2 Simple Blood Tests

Crohn's Disease Forum

Help Support Crohn's Disease Forum:

Colt

Colt

Joined
Mar 29, 2008
Messages
861
2 Simple Blood Tests + Prednisone Experiences

Well I finally established primary care using my wife to get access to the university clinic.

I made an appointment and went in. The doctor went over a brief history with me and strained the point that all he could do was put me back on prednisone and flagyl and that's not a sustainable solution and I need to find a way to get access to a GI.

So anyway, since we can't really do a colonoscopy or anything we're stuck with my new chance at treatment resting on a CBC and an ESR (He needs to have something to prove I'm actually sick and that's all he has access to). If those come back positive he's going to call me this afternoon and call in some prescriptions for me.

Having my chances at receiving care based on just 2 blood tests is driving me nuts. The waiting for that call is killing me.

I keep thinking "What if for some reason they come back negative?"

I mean, I could be crazy. There could be nothing wrong with me and my prior positive results 6-7 years ago were all just a coincidence. What if for some reason I'm just not having inflammation for a few hours? I don't know.. SOMETHING is going to go wrong here.
 
Last edited:
I wish there was a way for the Crohn's Forum to have a medication exchange. I'm sure people on here would be more than happy to get rid of their extra meds that you need.
I agree that it's silly to go based off of those tests.

Please try to hang in there. Let us know the outcome.
 
Basically he's looking for something quick and easy to give him an argument as to why he wrote prescriptions for steroids and narcotics. I just hope he gets it because I don't know what to do if the results are negative.

Maybe I'll be accused of being a drug seeker, liar, or general nutcase. He does know I have bipolar disorder (I really need to keep GPs from finding out about that in the future. I put it on the same charts I was recording my crohn's symptoms on. I screwed up this time) so it's not much of a leap from there in most GPs' minds.

I frankly don't know what to say if they're negative. Offer to do more tests? We've already established that I don't have the money for a colonoscopy. I've been really badly fatigued so I hope at least we end up finding anemia.
 
It's 4:47PM. He said he'd call this afternoon. Does his not calling indicate that they were probably negative? :(
 
How much does it cost? If it's more than a simple blood test like a CBC I have to pay for it out of pocket. Luckily they discounted the ESR so it was only $20.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I agree... too bad exchanging meds is illegal... I have 4 Humira pens sitting in my fridge and have been for 6 months
 
Ya the pANCA ASCA is pretty darn tootin expensive. A lot of private insurances will not cover the test as it is still in hot debate whether they really can tell if someone has Crohns. I have public aid health insurance so they cover anything and everything - sometimes it is nice being poor ;)
 
It's 6:30AM the next day. Someone shoot me. New worry: Could I possibly have put the wrong phone number down?

I doubt it took the lab all day to do it. An ESR takes a fixed amount of time of 1 hour prep time and then a quick count of a few minutes. The CBC could have been done while waiting for the ESR.

This all just leads me over and over to thinking that the tests were negative for some reason (shouldn't be, I certainly feel inflamed), and the doctor's probably just not calling because he doesn't feel like wasting his time with negative results.
 
It's 9:45AM. They opened again at 8. There's really no point in calling because I would still need him to call in prescriptions anyway and I don't want to seem like a hypochondriac or overly needly. I am having a blood soaked tissue each time I have a BM though so my backup plan I think is going to be a stool sample or if necessary *gulp* rectal exam to confirm this rectal ulcer/fissure I've got.
 
Ok, I called the office and they're going to page him or whatever to see if he'll give me my results.
 
No sign of anemia.

ESR 10. (Borderline high)

I forgot to ask about white count but I'm going to guess that it wasn't really high or he'd have said something.

Anyway.. this placed me in a position where depending on who the doctor was I could be treated or given the boot.

This doctor decided to jump in and treat me. We're going to do a prednisone dose pack ($4 at wal-mart with the generic discount) and I'll come in in a week and a half for a follow up to see if it's working. I have my rationed darvocet leftovers but he told me to go ahead and use them without rationing and he'll set me up with a long term supply so that I don't have to be afraid of running out.

I waited 6 years, the majority of that time sick and miserable and now I finally have treatment again. Talk about relief. :yfaint: My wife and I just set things up so that we'll have $100 automatically transfered to a saving account each month. This will be my crohn's fund basically. We'll have to live slightly more cheaply but it's not too bad. I'll use it to save up and pay for tests and such. The bank is going to give us 10% interest on the account too. That means 10 months for a 1,000 test, but at least I'll get it eventually.
 
