgia on October 26, 2007. The ALJ then held, The medical evidence establishes that [Perkins] has status-post cervical spine fusion at C5-C6, possible fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, mild facet artropathy [sic] at L5-S1, possible mild chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux disease, anxiety, and depression controlled by medication, but no impairment or combination of impairments that meets or equals in severity the requirements of any impairment listed in Appendix 1, Subpart P, Regulations No. 4.