Fingers that can't pull ropes

[BrendanS]

It seems I can answer that for you

http://www.camcheck.co.za/uk-asa-regenovex-joint-care-products/

 

[OGITD]

In the process of.

ask them what clinical trials have been done, to show how effective the product is...

We will have to see what they say...... e-mail sent.

I have numerous joint issues from trauma injuries and general wear & tear, I tried a patch on one knee overnight and the result was positive, with a reduction of discomfort and pain including an increase in comfortable movement...... result!..... well!.... for me anyway....

 

[CreakyDecks]

I find ibuprofen the most effective drug and generic versions are available for a few pence at supermarkets. It won't cure the problem but it provides almost total relief. You have to use self control though and not use it (or any other NSAID) for more than a couple of days because the side effects can be unpleasant, cut yourself shaving and you will bleed for an hour, so imagine what is happening in your stomach!
Playing the guitar also helps loosen finger joints!

 

[BrendanS]

That could easily be a placebo effect, but if it works for you, then good.

 

[OGITD]

Thanks BS

That could easily be a placebo effect, but if it works for you, then good.

Trust me..... I am definitely not! compos-mentis for the first few minutes, and I'd forgotten all about the patch... so could it still be a placebo effect?

 

[Bojangles]

I haven't heard of minor arthritis, have you been diagnosed by a doctor? If it is arthritis, you need to get advice from a Rheumatoligist, they can perhaps prescribe something to help. If they can't help then perhaps that is the time to try some of the many other suggestions. My 14 year old daughter has arthritis and was diagnosed when she was 6, there have been times when she has been unable to walk but through excellent treatment she is currently pain free. Her treatment consists of weekly injections of Methatrexate and Etanercept, without these I don't know what she would be like.

Good luck, I would hope at the age of 70, you could have many more years enjoyment, handling your own ropes.

 

[Victoria Sponge]

I haven't heard of minor arthritis, have you been diagnosed by a doctor? If it is arthritis, you need to get advice from a Rheumatoligist, they can perhaps prescribe something to help. If they can't help then perhaps that is the time to try some of the many other suggestions. My 14 year old daughter has arthritis and was diagnosed when she was 6, there have been times when she has been unable to walk but through excellent treatment she is currently pain free. Her treatment consists of weekly injections of Methatrexate and Etanercept, without these I don't know what she would be like.

Good luck, I would hope at the age of 70, you could have many more years enjoyment, handling your own ropes.

Osteoarthritis usually develops in people over 50 years of age. Osteoarthritis can be part of the ageing process, although damage to joints when you are younger can result in osteoarthritis in the affected joint. It's quite possible to have mild osteoarthritis.

There's a big difference between osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, which is what your daughter has. I hope very much that your daughter continues to do so well.

 

[Sedna]

weak hands

I have the same problem - also caused by age and arthritis. My hands were never very strong anyway, but I do find my accuracy and flexibility are getting worse. I'm afraid my solution (once my crew had left home) was to downsize. I now have a drascombe lugger and my hands (and everything else) are strong enough and nimble enough to cope with that.

 

[BrendanS]

Trust me..... I am definitely not! compos-mentis for the first few minutes, and I'd forgotten all about the patch... so could it still be a placebo effect?

yes, even subconciously, and the placebo effect is very strong. Some of the recent research with brain mri and painkillers is amazing.

 

[Bojangles]

Osteoarthritis usually develops in people over 50 years of age. Osteoarthritis can be part of the ageing process, although damage to joints when you are younger can result in osteoarthritis in the affected joint. It's quite possible to have mild osteoarthritis.

There's a big difference between osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, which is what your daughter has. I hope very much that your daughter continues to do so well.

Thanks, I didnt realise the difference.