Last edited:
I've got bipolar issues as well, not fun, being cognisant of it means you never know when you're reacting accurately, or overreacting due to propensities of the disorder, at least for me.

Colt, you're going through more than I am, so I wish you the best, you have had it longer, harsher, and without insurance for a while. Keep going, sounds like you're through the worst.
 
My prednisone dose pack is 40mg once per day for 7 days and then 20mg for 3 days and then 10mg for 3 days. My follow-up is on the 29th. I may even be able to pull off a saving move at work by letting them know that I just started treatment.
 
Frankly, if you had a doctor who was aware of the situation and okay with it because of your financial situation I don't think it would really be an evil thing to donate medications. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our doctors would like the idea. Really it would be nice to have a national/international agency to do that kind of thing and coordinate it and ensure safety and accountability. Even for drugs that pharmacies dispose of due to impending expiration dates. It's probably a pipe dream though. Oh well.

Just so you know, if they have the same laws as the US and I'm sure they do, the pharmacy literally flushes them down the toilet. It's illegal for a medical professional to dispose of medications in any other way. There's no procedures to keep the drugs out of the environment, only out of the hands of people searching trash cans.
 
They no longer recommend people flush their medications down the toilet anymore. This came in part from research a scientist I ended up working with had done. I used to work in a waste water research facility in Idaho their main focus was reducing and eliminating phosphorus in waste water (this is commonly found in automatic dishwasher detergent.) The research the founding scientist had done previously dealt also with extremely high levels of estrogen in waste water and water tables do to the common prescription, birth control.

Though it eludes me what the EPA recommended people do with left over prescriptions. I also saw a story done on this very thing on Dateline or 60 minutes or something.
 
It was all over the news a few months ago. They have found high levels of drugs in the water systems of major metro areas because of flushing it down the toilet as well as people peeing it out of their system.

I second/third/fourth the ability to donate medication. I have a bunch of left over Aza and Prednisone thats just sitting on my shelf doing nothing.
 
Give the prednisone bottle to someone who says you don't look sick. Tell them they're labido pills and that they have to take 5 10 mg tabs/day for 3 months. Then after the 3 months tell them they don't look different.
 
The prednisone made a massive difference in just the first day. It's hard to describe even because it changed some of my basic sensations of being like for example: I feel smaller. Especially at the joints. It feels like I've lost 25 pounds. I feel less stocky if that makes any sense. I had a ton of energy today too. My pain only reached a 3/10 and only then as my dose was wearing off and I was having a BM.

It seems like I must be crazy to be feeling this drastically different with less than 24 hours on the prednisone but frankly I don't even care if it's a placebo effect as long as I feel better. I haven't felt this good for as long as I can remember. Life's different. I just can't really describe it all. I just feel smaller, lighter, faster, and just generally less bogged down. My intestines just kind of disappeared from my perception. They used to feel like a big weight that I carried around in the center of my body.

The only significant down side is that I have 2 broken teeth that were being protected by inflamed spots on my gums covering up cavities and the prednisone exposes those cavities so that food can get in and I have to clean them out if I'm not really careful.

As far as side effects I've had a little bit of jitteriness and elevated heart rate (96 while resting) for 2-3 hours after taking my dose. I think that's it. My appetite hasn't become insatiable yet and I don't notice the beginnings of acne or anything.
 
I remember responding well to prednisone when I was younger too. My crohn's is just so inflammation focused that it fits well. Maybe I'm wrong though. Like I said, I've had a small sample to survey from so far so it may have been an anomaly.

Today wasn't as good as yesterday. I've had some joint pain, some intestinal discomfort (3/10), and I'm not as energetic as I was yesterday.

There may be a few other factors in play though. The weather is terrible for one. It's all gloomy and rainy. Low air pressure is likely bugging me and making up at least part of the joint pain. That, and I was feeling so energetic yesterday that I stayed up all day and only got 3-4 hours of sleep before heading off to work and I only got 3-4 hours the day before that because I was running errands all day.

One good thing is that my bleeding has stopped and my anal fissure/ulcer seems to have finished healing.
 
Last edited:
I'm really not feeling well today. I think it's just the exhaustion. An average of 4 hours of sleep over the last 3 days. I keep getting woken up or kept up by my wife because she's upset about something or wants to go do something.
 
