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PART 5: STAYING PAIN-FREE DURING COVID-19 – HANDS
Our hands are definitely some of the most specialized parts of our bodies, and injury or disability in that area puts us at great disadvantage. So, I’ll start with my hand mantra: Don’t be so grabby. That’s right. When you spread your hand out wide to grab something heavy and large, you stress the delicate structures in your hand quite a bit, especially if you have a delicate little hand or it’s an older hand. Limit the grabbing of big books, big milk cartons, jar lids and other large heavy objects. Use the internet, get smaller milk cartons, use jar openers (or men) and lift lighter loads. And again, R.I.C.E.…
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1010 Park Place: Eight Smart Arthritis Tips for the Hands
“If I told you today, that you only have 1,000 squeezes left in your thumb or 500 twists with your wrist, what squeezing or twisting will you cut out in order to make that joint last the rest of your life?” Eight Smart Arthritis Friendly Tips for Hands
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RESPECT THE KNIFE
It would generally go without saying, that we all should respect the knife, but really, a surprising number of people don’t. And they become…”patients.” People who carry knives regularly always seem to have some level of ease with regard to the movement of the knife, the safety mechanism and the way they close. Those of us who haven’t carried them around in our back pockets are clumsy and perhaps over-cautious. This in and of itself, can lead to mishaps. Okay, so don’t play around with knives. End of blog, right? Wrong. Because we all use knives for the very basic activity of cooking and eating. I get chills in my…
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De Quervain’s Syndrome
Also known as first dorsal compartment tenosynovitis…but it’s a lot easier to remember the name of the French dude who first described this pesky little condition; Fritz de Quervain. De Quervain’s syndrome describes a condition in which two tendons on the thumb side of the wrist get damaged and inflamed. No one’s really sure exactly why this happens. Maybe it’s because they rub against the prominent bump on the end of the wrist, or maybe the sheath or tube in which they travel gets too tight for the inflamed or damaged tendons. Suffice it to say that it’s another one of those adult repetitive strain conditions I’ve written about so…
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Be Kind to Your Hands
Our hands are one of the most amazing arrangements of sinew and bone in the natural world…ever. They’re one of the things that differentiate us from the lesser animals, enabling us to put our huge brains to use. What good is a big brain if you can’t make a club, wield a sword, turn the pages of a book or use a keyboard? I don’t know which evolved first; the big brain or the facile hand, but one wasn’t much good without the other, as far as the caveman was concerned. In the old days a saw bones couldn’t do much more than an amputation for a bad hand.…





