April Showers

One of the most difficult times in my day is the mornings.  When the alarm goes off and I have to reach for it and my body doesn’t want to move.  I get out of bed and all my joints are still and painful.  I shuffle around because my knees and ankles don’t want to bend.  My hands are so stiff and painful that doing anything requires both hands. 

Taking my morning shower does help loosen up my body.  The warn water eases the pain and helps me get movement back into my joints.  But a shower or bath still requires a lot of movement, reaching and bending.  So I have a few tips to make the time in the shower less painful.

• Those with an autoimmune disease can have difficulty holding, lifting or even squeezing bottles. Push pump bottles can make things easier.  You can use your fingertips, back of your hand, arm or even your elbow.
• Bending can cause pain in the spine or lower extremities.  So keeping everything up above the waist line can be really helpful.  Using a shower caddy can help keep everything right where you need it.  Shower caddies come in various sizes and styles.  There are pole designs that fit in the corner of a shower or bath or those that hand from the neck of the shower head.  There are even ones that span the width of the tub for those that enjoy a bath.
• Washing our bodies can cause us to bend as well.  Using a bath brush can help us eliminate some of the bending while still reaching our feet.  A bath brush looks like a mesh latherer on a stick.  In fact it pretty much is a latherer on a stick.
• For the ladies, Ahh vanity, we twist and stretch trying to reach all the little spots that hair can grow.  We want smooth skin but most of us can’t afford to have laser removal done.  So it’s a razor and some shaving cream that we turn to.  If you have noticed, the pumps on shaving cream bottles are designed to be used by your finger while holding the bottle.  For me, this is really difficult so I began looking around for an alternative.  What I found was the Schick Intuition Plus.  This handy little razor has shaving moisturizer built in and for me it has eliminated the step of lathering up, sweet!  Sorry gentleman, I haven’t been able to find something similar for you.  But maybe one of the men out there can tell us which is easier to use, a manual or electric razor?