 

[pmagowan]

The two main types of arthritis are osteo (wear and tear) and rheumatoid (inflammatory disease). It sounds like yours is osteo as this is more associated with age. You can't reverse wear and tear as it is a product of TMB ( too many birthdays) but you can alleviate the symptoms. Simple painkillers are first line, paracetamol and ibuprofen (gel form avoids much of the stomach side effects). Many people swear by products such as fish oils and glucosamine. There is some evidence that they can help but not much (as already stated most evidence for glucosamine has been in trials for OA knees). Neither are shown to be harmful and so are reasonable to try. If you get a placebo affect all the better, it is still an effect and often accounts for about 30%. Your GP can do a blood test for rheumatoid arthritis but often the diagnosis is quite obvious. Beware of strong antiinflammatories such as diclofenac. They are associated with stomach ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeds which can be severe. Keeping the hands warm can help. Often OA will go through phases where it seems to have worn out again. Any aids, such as larger ropes, are a very good idea. Surgery in OA of the hands would, IMHO, be a last resort.

By the way, water is a very poor rehydration medium. Your body has very well controlled salt and sugar levels, if you absorb pure water you would dilute your insides. Too much pure water can cause serious and life threatening conditions. To absorb fluids the electrolyte levels need to be right so you are better off with fruit juice or barley water. I find it hard to believe that water levels are much to do with anything as hydration is so well controlled that if you drink more in general all that happens is you pee more.
Paddy

 

[fergie_mac66]

the bloke I bought the slug from quit sailing because of his bad hands

I put on the double sheets to give mine a rest

not argueing with anyone at the moment - s few boats on the wash pleased to see anyone

as for the humber - if the weather is awful I could get to the Humber by the back door

nip out and round and into Boston and up that way

provided the route will tolerate my 2 foot draft

d

no problem with depth as far as i remember never had less the 2.5 meters under our 3 foot draft but depth sounder wasnt always on.The only place we hit the bottom was on the trent at torksey low tide springs going into the lock

 

[electrosys]

Drinking water is sound advice, but saying it will cure or alleviate actual medical problems, no

So swifty dismissed ... and your medical qualifications ... ?

One aspect of his theory is particularly interesting: the body has numerous mechanisms for it's self-preservation - the blood clotting mechanism, antibody production, digestion of foreign organisms, rejection of incompatible tissues, as well as numerous mechanisms concerned with homeostasis such as with the glucose/ insulin/ glycogen interaction, regulation of sodium ions by the kidneys - the list goes on and on ...

What is characteristic of all these (and many, many more) is that they all work to preserve the integrity of the body's biological and biochemical systems - but strangely there is just one which is viewed as 'the bad guy': that of cholesterol production.

Conventional medicine (you know - the guys who used to think that bleeding people was an effective therapeutic treatment, and more lately considered that peptic ulcers were caused by stress (rather than by a bacterium, discovered within the last decade), and considered for many decades that direct surgery on the heart muscle was impossible) considers cholesterol to be an undesirable biochemical to have in the body. Don't you think it odd that in contrast to all the rest, for the body to have a 'self-destruct' mechanism ?

However, if you consider that many intra-cellular tissues are chronically dehydrated, and the obvious relief for that is osmotic migration from the bloodstream - which would result in a dangerously high blood viscosity - then it can be seen that the laying down of deposits of cholesterol is a safety mechanism to reduce the amount of osmotic migration - i.e. it can be seen as a regulatory mechanism in a chronically dehydrated body.

However, to view cholesterol production in this new light would require a sea change in medical thinking - where life-style (including avoiding chronic dehydration) would replace many so-called 'ethical' products designed 'to cure'. Is it going to happen - or are there too many vested interests (including the medical profession itself) involved in preserving the status quo ?

What I find alarming is the widely accepted notion among both the medical profession and the public that disease is somehow 'natural', and almost 'inevitable'. Disease prevention - a.k.a. the promotion of health by diet and lifestyle doesn't seem to have the same seductive attraction as the search for 'cures' - for those conditions which could possibly have been prevented in the first place.

 

[jhr]

A friend of my mother suffered badly from rheumatoid arthritis, and was in considerable pain. She started going for accupuncture, and found it gave her a great deal of relief (I am talking purely about pain relief here, I don't know if it did any practical good in terms of treatment of her condition). I am extremely sceptical about alternative therapies, but (a) The Chinese have been practising accupuncture for a long time and (b) While Mrs jhr and I were staying with her, a few years back, she went off for a session. To say that I was gobsmacked when she came back would be putting it mildly - she was a changed woman. Whether this would work for arthritis related to wear and tear, I do not know. I also don't know if it was a placebo effect or a genuine result of the treatment. All I have is the evidence of my own eyes.