You really need to get more sleep, your body needs that time to recover. Is your wife supportive of your illness? I know it's hard when your spouse wants to go do something and you don't feel like it but you want to keep the peace so you just go out of the goodness of your heart but sometimes you have to be a little selfish if want to get better. I hope you feel better tomorrow. Good Luck
 
I hope you get more sleep soon. Balancing family and your health is tough. I can't give you good advice. I'm a girl and we're irrational sometimes. Sucks that she's not understanding that you don't need to deal with her moods.

As for the leftover pills. I work in an office where patient who change medications or (sadly) pass away can bring in their un-used medicine. They give the meds to people who can't afford them. They, of course, understand that they are donated medications from someone else.

Amy
 
I think I know specifically what has been going on. Prednisone suppresses your adrenal gland which is where your natural corticosteroids come from. That same suppression is where you're getting most of the side-effects. Well, my over-stressing my body finished off what little resources I had left coming out of my adrenal gland so my side-effects got really strong. I've had pretty much the whole gambit of prednisone side-effects the last couple of days. You're also supposed to take the prednisone in the morning because right after you wake up is when your adrenal gland is at its strongest. I work nights and my sleeping schedule changes on a daily basis. Anyway, I was beating up on my adrenal gland from every angle and paid the price.

I have a 3 day weekend and I just slept the first 12 hours of it so I should be getting better. One thing that worries me though is that my crohn's caused rheumatoid joint pain is gone but now I have osteoid joint pain so I'm a little concerned over if it's just from the prednisone or if letting my crohn's run rampant for 6 years has trashed my bones and cartilage and I'm going to be permanently facing joint pain with no way of treating it other than narcotics. Luckily my doctor is going to spot me on the pain meds because I think I'm going to be taking my darvocet for the joint pain while I wait for the prednisone to finish.

As for my wife, she's not as supportive as I would like but she's completely overwhelmed with everything else going on in our lives. Our baby, her starting school again, and the financial and government assistance judo we're pulling off to make everything work out.
 
Last edited:
Just an observation really as I find it more humorous than upsetting, but I was getting up to go to the bathroom and completely unexpected by me I found that my legs alone are not strong enough for me to stand from a sitting position in a chair. I have to use my arms to help now. :)

I'm just curious, do the rest of you on prednisone run into all these strong side-effects?
 
I don't seem to get anywhere near as many side-effects as most other people have.

I've gone a little crazy this time, and I always put on weight and get the 'ol moon face. Some muscle soreness as well, and all the skin on the top half of my body becomes very sore - almost like I've been sunburnt. My sleeping gets messed up to.

Other than that, I get it pretty easy.
 
I've noticed something else too. I have practically no side-effects until a certain point when I exhaust myself (probably using the last of my stored adrenaline) and then all of a sudden I get hit with most of the potential side-effects at once out of nowhere.
 
I'm still going strong. The side-effects of the 40mg are making me look like a drunkard at the end of the day which is humiliating but the strangest thing is the brown stools. I don't think I've had brown poop in years and suddenly it's happening every time. Black, red, green, yellow, white, orange, but never brown. What's next, blue?

In 1 week I think I've gained 3 pounds which is less than I was fluctuating in a single day with my cycle of constipation and I taper to 30mg starting tonight.
 
I just don't have any other choice but I keep ending up sleep deprived and exhausted every day. I know that if I get this way I feel absolutely terrible but I just have too much to do. I spent most of my day running back and forth to the DMV and I also had to drop off and pick up my wife and I had to take my kid to the doctor to get vaccinations.

Everyone wants me to be awake doing something at every hour of the day. I'm just not allowed to have a time when I can sleep. I got 4 hours last night from 3AM to 7AM. I ran my ass off all day long and now I have to go to work at 11PM and I won't get home until at least 8AM. I can't take it anymore. It was hard enough before but add the prednisone that has little tolerance for exhaustion and it's just unbearable.

Of course I can't call in because I need the money and I already call in too much. I'm really screwed come Thursday because work wants me to do training from 7AM to 3PM and then work from 11PM to 7AM. I live far enough away and have enough things to slow me down that I couldn't possibly get more than 4 hours of sleep.

I really wish I worked the day shift so that there would be a time period of the day when everyone would just leave me alone and let me sleep instead of demanding that I take care of things all day long like everyone else and yet stay up all night long working as well.
 
Yeah, day shift would probably help you feel a lot more normal.
I see that you are jumping from 40 down to 30 on pred. Have you been on it before? I think a typical decrease is 5 mg maximum unless there is a reason to come off of it quickly. That big of a jump might be too much for your body to handle. I always start at 40 and decrease by 5 every week. Sometimes I even stay on 40 for 2 weeks before coming down. I just started and am on day 5. I just started feeling a teeny bit better yesterday. Will stay on 40 for an extra week.
 
