Home Featured Discussion Tips & Products to Make Life with Arthritis Easier

Tips & Products to Make Life with Arthritis Easier

If only real life was like the commercials. We could pop one little pill and all would be well! No more "minor aches and pains of arthritis." YEAH RIGHT! We have to face the facts, life with arthritis is filled with limitations. Pain limits what we can do, the joint deformity and stiffness limits what we can do and at times, the mental aspects of the disease limit what we can do.

So do we just give in and do nothing? NO!!! We work around those limitations! This Featured Discussion is all about the ways we do every day tasks to make them easier. And those products we've found that we just can't live without.

There is just one problem, YOU! We need input from all the Arthritis Insight Community Members. If you haven't done so already, please take a minute to fill out our Tips & Tricks survey. We've gotten several responses and I developed a few tricks of my own, but not enough to fill a week's worth of discussion. If we don't get your input we'll just call this discussion 101 Things You Can Do With Socks!

Don't believe there are 101 Things You Can Do With Socks? Here's just a few to get you started:

1. Rice Socks, the easiest, most soothing form of moist heat I've ever tried. Just click here for instructions.

2. Socks make great wrist splint covers. Take a sock and cut off the foot. Cut a small hole near the end for your thumb and slide it over the splint. That's it! You can make them in any color or style. Match 'em to any outfit or season.

3. Can't hold a dust rag for long? Slip an old sock over your hand and dust away.

4. Slippery soap got you down? Slid the bar of soap into a sock. Lathers great and much easier to hold.

5. We're always told to make sure we drink plenty of water. I've been trying real hard to keep a bottle of water with me at all times. But the drops that form on the outside of a cold bottle are an accident waiting to happen. My solution? A sock of course! Cut off the foot of a tube sock and slid the tube part down over the bottle. Much easier to hold and it won't slid out of your hand.

6. I have long hair that I usually wear in a pony tail. Those little elastic pony tail holders are just too small for my fingers to handle. A buy the larger ones, but somehow manage to lose them very quickly. I found that the top of a sock works great as a "scrunchie" when there isn't one to be found.

Had enough yet? Better fill out that survey or we'll have more sock tips tomorrow! I have 95 more to go!

*Don't forget our chat tonight (8/14) at 9:30pm Eastern time with Amy Wright PT. She'll be talking about Adaptive Products and other ways to make life with arthritis a little easier.

Tina Underwood
Page last updated on August 14, 2000