Might be worth a try?

 

[explores]

A friend of mine who i sail with has a Winchrite, and it is very good. We have had him up the mast with it and it performed very well.It has two speeds so you can choose what you like.No strain on the fingers at all.

 

[pmagowan]

Acupuncture is quite effective in some people but this is unrelated to any Chinese pressure points etc. Clinical trials show "fake" acupuncture to be equally effective. Pain is all done in the head and it stands to reason that therapies which tackle the interpretation of pain signals will help.

There are some fundamental misconceptions of the way science, medicine and the human body work in the post on cholesterol and water that are too great to tackle in this forum

 

[Victoria Sponge]

The two main types of arthritis are osteo (wear and tear) and rheumatoid (inflammatory disease). It sounds like yours is osteo as this is more associated with age. You can't reverse wear and tear as it is a product of TMB ( too many birthdays) but you can alleviate the symptoms. Simple painkillers are first line, paracetamol and ibuprofen (gel form avoids much of the stomach side effects). Many people swear by products such as fish oils and glucosamine. There is some evidence that they can help but not much (as already stated most evidence for glucosamine has been in trials for OA knees). Neither are shown to be harmful and so are reasonable to try. If you get a placebo affect all the better, it is still an effect and often accounts for about 30%. Your GP can do a blood test for rheumatoid arthritis but often the diagnosis is quite obvious. Beware of strong antiinflammatories such as diclofenac. They are associated with stomach ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeds which can be severe. Keeping the hands warm can help. Often OA will go through phases where it seems to have worn out again. Any aids, such as larger ropes, are a very good idea. Surgery in OA of the hands would, IMHO, be a last resort.

By the way, water is a very poor rehydration medium. Your body has very well controlled salt and sugar levels, if you absorb pure water you would dilute your insides. Too much pure water can cause serious and life threatening conditions. To absorb fluids the electrolyte levels need to be right so you are better off with fruit juice or barley water. I find it hard to believe that water levels are much to do with anything as hydration is so well controlled that if you drink more in general all that happens is you pee more.
Paddy

There's also nothing wrong with taking good old aspirin, provided you can, so to speak!

 

[LittleSister]

There's a rather nice tale in an article in an old PBO publication 'Which Boat'. The author had a 29 foot catamaran that was the family pride and joy, but with the onset of arthritis the owner could no longer handle the sheets and winches etc. In the end they sold the boat.

After a while, missing sailing, they bought a little dinghy. That convinced them they could still sail, but wanted something a bit more capable, so looked for a trailer-sailer. Eventually they ended up with, wait for it, a Mirror Offshore.

The author says it has no winches "for she has no need thereof; the loading on her sheets is always light. Indeed there's nothing on board to cause strain, provided we don't try any heroics when mooring up, launching or retrieving. We don't even have to go on deck to reef or stow her sails; everything but anchoring can be done from the cockpit. I'm working on that that. . . . Wheel-less, gas-less, petrol-less and all but gadget-less, there is litle to go wrong. A superb sea boat with a surprisingly kindly motion, she somehow seems incapable of causing us hurt, harm or worry. And that, above all her attributes, is what really permits us to relax properly and so revel in the real, untramelled fun of boating. . . . . Everone is different, but we at least did the right thing in buying a smaller 'retirement yacht' , even if circumstances rather than clever thinking was the cause of us doing so. Our experience suggests there is . . .much truth in the saying 'the smaller the ship, the greater the fun'."

 

[Lakesailor]

Mrs Lakesailor has recently been attended to by a consultant with regard to a knee problem. (Not arthritis). He performed some miracle key-hole surgery.
He advised that Glucosamine isn't regarded as having any beneficial effect (with regard to arthritis or any other joint problems, but does no harm).
Also that ibuprofen is a better anti-inflamatory analgesic than others.
Also that (as I already knew from my back problems) codeine-based products are problematical. (with particular reference to bowels, non-movement thereof)

 

[Lady Campanula]

And the fingers are getting very weak: it's tough even to wield a corkscrew.

Now that is a serious condition!

So far I'm coping. Has anybody found anything that really helps?

It's lots better as a team game. Invite your Jockinese crew to bring along a bottle - and open it!!