It's usually not too bad or risky to make bigger jumps that high up, it's when you near closer to the body's natural production level that it's risky (about 7.5/day), as you "awaken" the adrenal production....least as far as I've read/been told. Plus, he's only on a dose pack, shorter course of medicine like a week or two, and you don't get your body as "out of whack" to put it bluntly.
 
You can do 10mg jumps that high up. I dropped from 60mg to 50mg to 40mg etc each week. It was like being beaten with a stick but its doable. I'm sorry things are so crappy for you right now Colt. Maybe we can have a crappy work club.
 
I was wrong. Checking the bottle I ended up going to 20mg from 40mg. I just didn't realize I was going to be making that big of a jump. My joint pain came back with a vengeance and I've got some intestinal pain but that may be in part because I slept and didn't eat anything for about 20 hours.

I'm doing a 2 week course currently but I need to figure out by tomorrow if I want to ask for a regular dose and at what level.
 
My crohn's symptoms are all back after only 1 day of 20mg. I even have externally visible tears and bleeding. :angry-banghead:

Of course this means that I'm going to need to be on at least 30mg to keep my symptoms at bay and take the 30mg worth of side-effects that go with it.
 
I don't have a GI or have a chance of getting a GI for at least a year (being poor sucks) so no asacol or anything and my doctor isn't fond of using steroids as a long term treatment because of the osteoporosis and such so... we're going to extend the prednisone. Instead of tapering to 10mg and then finishing we're going to do another week of 20mg and then taper a little bit each week.

It's made such a big difference to me that I think it would be worth the risk to go ahead and do 20 or 30mg for a year (taping to 0 each 6 months to see where I'm at) while I wait on the discount clinic's waiting list. But.. I'm happy to get anything and he did say that if it just wasn't working out to give him a call.
 
Colt said:
I don't have a GI or have a chance of getting a GI for at least a year (being poor sucks) so no asacol or anything and my doctor isn't fond of using steroids as a long term treatment because of the osteoporosis and such so... we're going to extend the prednisone. Instead of tapering to 10mg and then finishing we're going to do another week of 20mg and then taper a little bit each week.

It's made such a big difference to me that I think it would be worth the risk to go ahead and do 20 or 30mg for a year (taping to 0 each 6 months to see where I'm at) while I wait on the discount clinic's waiting list. But.. I'm happy to get anything and he did say that if it just wasn't working out to give him a call.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried Metronidazole? I think it should be pretty cheap, and I find it works really well (and quickly).
 
Flagyl, yeah. Originally I took that and prednisone together. This time it's just prednisone. The thing I found with flagyl, though, is that it made me extremely sick while I was taking it and then much better for the rest of the month. Because of work I can't really get away with that right now.
 
Colt said:
Flagyl, yeah. Originally I took that and prednisone together. This time it's just prednisone. The thing I found with flagyl, though, is that it made me extremely sick while I was taking it and then much better for the rest of the month. Because of work I can't really get away with that right now.
Click to expand...

I was cycling three different types of anti-biotic at one point. I forget what the other two were. They may be worth a shot?
 
I'll pass on the antibiotics for now. I would also want to try it alone because I've never done antibiotics without prednisone along with it so I'm not sure how much is each one. Currently I'm on the prednisone only and I'll see how this goes. Not long after this course of prednisone runs out I should have a chance to see a GI and then we can discuss antibiotics or something like Asacol or Entocort.

Right now I don't mind the prednisone because it helps with my extra-intestinal symptoms like my joint pain which is usually so disabling and I'd like to try and hit the crohn's pretty hard for right now and see if I can get it all to calm down. I've been flaring at least mildly for most of the last 10 years. I'm fortunate that so far my crohn's disease has had a bit of a maximum level short of things like fistulas and extreme weight loss.
 
Yep less than 30 made my problems come back as well. I'd see if you could stay on the pred for at least 3-4 months at 40mg. And as to tapering I was on 40 mg 3 months, took 2 days dropped to 20, another 2 days dropped to 10, another 2 days stopped taking it. No side effects.

From what I've read if you are younger and have been on it less than a year you can taper fast. If you are older and on it for longer than a year you need to taper slow. And with a slow taper its never drop half in one sitting, I think. I believe they go so slow with so many because going into adrenal shock, or whatever, is so serious. Though if you recognized the symptoms, which are pretty major, you could probably just take some pred and be fine in an hour or two. Either that or I read that you immediately need a steroid shot, can't remember exactly.

