Oh my aged aching body. I have arthritis in nearly every joint. Haven't noticed it in my spine, thank goodness, but everywhere else I have experienced swelling and stiffness. A lot of pain. I'm not on a prescription; my doctor wants me to put that off as long as I can. She says that once I get on one I have to stay on it the rest of my life. I agree, that is something I want to put off as long as possible.
I do machine quilting on an industrial machine. It's just a regular industrial machine that I've had for years. Got it before they came out with package set-up of long-neck on tracks for moving the machine about and bars for rolling the quilt around. With my machine I do it all by hand. I wear rubber glove, sometime spandex ones, for grip. It takes me two days to quilt an entire queen sized quilt. I don't do this very often, about three or four times a year. While I’m quilting, my shoulders, elbows and wrists don't hurt; it's afterwards, when I'm resting that they throb with pain. I take ibuprofen or Tylenol to ease the pain. I have included glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM in my daily nutritional supplement for years.
Before I started skating I always took a some ibuprofen before starting any kind of long term exercise, such as hiking, so I could at least make it to the end of the trail on my own, rather than calling for a stretcher, as I’d often felt I needed. Never did, but I have walked so slowly toward the end of a day's hike that slugs, in their slimy glide, could have beat me to the trail's end.
Oddly enough, now that I'm skating eight or more hours a week, I have no more pain from arthritis in my legs or hips. The only place I still have arthritic pain is in my left arm. Doctor says I should go for acupuncture, but I haven't yet. I've been trying to give that arm more of a workout, hoping instead for exercise and regular use to do the trick. For the past few weeks I have noticed that I'm not waking up as much in the middle of the night, due to pains in the arm, as I have previously. My left shoulder and elbow still throbs when it gets hit but that doesn't happen very often.
