Miranda & Me

[digitS']

I'm back to -- and a ONE! and a TWO! and a . . . . ! Stretching with "Classical Stretch" and Miranda!

This was my habit sometime ago: and a ONE! and a TWO! and a . . . . (click) Now, there are new shows!

I am embarrassed to admit that repeats are one reason I lost interest. I mean, I'm barely clinging on to a willingness to exercise pre-dawn. Thank Heavens that the settings for Miranda's exercises are pleasant and that it is, mostly, just stretching.

This gesture is impossible for me with the left hand! I have trouble pulling up my socks. You should have seen me grappling with nails and screws during my recent carpentering activities .

I did something last night, probably just tugging a blanket away from DW, that brought so much pain to my left hand I was instantly awake. Fortunately, the hand isn't keeping me awake 3 or 4 hours overnight like it was a week ago. I did talk to the doc and he gave me permission to take an anti-inflammatory for 2 days. Since, the hand is a lot better than it was, I will just hold that as a blessed promise for the future.

No, palming the floor with my toe touching! I still can't get down on the floor and do anything with my legs. Miranda gets to the leg lifts and my ability to balance puts a stop to everything and I go make coffee . . . Fortunately, she starts with just some nice stretches from a standing position! Makes me feel good .

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

YEAH for Miranda.
So sorry to hear the pains are bad enough to keep you awake.
Maybe SPRING will help. Time to get outdoors and MOVE.
Hugs...

 

[canesisters]

That's AWESOME Steve!

WHOOT! Yall keep it up.

Wish I could get myself motivated to something like that. It would most definately improve my gimpy mornings.

 

[digitS']

This is it, Cane'! The only kind of actual exercising that I'm willing and motivated to do. I used to get up to exercise with Joanie Greggains! Of course, we had to fire up the teevee with a shovel or 2 of coal first, back in those days.

Thanks Carol!

I think that the increased blood flow may be important for this arthritis in the hand. (Doctor thinks it is that.) I could feel all this blood flow thru the shoulders and upper body after a few minutes and it was great!

Of course, I can work up a sweat hammering on a board but it isn't quite the same. Work is so "directed" - if that is what I should say . . . It is purpose-driven so it's "put that board there, hold the nail, drive it in, one more . . . get that board over there and cut it. Back over here with it . . ." I'm making it sound like I can get things done . What did it take me - 3 weeks to build a simple shed? :/ I blame Ken and his work schedule!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Shovelling loads of clay soil into the wagon of my lawn tractor and breaking the clods with the shovel, then loading the five gallon bucket with it and carrying it to the trenches I've dug in my garden is my exercise.

Oh. Does lifting big well fed Peeper up to my shoulders and taking him to visit outside count as warmup? He's an inside cat but he gets to visit outside on my shoulders.

I sure hope you get your hand figured out. It sounds like carpal tunnel. Are you using one of those wrist/hand support things yet? My boss at the greenhouse had it and hated even to admit it. (One of those Montana gals who you had to be careful to offer to help...(what? It only weighs 14 tons).

 

[digitS']

I am sure that Peeper helps with the warm up, Marshall.

No, I was afraid to even talk about carpal tunnel but the MD spoke very specifically about where arthritis problems in the hand often show up. I have had no surgery of any kind since way back when I was a little kid with the ears. And, because of all the arthritis, carpal tunnel surgery may cause more trouble than it fixes.

Work helps the hand . . . within reason. I can't abuse it. This was certainly the case with rheumatoid arthritis years ago, except there were other problems that didn't have anything to do with joints. If I can just get started and do what is essentially exercise for the joint. I think this continues to be true with this Olde People's arthritis, also. Sitting in a chair and holding my hand isn't going to do anything of benefit - unless it is absolutely all that I can do.

Steve

 

[digitS']

I can't believe how and who reads these posts!

I now have an ad for "Exercise with Arthritic Knees" at the bottom of TEG page! I don't have arthritic knees. I've got legs that don't work very well . . . okay, maybe I have arthritic knees!


