Next week I’m gonna have shoulder surgery.
I’ll be in capacitated for maybe as long as 9 weeks. I’m looking for a site that displays or sells aids for doing simple tasks ,like getting dressed ,one handed. There has to be hundreds of little tricks Us normally 2 handed folks just don’t think of.
Right now I’m wondering how I’m gonna button my blue jeans.
Know of any on line sites that discuss aids for the handicapped?
I dislocated a shoulder and had it immobilized for 6 weeks. You pick up techniques fast, and learn to button jeans one handed easily. Dressing’s easy, sleeping’s not.
Sports bra. Slip-on shoes.
I don’t know what you would be able to do. Will one arm be a proble but not the other? Will you have nomal use of the hands for gripping. I found having two needle nosed pliers can help if your grip isn’t what it should be. I’ve had to pull on socks with pliers before. Get a mug with handle, or glass with a stem, if your grip is week. Both can be held in a way that won’t drop the glass if your grip weakens. Get a pair of slip on shoes or velcro. Get pants and shirts that don’t have buttons. You need some fasterner on the front, because you won’t be able to slip on a pull over. Get a extendable gripper claw. Shop for food that is in containers you can open. Request easy open pill bottles from the pharmacist. Place all escencial items as close to waste high as you can. Don’t leave it in the back of a cuboard or in a high one.
Please don’t treat this as a snarky reply - it’s not intended to be. If you’re in a major city I’d suggest the Yellow Pages.
I think this is one case where a little in person research is better than netsurfing. Find yourself a store that sells supplies for the disabled and go have a nice long talk with someone there.
I’ve now broken the bones in both of my upper arms. The first time it was right at the shoulder, the second time it was closer to the elbow. You adapt very quickly. I quickly became an expert at wiggling a t-shirt on over the cast. I mostly avoided panted that required buttoning, but I remember doing it a time or two with a great deal of profanity.
The first time I broke my right arm, the arm I write with. I’m pretty handy with my left hand, but I can’t write at all with it so that sucked. I also found that typing one-handed got trying very quickly, but again it can be done.
I missed proper showers most of all, really.
-Lil
Well, I’m just coming off a collar bone fracture so I’ll chime in. Hopefully, they’ll have your arm immobilized in a way that makes it relatively easy not to wiggle the tender bits, which would put you at an advantage to me. I recommend loose, baggy shirts with big head holes to get in and out of easy, slip-in or velcro shoes are better than laces. You may want to look around the house for ways to organize food, dishes etc so you don’t have a lot of reaching high or low. If you have a stick shift you may want to trade cars with a friend who doesn’t, or arrange a few dates in advance to get driven to errands, or just to get out of the house. Netflix is your friend. I found bathing and changing every other day just fine, it’s winter here after all, and I’m not busting a sweat, but TMI ALERT, I also found that a little anti fungal cream was thus in order. I slept on the couch so as not to roll onto my right side. Good luck
I was immobilized after a glenoid fracture and shattered clavicle - only in a sling for 1 1/2 weeks but then no active movement for 6 weeks.
My wife was here to assist in most daily tasks like cooking and driving, so I don’t have anything to offer there, but you’ve gotten plenty of good leads from previous posters.
I found button-up short sleeve shirts the easiest to put on, and loosely-laced sneakers easy as well. Jeans were no problem. Rather than try to carry a backpack slung over one shoulder, my wife got me a rolly-backpack like people might use when travelling - this was a lifesaver as far as schlepping stuff around.
The one thing I might flag for you - my non-active arm swelled up after a few days of inactivity, and I used a compression wrap to drive some of the pooled fluids out (actually, I think I mostly used a lycra cycling slip-on arm warmer).
Good luck
Thanks all for the information and good wishes.
I was hoping for a site that shows do/build it yourself shirt buttoners. Stuff like that.I’ve looked for such things at arthritis sites but there are about 30,000 of them.
I have a sock (helper) thingy. Works pretty slick.
I have the arm extender grabber thing.both from previous surgerys.
I found I can get my button front shirt off with the help of a string tied in a loop about 3 feet long. Just hook 1 end around the sleeve button and the other around a drawer pull. And then pull the sleeve off.
anyway thanks again
just
If you’re still going to have grip in your hands, you may want to think about cruising an antique store for a buttonhook. Generally, you can find simple ones for next-to-nothing because they were so common. That would be a big help with buttoning shirts and the like.
Take a look in your local Yellow pages and let me know what you found in regard to his question.
Regarding buttoning - I never found it at all difficult to button things one-handed. Please forgive the intrusion, but are you for some reason not normally-enabled in manual dexterity?
You might try putting a mitten on your one hand (or otherwise temporarily going disabled) and seeing what in your daily life becomes an issue for you. That may be easier than trying to imagine what will become difficult after your surgery. Hope that helps.
The dexterity is still there
I guess I was mainly concerned with buttoning jeans. This old body ain’t considered a hard body anymore.I am “used” to being one handed due to an old surgery.but this is gonna be a long time.
Your physician could prescribe an Occupational Therapy eval. An OT is often the go-to guy for evaluating activities of daily living (dressing, using the toilet, getting yourself a meal, tidying up the place) and teaching alternative strategies for doing it. They usually know all the good adaptive equipment and shortcuts.