hands « LivingRheum

Tag: hands

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Rheumatoid Arthritis: I Need Wings

As I said lately it’s been and up and down thing. This morning was a way down day. I had a hard time sleeping last night because every time I tried to move it hurt. My knees have really been bothering me these days and unfortunately I need them to move in bed.

So after a very long night, I struggled down the stairs to shower and start the day. The warm water helps to ease some of the stiffness. My hands are not where I want them to be but overall really not that bad. My feet are doing really well, but my knees are really swollen and painful. The shower helped, but it was only a small improvement.

As I got to the bottom of the stairs I took a deep breath. It felt like I was about to tackle a mountain. Those 13 stairs may as well have been a mountain; it was going to be a challenge. I needed to summon up the strength to make it up those stairs. One at a time. Slowly and painfully. Before I could brave this project, I turned and said to my husband “I need wings.” He laughed and said he thought that was a great idea.

It got me to thinking how nice it would be if every time I needed to go from one floor to another or even one room to another I could just flap my wings and glide to my destination. When I am still there is no pain it is just the movement that is the problem, so a method of transportation that did not involve pain would be amazing. A girl can dream, can’t she?

I know that this is a temporary situation and that with time I will again figure out what works for my body. I am reminded though, that it takes a great deal of courage to have rheumatoid arthritis and keep moving forward, despite the pain. Even if it is only going up and down a flight of stairs.

Tags: arthritis, courage, feet, hands, kness, pain, RA, rheumatoid, rheumatoid arthritris, stiffness, strength

Posted in Autoimmue Disease, Coping, Rheumatoid Arthritis RA | 11 Comments »

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Product Review: EASI-TWIST Jar Opener

Grandma's Jar Opener

My grandmother passed this jar opener down to me. It’s called the Wizard Jar Wrench. It’s made of of metal ( my husband says probably steel ) and I have been using it for at least the past ten years. It has an hinged handle that easily opens any size bottle or jar. This is a really handy opener for when the rheumatoid arthritis in my hands starts acting up, with one exception. The metal handle slides off the lid of the jar especially if the cover is made of metal. It keeps hold of the cover as you are trying to turn it because it has small grooves in inside of the handle to grip the cover while turning. The problem I have with the jar wrench is the handle slides off the top of the jar, if a steady pressure up and down is not applied. But with a few tries I can usually open any jar even when my hands hurt.

Today I found the new and improved version of grandma’s jar wrench. It’s called EASI-TWIST. It is almost the same design but it is made of plastic which makes it alot lighter and it has a soft plastic ridge that keeps the opener from sliding off the top of the jar like grandma’s did. I have tried the newer version on everything from water bottles to pickle jars and everything I have tried it on has opened easily for me. It sells for between $8.00 and $9.00 at Amazon.com so it is an affordable solution to an every day problem. I’m still going to keep Grandma’s opener for sentimental reasons, but I think from now on I’ll be using the EASI-TWIST.