It does cause anxiety. 
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darinfan - where do you live? In the UK we have a government scheme called Access to Work, to support people with medical problems to stay in work. I have had an assessment from an independent assessor, who has made recommendations to my employer for things like a sit-stand desk (so I can change my position frequently) and Dragon dictation software so I don’t have to type so much. The government provides a grant to pay for this (I work for a large employer, so they also have to contribute). It is protected by disability legislation and easy to access. It allows me to continue to work full-time, though I do work for a government department, so they have to practice what they preach! If you’re in the UK, look up Access to Work, it’s a really good scheme and free.
I am an Occupational Therapist, our ethos is all about meaningful occupation and activity, be that work, care giving, hobbies etc., whatever is meaningful to you and gives a feeling of fulfilment. It is also about adaptation, which might be physical adaptations to your environment to make life easier, or adapting what you do or how you do them to enable you to reach the outcome you need. So, in brief, for me, work is important, I make sure I vary my activities and am not sedentary and use equipment to help me, plus I have hobbies and outdoor activity, but I pace myself and take time to relax too.
Think about your skills, what you can do and how you can fit them around your illness, maybe looking at writing, maybe voluntary work that is more flexible. Anything is possible!!!
By the way, the more I hear about medical insurance, the more I am grateful I live in the UK with the NHS - I pay about £130 per YEAR for my meds and actually my Humira is free as it is hospital prescribed 
P.s. Good to hear things are better for you pootherapy xx
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We sing from the same hymn sheet @a.laker28, including the love of cheese:joy: Doing anything that is meaningful, promises fulfillment and gaining outcomes just gives us all just better days, irrespective of PsA, its issues and its limitations. Indeed I’d go so far as to say because of PsA stuff, we relish those things even more. Even just being on here supporting eachother.
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Access to Work is great, but the problem that I find is that adaptation doesn’t account for many of the things I find difficult or that would be a problem. Of course getting the right chair or desk is hugely important, but there are issues beyond that which it can’t help with - such as reliability.
There are periods where, if I go out for four or five hours, I’m then practically unable to move for the next four or five days! Doing research or an academic job in my case would help as I could do much of it from home. I don’t need to be in the office to mark, or to read, or even to write. So, in theory that would be a way forward - and hopefully the research grant we have put in for comes through and off we go. But, beyond that, getting that kind of job isn’t exactly straightforward - not least because we only have one uni in close proximity of where I live. Obviously most people would move around the country to where the work is when it comes to that type of job - but moving away from the support network I have would not be a sensible move.
Of course, none of that means I’m sitting at home doing nothing because I’m always working on something.
But I think my own issue comes with the fact that the success of biologics in making me walk easier and being in less pain results in PsA becoming more “invisible” to others. No doubt people seeing me in the city could easily wonder why I didn’t have a job. And I do go into the city a lot - because I literally live in a flat adjoined to the shopping mall. The main Marks and Sparks is my corner shop. HMV is about fifty metres away (for the time being!). The city library is across the road. I can smell Costa Coffee from my flat. I’m very lucky in being unable to do much and yet be able to get to these places.
But there is that thought of what others think of me not working.
“Well, I always see him in the city…”
But PsA effects us in other ways too, it’s not just the regular join pain. The tiredness, the anxiety, the messed up immune system, the depression, eye problems stomach issues. I have bipolar as well - for about twenty-five years now - and that hardly helps.
But sometimes even I on a good day might think to myself “you should be working if you can get around like this.” But we don’t know when the good days and the bad days are going to occur, and its the unpredictability of what we have which is much of the problem - and when you think you can start doing something more, PsA comes back and bites us on the backside or slaps around the face to tell us we shouldn’t have been so stupid and we’re now going to be punished by feeling crap for a week.
Ideally, I would go into uni and teach for three or four hours a week. And I get asked if I want some teaching on a regular basis. But even that isn’t straightforward. Uni teaching pays very well. Even two hours of teaching a week would take me over the £126 threshhold that you’re permitted to work on ESA (taking into account payment for office hours, marking, attending lectures etc). The benefits system is bonkers. Under £126, you’re allowed to keep all that money plus your ESA. Over £126, you have to sign off entirely! So, if I go and do that teaching for, say, four months, I have to sign off for that time, be no better off during the working period (which I don’t care about), and then have to go through the whole rigmarole of signing back on again after.
In the past that wouldn’t be a problem. But now we have the ogre of universal credit, and any change in circumstance means I would have to go on to after finishing the teaching - which, in turn, means that me doing some teaching for three or four months results in me ultimately ending up around £45 a week worse off than when I started!!! Obviously I wouldn’t be worrying about that if my contract was for a year or two, but it’s no incentive for anyone who is disabled or unwell and thinking of doing some temporary employment just to see how they would get on.
I did speak to someone about this at the job centre once. And they told me that if I worked under 16 hours a week, I wouldn’t get more than £126. I pointed out that this was only the case if I were on minimum wage.
