Re: Re: HANDS/Fingers

[Guest guest]

I find that when my hands hurt, the paraffin feels good, but ultimately doesn't really help. What helps me is to try and keep my hands moving all day. They usually loosen up as the day goes on.

As a cellist, I understand and commiserate with your hand pain. Luckily my hands aren't usually involved and when they are, it only lasts a couple of days. But yuk. Nothing like getting attacked where you live.

gloria

[Guest guest]

I have a lot of trouble with my hands too... it comes and goes. Sometimes it'll last weeks at a time. I do a lot of typing, and if I'm not online, I'm probably cooking, reading a book, or playing video games -- none of which are easily possible when your fingers and hands won't cooperate. About the only thing I can do during a really bad flare in my hands is lay around watching TV and that annoys the life out of me. I'm not a big television person. It scares me that I've memorized the weekday morning television lineup. Charmed is on at 9am, then ER at 10am, West Wing at 11... if I haven't fallen back asleep by that time I've probably turned into a raving lunatic and I'm in the kitchen hand-kneading dough just to PROVE I can do any damn thing I want to do even if it kills me, and it might.

Uh, in any case. There are a lot of temporary remedies that help the pain in my hands -- but few of them allow me to USE my hands at the same time as experiencing the relief. I can soak in hot water, or paraffin, or wrap in an ersatz heating pad made of ziploc bag containing paper towel, but the relief only lasts a couple minutes after I've removed the heat and I'm right back where I started from. My current "best solution" is to smear Icy Hot cream on the backs of my hands and fingers and rub it in like a hand lotion, and\or take a mild painkiller. At that point my hands stop throbbing and start burning from the cream, but the burn is mild and almost feels soothing, and anything is better than being able to feel my pulse throb in my fingers. There are a couple minutes when you first put it on where you're afraid your skin is burning off and you're tempted to run and wash the stuff off, but it only lasts a short while before it fades into warmness, and we're all Big Tough He-Men here*. We can handle it. The one thing you need to be really careful of is NOT to put the cream on your finger tips, because if you do and then accidentally scratch your nose, guess what happens.

Jenni

* I'm only five feet tall and I have to struggle with Ensure drinks to keep my weight in triple digits. If I didn't have a seven-foot attitude I'd have been mincemeat by now.

[Guest guest]

My biggest RA problem has been in the hands. Two hand surgeries for ct syndrome and arthritis. Anyway, I had tried something I read on another site. You put your hands in hot water for 4 minutes, cold water for 3 minutes, then you go back to hot water, then cold water and repeat. Keep reducing the time to 1 minute. It's like shocking it or something. It worked for me when I was waiting for a shot.

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Maggie

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-----Original Message-----From: Jenni [mailto:chaospearl@...]Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 11:14 AMRheumatoid Arthritis Subject: Re: Re: HANDS/Fingers

I have a lot of trouble with my hands too... it comes and goes. Sometimes it'll last weeks at a time. I do a lot of typing, and if I'm not online, I'm probably cooking, reading a book, or playing video games -- none of which are easily possible when your fingers and hands won't cooperate. About the only thing I can do during a really bad flare in my hands is lay around watching TV and that annoys the life out of me. I'm not a big television person. It scares me that I've memorized the weekday morning television lineup. Charmed is on at 9am, then ER at 10am, West Wing at 11... if I haven't fallen back asleep by that time I've probably turned into a raving lunatic and I'm in the kitchen hand-kneading dough just to PROVE I can do any damn thing I want to do even if it kills me, and it might.

Uh, in any case. There are a lot of temporary remedies that help the pain in my hands -- but few of them allow me to USE my hands at the same time as experiencing the relief. I can soak in hot water, or paraffin, or wrap in an ersatz heating pad made of ziploc bag containing paper towel, but the relief only lasts a couple minutes after I've removed the heat and I'm right back where I started from. My current "best solution" is to smear Icy Hot cream on the backs of my hands and fingers and rub it in like a hand lotion, and\or take a mild painkiller. At that point my hands stop throbbing and start burning from the cream, but the burn is mild and almost feels soothing, and anything is better than being able to feel my pulse throb in my fingers. There are a couple minutes when you first put it on where you're afraid your skin is burning off and you're tempted to run and wash the stuff off, but it only lasts a short while before it fades into warmness, and we're all Big Tough He-Men here*. We can handle it. The one thing you need to be really careful of is NOT to put the cream on your finger tips, because if you do and then accidentally scratch your nose, guess what happens.

Jenni

* I'm only five feet tall and I have to struggle with Ensure drinks to keep my weight in triple digits. If I didn't have a seven-foot attitude I'd have been mincemeat by now.

[Guest guest]

Its nice to know somebody else wants to knead dough. My fingers hate me for knitting on large needles. Overuse is my problem. I wrap mine up in self adhering bandages. The compression feels really good. It helps support the joints while you are in a flare. Only problem I have it that I have to take them off........(once wound around the finger they can be slipped off and on), when using water to wash dishes, etc. Deborah