You might also want to look up low dose naltrexone, you can get it out of online pharmacies. And it was about $60 for a 3 month supply I think. I can say it did not stop all my problems but definitely helped. Only bad thing is you cannot take it with a immune suppressor.
 
Just looked it up, you can get pentasa from India. 10 for $5, which is expensive considering how much of that most people get prescribed to take.

My point here is you might one to look into the online pharmacies, maybe you can find one of the drugs you need. They are quasi legal in the fact that supposedly a doctor reads the description of your symptoms and writes the prescription. Alldaychemist is one that I used based out of India.

People in dire straights need all the options they can get.
 
There's no way my GP would put me on that much prednisone for that long. He's really squeamish about it. I kinda like that though. I've done the 'tough it out' thing for so long he's always reminding me to do things just for my comfort and not for any greater health reason. I don't think he's ever had a patient as serious as me. He works at a student health center so he's used to dealing with flu and birth control. It also means that he's actually interested in the case though. It's the most exciting thing he gets to do at his job. :)

If I end up with a GI who is rather daring I think that'll work out pretty well. I'd like to have a little balance and two different perspectives so that I can have a variety of advice and leave my options open. I've probably only got 2-3 months until I have a GI.
 
The majority of medical personnel do not have insurance in the US. We're not paid well enough (only fast food workers make less than a CNA) to afford it and the medical businesses are the most vicious cost-cutters in the economy.

I make $8.75/hr and I live in an area that pays unusually well. Where I moved from they paid $7.85/hr. McDonalds pays $7.00/hr and the minimum wage is currently $6.75/hr (set to reach a final amount of $7.15/hr by 2015).

'Insurance' offered by my employer and the roughly the same for my past 3 employers has a $50,000 deductible, covers up to $120,000, and only covers 80% of that $70,000. I think it allows 2 checkups per year with a $20 co-pay. It only covers one person and any pre-existing conditions or symptoms are not paid for at all. That insurance costs about $300 per month. I only make $1,470 per month.

Taxes are about 10% (social security basically. I'm too poor to pay income tax). That leaves $1323. Rent is usually $400-$500 per month (which I don't pay because of the arrangement we have with my mother-in-law where we she bought the house with her divorce money and we pay her bills), utilities are about $300. Gas just getting to and from work is $75. That leaves $448. With that insurance there would only be $148 to pay for food, and gas to go to the grocery store. Luxuries like diapers are completely out of the question.

The deductible works out to be $4,167 per month that I would have to contribute before the insurance would kick in. Seeing as that is more than I have (even if I had no other expenses at all) the insurance company will never have to pay a dime no matter what. The medical companies would refuse to provide me the services because I wasn't paying them well before I ever managed to gather up a $50,000 tab.
 
Last edited:
wow and I always assumed that the medical insurance would be a perk of working in the medical field. Like I get a store discount.
 
Where I live the insurance for medical personnel is great. The only medical personnel that do not get great insurance is home health care workers. Basically visiting CNA's that work for a little firm almost like a temp place.
 
I pay a pretty good rate and my insurance seems to pay well compared to others on this site. I have Kaiser...don't think it is everywhere in the U.S. though. I think I pay like $300 a month for me and my husband. Prescriptions are $10 a month for generic, $30 for brand name (darn that Asacol!), dr. visit is $25 co-pay and all lab work is free. Many other things have a co-pay amount that isn't too bad. I have friends that have blue cross/ blue shield and they pay a lot more for stuff than I do.
 
Wow, you are making a lot more money than I, and I still pay both state and federal income tax. Hard to see my little weeny checks get even smaller after taxes. I think my last check was for 375 before taxes... after taxes I ended up with 300... made me sad.
 
Our living expenses here is Southern California are high too. When my husband and I looked to buy a house you couldn't find hardly anything under $300,000...including one bedroom one bath homes built in the 1950's. Was very frustrating. Where in Arizona my dad had bought a nice 3 bed 2 bath house with a big yard for less than $100,000. Amazes me how it can vary from state to state.
 
katiesue1506 said:
Wow, you are making a lot more money than I, and I still pay both state and federal income tax. Hard to see my little weeny checks get even smaller after taxes. I think my last check was for 375 before taxes... after taxes I ended up with 300... made me sad.
Click to expand...