Strange. Posters will show up sometimes just because of something specifically said. It isn't just the ad robots . . . I once complained about a company and a rep weighed into the conversation to say that I could correct the problem by notifying the company . . . Oh. So, you are "policing" gardening forums now? Will your attorney call?

Another time, I complained online about the neighbor's half-grown mastiff threatening the elementary kids when they walk by and he had started jumping the 4' fence. Some dog breeder joined specifically to tell me how mastiffs are wonderful dogs and it was all the owner's fault. Hey. I didn't say it wasn't. The neighbor gave.the.mastiff.away and bought 2 Chihuahuas :/. Then, I was told how the new mastiff owner shot the dog because he had bit their kid! I don't know . . . I wonder if Miranda has a late morning show . . . . . . . . .

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

They are discovering more about the rheumatoid kind of arthritis, that it is often the result of an overactive immune system. With my eye problem, Peripheral Ulcerative Keratitis, I am actually supposed to have rheumatoid arthritis. But I only have the slightest touch of it that I can barely feel in the little finger that broke a few years ago. My dense bone structure seems to keep that part of it in check.

I hope your doctors are good, and are using their new computer internet programs that not only track diagnoses, but also the associated diagnoses. I really am very lucky to have VA doctors at San Francisco working with UCSF, UV, and Penn State, along with top hospitals worldwide, almost as if the specialists were right there in the room. Next time you see your doctor ask if she or he is using that world class program. You may see it on their monitor. They use double wide monitors that show two pages at once. The page on the left is your doctor's working page, the page on the right is a comparitive and is actively being rewritten and communicated on by doctors around the world. I was lucky to see my case being rewritten, sort of shocked to see it saying "case 7, still living", and a doctor in england typing to create a time slot for him to visit.

Those new medical programs are saving lives. Another thing about a great doctor: They are like Stihl tools in that they don't want a broken unit out there that is one of theirs. It will not be long before they know exactly which cell type is reading some cell's chemical structure wrong that allows the immune system to do a wrong thing without reducing a person's natural cancer fighting system. See? It really is complex, but by having a huge and active database they can see common things that go wrong along with the associated other things that go wrong. Without the huge active database our medical system would be stuck at around 1980's level.

Next step will be DNA as part of the baseline of information. That's beginning.

Providing we don't ruin our world with WWIII or some other catastrophe, the next two generations will be so much healthier! 60 year olds healthy as 40 year olds of today. That'll also take a level of fairness we don't yet have now. Picture a poor hard working person still working hard at 65 and feeling and looking 75, while some rich person 80 years old who looks and feels 50. This is going to require an advancement in social humanities!!!

 

[thistlebloom]

Sorry about your hand Steve . Can you use a topical, like Aspercream or whatever it's called? I've developed some sort of elbow pain from raking piles of wet leaves in the fall, and loading and unloading those bags. Then when my sons work for me they get those 40 gallon contractor bags loaded to the top! And they stomp the debris down in the bag to make more room! The bag ends up weighing about as much as a baby elephant. I don't often load or unload those. They pack 'em, they move 'em!.

Oh, anyway I've been using a topical on my elbows (and knees and feet ) when they start really hurting and it helps.
DH has some sort of arthritis in his hands and he's been using a cream I ordered for him called Penetrex and it has helped him tremendously. It's a little spendy though, so I let him use that and I use the cheaper stuff, which has been adequate for me.

It's sure hard to do anything when your hands are in pain.

 

[digitS']

Thanks, Thistle'.

Yes, I was using a topical analgesic - Methyl Salicylate.

I really like the stuff except it gets too hot sometimes. Like, when we already have 90 days.

Bengay made something call "Ultra Strength" which has the Methyl Salicylate in it but I've not seen it on the shelves lately. The one they simply call "Greaseless" has the same ingredient. I'm not sure if I should use it too regularly, tho'. Skin rashes might result, I'm not sure.

Steve