well, this sucks.
i woke up at 3am to sharp pains in my right elbow. i thought i’d sprained it in my sleep. i got in a more comfortable position, went back to sleep until 6.
woke up to whole right arm swollen and tingling, fingers fat and clumsy. first thought: blood clot? walked to the emergency room to get checked out. it’s nerve injury.
i’m home again. right arm extremely painful and useless. i have a bottle of tramadol. guess what? i can’t open it with one hand. guess i’ll wait until my wife gets home at 3.
don’t expect much typing from me for a few days.
« Long day
left handed one finger typing
« Long day
That’s scary! I’m glad it wasn’t a blood clot.
On the medicine: do you have a vice you could clamp the bottle in while you turn the cap?
Getting old absolutely sucks. Hang in there. As you’ve learned, it’s a sea change in life that most people under ~60 can’t appreciate. Even those in the medical community seem clueless (or have already retired). My current (young) PCP suggests fixes for ailments all the time that are impossible because I’m too goddamn old. Geriatrics is badly neglected in this country.
PS — What’s up with this site? Is this a DoS attack? Sheesh but it’s gotten slow.
Well, but on the bright side, you now text and (sort of) punctuate like a youngster! No caps!
Well, I’m glad your ER is walkable and that it wasn’t a leg! Good luck recovering from this one.
That sucks. Sorry to read this and wishing you as speedy and as smooth a recovery as possible. Get well soon.
@1. Le Chifforobe : “On the medicine: do you have a vice you could clamp the bottle in while you turn the cap?”
Or pliars or a wrench or something similar that could hold the bottle still? Using a tea-towel or cloth maybe? Posisble toimprovise something like that?
PZ, I hope you recover fully and soon. If it isn’t your knees, it’s going to continue to always be something else as you age. The undesirable adventures of aging. Being quite a bit older than you, I would like to know if the emergency room told you the cause of the nerve injury. Is it neuropathy? Was it twisting the arm in your sleep? How can it be avoided.
At least our esteemed host has fewer problems in typing than archy the cockroach…
I hope he has a neighbor who can/will open a bottle.
If your bottle is anything like the bottle of Tylenol I just opened, you’ll need a hand towel, slightly damp, between your legs with the bottle held upside down.
Time to acquire a keyboard lackey. Don’t ask me how.
I side sleep which plays hell with my arms, often numb and/or tingly. It’s worse for my back. Hope your arm issue subsides soon.
Do you have any speak to type or dictation feature on whatever you use to post here? We are fine with typos.
Sorry to read — do please get your rest!
e e cummings reborn
Washington University – Sleep positioning and nerve compression syndromes
University of Toledo – Physician warns cuddling while sleeping can get on your nerves
Tramadol is a go-to med around this house. I don’t take it often but sometimes it’s the key to a good rest.
I suggest that when you’re able, take the cap off the pill bottle and leave it off. If you have trouble handling the pill bottle, take some of the pills out of the bottle and put them in a cup or bowl so you can get at them. The meds won’t “spoil” for the few days you need easier access. You don’t have little kids around so little risk of someone getting into the pills. And, I’m sure Mary won’t pilfer your Tramadol…although my wife and I sometimes share each other meds meds like Tramadol.
Sorry to hear about your injury. I hate inflicting damage on myself while sleeping, but it does happen more often.
Did you get anything for inflammation control?
Something that “archie” didn’t have is voice to text – you could use that on your phone or computer to do “bulk” text entry. (Oh I see @Hemidactylus said that.)
Entropy sucks. Hang in there and get help where you can, PZ.
Ouch!!! Best I can say is stuff like this doesn’t happen often.
In fact, it has only happened to me a few times in my life.
As has already been pointed out several times, getting old is not for the faint of heart.
Meaning, if you can’t handle pain and random things going wrong with every organ system in your body, then don’t get old.
I did acquire one superpower when I got old.
Old people are invisible in our society.
And, that includes our medical system.
Oh yes, weird pains/pseudoinjuries on waking up. Ouch indeed.
Good thing is, they tend to not last too long.
FWIW, speech-to-text works rather well these days.
—
raven,
I am never invisible. In any society.
John @19:
Truer words were never written.
FWIW, I’d never ban you from my blog, if I had one. No matter how annoying you were. You, like sonofrojblake, are well worth the occasional WTF.
You’ve got a nerve PZ…
But get well soon old man!
Goddammit.
Best wishes.
I hope at least the air conditioning works. Hot nights make it even harder to sleep.
Next: Evil cat insists on sleeping on your face, flopping thick furry tail into your eye in its sleep.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @14
Your first link says: “Avoid night time fisting if you can.”
Getting quite personal but duly noted.
Seriously though I do side sleep with a pillow in front which maybe helps. I managed to back sleep after my cataract surgeries, putting barriers to my sides, but I just don’t like it for some reason.
The site seems to admonish stomach sleepers. I can’t stomach sleep comfortably, but do wonder how it might stretch my psoas muscles. No…seriously…I have given this much thought as I do a cobra stretch on my bed in the mornings which involves my legs bent up against the head board. Stomach sleeping might really stretch those stubborn fuckers chronically. Probably not worth the side effects.
Well that sucks. My sympathies.
This probably wouldn’t happen to me. I get up every hour or so to pee.
Get well soon.
Good news for the not-so-young !
“Scientists Discover How To Regrow Cartilage”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/QCMXvU4tYp0
I love how Grigjanis @ 20 thinks if he had a blog anyone would be remotely interested in reading it. X-D
Fun fact: Grigjanis once flounced in high dudgeon from a blog because I wasn’t banned. Seems calling out his ludicrous puffed-up pompous misogyny really rustles his jimmies.
@ PZ
Sorry for participating in the derail, Grigjanis’ high opinion of himself can never not be funny. Best wishes.
^ Pathetic.
As a person who recently had only use of one hand and had trouble opening bottles (prescription and otherwise), I did manage to find a technique to do so. Get a Non-Slip Rubber Jar Opener (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HEKQTY) and reverse how it is normally used. Place it upside on a counter with the bottle on top, and press down and turn the lid with your good hand. The opener has enough friction so that the bottle doesn’t turn as your rotate the lid. It might be even more effective if you had two of the openers; one to place on the counter, one to use over the lid.
Another method I use was to grip the bottle between my thighs, and use the opener on the lid.
In emergency in the absence of a jar opener, a rubber-heeled shoe might work.Stand on the upside-down shoe to hold it in place, then press and twist the bottle cap against the heel.
A similar technique works to remove stuck camera filters.