Slightly OT - Woodworking & Medical Issues

[cputnam]

Do any of you have medical issues that impact your ability to woodwork? If you are willing to share, what are they and how do you cope with them?

For example, I have what they call arthropathy which translates to really bad arthritis. It means I cannot bend down or squat. I store stuff where i can reach it and use a level instead of winding sticks. I have a permanently busted foot which means I hobble a lot and cannot carry as much as I used to. I also have hand tremors which require some creative stabilization when trying to drop a chisel into the marked line or get a screwdriver to mate with a screwhead. I swear a lot (under my breath)

[Wild Turkey]

It's about focusing on what you can do, not what the old body can't do anymore.

Bad knees mean all storage is above knee level.

Bad experiences mean no more lift heavy stuff by myself.

Lots of light.

I've learned to look for solutions.

I hope I've got a few good years left; getting new shoulder in Dec should help.

[5thumbs]

Yeah - I've got bad knees and diabetes which means I can't stand on my feet for long periods of time. I didn't go into my shop for about a year and a half, partly because of the medical issues and partly because I lost interest.

I'm just getting back into woodworking. I bought floor mats to help with the standing issues and like others, I'm storing more things where I don't need to bend over to get to them. I also limit my shop time to a few hours each day and that seems to help.

As Wild Turkey said, look for solutions and keep plugging away. Good luck.

[Admiral]

Weak/bum knees run in my family on my father's side, my brother has to wear braces on his knees to do any physical activity on his feet (he played football, center, started for 8 years in HS and college, I didn't play the game, so I avoided that orthopedic trauma), so long periods on my feet make them start to ache.  However, its amazing what losing 40 pounds did to improve the situation, along with a bunch of Harbor Freight mats I got on sale; even an incremental difference helps.  The gift from my mother's genes was arthritis, which at 64 is just starting to crank up, fingers starting to show the move to getting crooked and bumpy, mostly feel it in my hands and elbows, a little bit in the hip and shoulders.  All of this stuff is only going to get worse, so judicious use of Advil, working smarter, and actually getting more light exercise to keep things moving around, and keeping the weight off, and maybe even losing another 10 or 15 pounds.  But if this is all that ails me right now, I'm pretty lucky - but it can all change too.

My bride has a very good image analogy about weight, when I lost the 40, she said that was like carrying around eight 5 pound bags of sugar on my belt, 24 x 7 x 365.  She has a point.  It made a very perceptible difference to me, taking stress off of hip and knee joints, they just didn't hurt as much.

It's the old Dirty Harry line, a man's got to know his limitations, and do the work around solution when you are creeping up to that limit.  Problem is as one ages, the limit line gets a teeny bit lower every year and you must be careful to not miscalculate or that "extra" task will get you hurt, and you can never come back 100% after blowing out a ligament or a disc.

[Routerman]

Take & record more notes.
You don't want to make the same mistakes twice.

[tomsteve]

diagnosed stage 3 melanoma in 06, I went through 6 surgeries, a clinical trial, and 2 rounds of chemo that left me with a new "normal." one surgery was to remove the lymph nodes under my left arm, so I have to be careful about overusing my arm( and im left handed to boot). one surgery was to remove a portion of the t6 vertebrae that the cancer got into, which now I have load limits. the chemo messed up my immune system- I get sick easy, fatigue hits whenever it pleases, and some days migraines hit and im down for a couple days.
i have worked a few different occupations in my life up to then- all of them laborious(machinist for 10 years, rough framing for 10, worked in a sawmill for a year in there and also logging for a year. the effects of all that work showed up in an MRI that showed the discs down in( or between?) the L1,2, and 3 were fallin apart.
me being me, i don't always follow what i should. last week i was helping my neighbor drop a rebuilt 454 in his 87 1 ton.crawlin under the truck hookin up the trans,exhaust, starter and all that good stuff wasn't bad. what just about killed me was sittin on the fender well bolting up the motor mounts then putting the manifolds on. i was out of commission for a week.

how do i cope with it?
sometimes not good at all!!LOLOL i wanna do what i wanna do and when my body says,"you shouldn't do that" and i wanna do it but know i shouldn't and have to wait for help...yeah...that's frustrating.
then theres the times i wanna do what i wanna do and the fatigue hits or a migraine comes on. theres not much fighting myself there any more; a few times trying to work through it.um,yeah. not safe working in the shop like that.
then theres the times i wanna do what i wanna do yet know i should get help. then i do some thinking on,"how can i do this easier."

accepting theres things i just cant do any more and things i cant do like i used isn't always easy, but it helps.

i have changed up my woodworking over time. i used to do a lot of cabinets and big stuff. now i rarely do that and do more scrollsaw fretwork,toy boxes, jewelry boxes, and small cool stuff.

oh, then in the winter when the arthritis acts up. cputnam, mine isn't near what you experience, but it sure as hell is frustrating when my hands just wont work like i want them. i know that's when i need to be more patient, but that aint always easy.
simple concept, but not easy.

[gMike]

I'm 68 and have a fair amount of wear and tear on my frame.  Shoulder needs replacement and lower back hurts most of the time.  I'm fairly obsessive when I get into the shop, I don't know when to stop and rest.  This results in lack of sleep due to pain and taking 3 days to recover from one long day in the shop.

I've made some physical changes to the shop which have helped me last a little longer without the pain and sleeplessness.  I built a tall bench (40") with nothing under it which allows me to stand without bending over to do various tasks.  I added AirMats to stand on which really helps my back keep going.  I also added a tall drafting stool on rollers.  The stool allows me to sit for some tasks like sanding, chisel work, and layout.  I raised several of my tools to a height that means I don't have to bend over to use them.  I upgraded to a Mirka sander to reduce vibration which cuts down on hand fatigue.  I added extra lighting (4' LED lights) over every work area so I can actually see what I'm working on.  I also set an alarm on my phone so I remember to stop and eat lunch and take a break from the work.  All of this has helped but I still have the same ailments but they are better managed now.

The real accommodation has been to pick projects that are within my physical capabilities rather than take on huge casework projects the require lifting, bending, and crouching.  It does limit what I'm able to do but it beats being out of commission for days/weeks at a time.

[jcousins2]

for bending over/back problems and doing bench work look for a moxon vise. i found it relieves lots of aches
jerry

[handi]

At 53 I am generally healthy, just an ankle that acts up on occasion. That being said, I added pullouts to all my kitchen cabinets because I HATE kneeling on the floor to find stuff. My shop cabinets now have pull outs too. 

When I had the current shop wired, I had them put my 220v plug for the table saw on a 20' pig tail so I could use it anywhere in the shop. But the original cord was still on my saw, so every time I needed to plug or unplug the saw, I had to bend over to get the plug. 

Finally I got smart enough to simply shorten the cord on the saw to about 6" below the switch so that the connection was in easy reach. Took me WAY to long to figure that one out.

[MsNomer]

I lost the lymph nodes to my right arm to BC in 1995, then lost my rectus abdominus muscle to reconstruction. Loss of the RA was supposed to pretty much disable my core, but my obliques have strengthened so that the primary lingering limitation there is I have to be careful leaning back to look up. In the shop, that means I try to store stuff at eye level or below. I was also supposed to favor my right arm, but I called BS to that one.

My biggest concern is benign positional vertigo. Everything is stored in drawers so I don't have to turn my head to the side.