Taxes are taken out but they're all refunded at the end of the year. In fact, after my child tax credit I make a profit from filing my taxes. It's the same for you as well I'm sure.
 
Not for me since I am self-employed. I make much less than you, and only get a refund of maybe 100-200 bucks. Nothing like my 2k-4k return when I worked for someone else and nothing like the fat paychecks either (I considered 1200 /mo outstanding.) I am much much poorer now, and I think much much happier - and my daughter is too.
 
I remember that whole economic stimulus plan thing... yeah I didn't get it. Apparently I'm too young, even though I worked enough to make enough money for it, I'm of the age in which I'm still claimable (doesn't matter whether my parents claim me or not) so I didn't get the check. Most 18-23 yr old people didn't get it. That 600 dollars would have been nice for helping my boyfriend and I set up our new apartment, but I guess that's what we have 0% interest credit cards for... isn't it? :)

Money is a funny thing... isn't it?
 
Ya I was quite annoyed I didn't get a stimulus check either, all because I was self employed but I made less than minimum wage too. You figured that would be taken into account but it wasn't. This year I should at least double if not triple my profits from last year.
 
I must be misunderstanding something, somewhere, Colt, because I thought min wage was $7.50/hr now, going to $8.50 in the future (decided on date)....unless you have another form of income to supplement the wage, ie: tips for a waiter or something, then you can be paid under min wage...

Where do you live Colt, I almost think you'd be better off going to some company at like a grocery store or something, when I was at Jewel (also same as the company Albertsons) I had better insurance than that, and that was a college job just part time...Union would help protect you a bit too if you find one (in some ways, others it's like a cult). Why do you not look for other work that's less strenuous and has better benefits? Is there none by you or what?
 
BWS Depends on where you live, I'm in Indiana and minimum wage is $6.55 right now. I'm making $6.70... but I'm also in college and only working part time.
 
There is a federal minimum wage and a state. This is because some state's "cost of living" is higher than other states. The federal minimum wage is a guaranteed wage - no where in the US can you be paid less than that amount. So the state minimum wage is only used when the cost of living is substantially higher than the national average. Like in Chicago compared to say Pittsburgh - cost of living is different. You need more money to survive in Chicago than you do in Pittsburgh.
 
Good God - how do people survive? I was making $7.35 working at Wendy's in college. (Uh, quite a while ago.)
 
Ha MBH... my first job that I had (Arby's) (was at for 3.5 years) I started at $5.75... and then worked my way up to $6.55. I ended up quitting because they were making me be shift manager (which makes 8.00 a hour at least) and they wouldn't pay me for it.

It was quite ridiculous... I was in training for shift manager and they wanted me to drive home from college (about an hour and a half away from work) to work 10 hour shifts... at 6.55... HAHA! RIght.
 
Isla said:
There is a federal minimum wage and a state. This is because some state's "cost of living" is higher than other states. The federal minimum wage is a guaranteed wage - no where in the US can you be paid less than that amount. So the state minimum wage is only used when the cost of living is substantially higher than the national average. Like in Chicago compared to say Pittsburgh - cost of living is different. You need more money to survive in Chicago than you do in Pittsburgh.
Click to expand...


This is everything I knew already, but I was under the impression when they told us at work via the poster they had up in the break room, that they were insinuating that the "$7.50/hr soon to be $8.50/hr" was fed, not state, at least that's what we gathered there....I guess I was wrong.
 
Sorry Isla, they just assume that if you're self-employed and making less than minimum wage you'll shut down the business. Plus you have to factor in that the employer (you in this case) also pays taxes on your wages.

BWS, federal minimum wage is set to max out at 7.25 on July 24th 2009. The current federal minimum wage is 6.55/hr.

I'd like to have a better job but it would mean about a dollar an hour pay cut. We're barely surviving as is. I'll just futility apply for better jobs with the same or more pay and maybe sometime in the next few years one will hire me in pure randomness. I'm going to keep running into the experience loop though. You can't get a job without having already worked that job. This means people are pretty much stuck in their current jobs and unable to get out.
 

Similar threads

K
Possible Crohn’s disease
Replies
10
Views
1K
musicalwiz
M
Papantoine
Neglect?
Replies
0
Views
242
Papantoine
Papantoine
K
Predictr promethius test
Replies
7
Views
267
pdx
pdx
P
How long on EEN before your child had solid motions again
Replies
5
Views
749
padrach3
P
C
Your thoughts, please. 10 yr old.
Replies
14
Views
1K
Crohns dad
C

Latest posts

Back
Top