But then, those of us who have filled in ESA capability for work forms will know that the govt seems to think that the only work we are capable of is very strange indeed. We are asked how many pints of milk we can carry, whether we can make a mark with a pen on a piece of paper, and whether we can lift an empty cardboard box above our heads. I have no idea what job that would qualify us for!!!
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Darin fan, is your moniker because you’re a fan of Bobby Darin? My husband does a mean karaoke of Mack the Knife.
Yes. My book on him was published a couple of weeks ago too! (Note shameless plug)
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Totally agree 
Important question, coming to grips with it at the moment, fractures, visits to hospital and sick leave so far in the last couple of ears may well cost me my job altogether, as company contract allows for a certain number of months sick leave every two years. Am about to grapple with documentation necessary to apply to Italian nhs for disability status, which if granted would allow me three days a month to use for tests, visits etc, as well as permission to retire earlier. It is not easy to be granted this status w psa, will have to see if poss by adding up cancer and a few other mishaps. Was living free lance for a long period as interpreter translator teacher for companies, universities et al, and returning to that life might not be a despicable idea if worse came to worse.
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I know it varies by country, (but can be done in most in one form or another) If one does free lance work (even uni teaching as an adjunct) you can set it up as an independent company (not an individual) that is supplying the services. In the USA payment comes to the company as a 1099 not earned income so that you can control your income (drawing low salary) You then can expense many things such as internet, cars, utilities office space etc. In the USA I operate as an S-Corp so am not even subject to self employment tax. My "employer is a great guy who even pays my Health insurance premium and pays 2:1 for may HSA to cover deductible, co-pays vision, OTC things, non-covered adaptive aids and dental. A good accountant/tax attorney is a good investment…
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What TNTlamb said - I do almost exactly the same in Australia, and it works very well for me so far.
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@tntlamb and at @Jen75 in the UK they’ve just closed that loophole from an income tax point of view which has hit a lot of contractors to companies hard. My employers love to use contractors as such people get no employee benefits and notice periods for firing them is only a couple of weeks instead of at least 3 months and they’re not entitled to any redundancy etc so a huge benefit to the employer. They lost a lot of really excellent people doing this due the closing of that income tax loophole. It basically means such contractors can’t control their income for tax purposes anymore through such a shelf company.
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Be more shameless and let us know the name of the book as I’d love to read it and I still remember your video of you singing one of his songs which was sublime.
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You’re so right the present benefit system is such a nightmare, it’s totally bonkers. Did you see a group of 3 or 4 people have just won the right to judicially review the new system?
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The only reason I’m working full time is because I have a medical accommodation to telework up to 5 days/week.
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Shameless indeed! Amazon???
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Yes, I saw that about the court case. And it’s right that they should have won. I believe they were complaining about the way in which people who are paid four-weekly by their employer are penalised by the benefits system because on the occasions where they are paid twice in a month, they are deemed to be earning too much money for any benefit at all.
It’s ridiculous. It shouldn’t be WHEN you are paid, it should be down to how much you earn on a weekly basis. The same would be true if I did some ad-hoc research work at the uni, for which I would get paid once I had finished the job. If I got a payment for, say, £600, it wouldn’t be viewed as earnings of £60 a week for the ten weeks it had taken me to do the work (and, as permitted work, I wouldn’t lose any benefits) - it would be £600 for the month in which I get paid (in which case I would lose most of my benefit for that month).
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Yes, it sucks doesn’t it. They do that here too for direct employment contracts, but then attempt to even it out at the end of the tax year (though there are lots of little benefits - like cheaper pharmaceuticals which are through our government- that never get addressed).
A thought - many employers will be flexible within their own parameters. To use the example you’ve given above, the thing they need is not to pay you anything till you’ve completed the job, and the thing that you need is to be paid in small weekly instalments. So could you ask them about getting paid in ten weekly instalments of £60, only commencing once you’ve completed the job?
That would be ideal, but the bigger the employer, the more difficult it would be to get them to do something like that - and get it right. It could be “fiddled” at department level in all likelihood, but it shouldn’t need to be simply because the benefits system “sucks” as you so aptly describe!
Mentioned above is the comment:
… repealed Obamacare and we are back to no coverage for pre-existing conditions.
I have worked in health insurance in America for 25 years and the above is a largely incorrect statement. If you have had health insurance without a gap in coverage of greater than 63 consective days you have full coverage should you change plans, by law there is no pre-exisiting condition clause.
If you’ve been without health insurance for more than 63 consective days and you’re not signing onto a group/employer-sponsored plans, you may have issues for the first year, after the first year on the plan your premiums would revert to the standard amount without pre-exisiting clause.
Please feel free to PM me with questions about this or any other insurance or prescription insurance topic.
azurelle
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They’ve only won the right to have the judicial review, they haven’t yet won the review. But the judicial review court case will get media attention so watch that space.
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