Keeping Chickens When You Have Arthritis.

[microchick]

My guess also is a tendon popped. Surprised you didn't have a load of pain and immobility with it though.

You may be at a slightly higher risk for developing osteoarthritis there in that knee. Start taking care of it now. Keep your weight down, stay active. My rheumy recommended I take egg shell membrane capsules to protect my joints. He says it is more potent than calcium citrate. I buy it on Amazon. I told him I have chickens. Couldn't I just chew on a few egg membranes? He didn't think that was as good of an idea. Spoil sport.

@oldhenlikesdog! Good to see you and glad that the knee is feeling better. Hope you are feeling overall better also. I haven't gone the replacement route yet. The last trip to the rheumy last week they pumped me full of Toradol and Pred so I can't tell why I'm not hurting at the moment but hey I'll take what I can get!

Right now I'm feeling like life is on hold until I see that I'm getting some bone repair from whatever medicine they put me on for osteoporosis. Yesterday I pushed my dirt bike up to the barn to keep it out of the snow and told dh that it would be at least a year before I lifted my leg over the seat again. I'd rather take a hiatus from riding than risk a broken hip or back.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Morning all not doing so horrible as BF starts a fire in the stove every morning helps the body start even made a pancake to get going by now need to go do coops before the warmth wears off

 

[Shamo Hybrid]

My guess also is a tendon popped. Surprised you didn't have a load of pain and immobility with it though.

You may be at a slightly higher risk for developing osteoarthritis there in that knee. Start taking care of it now. Keep your weight down, stay active. My rheumy recommended I take egg shell membrane capsules to protect my joints. He says it is more potent than calcium citrate. I buy it on Amazon. I told him I have chickens. Couldn't I just chew on a few egg membranes? He didn't think that was as good of an idea. Spoil sport.

@oldhenlikesdog! Good to see you and glad that the knee is feeling better. Hope you are feeling overall better also. I haven't gone the replacement route yet. The last trip to the rheumy last week they pumped me full of Toradol and Pred so I can't tell why I'm not hurting at the moment but hey I'll take what I can get!

Right now I'm feeling like life is on hold until I see that I'm getting some bone repair from whatever medicine they put me on for osteoporosis. Yesterday I pushed my dirt bike up to the barn to keep it out of the snow and told dh that it would be at least a year before I lifted my leg over the seat again. I'd rather take a hiatus from riding than risk a broken hip or back.

You ride a dirt bike? Yee-HAW!! Do you take it on sweet jumps? I used to have one......

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Winter is hell on arthritis. The cold makes everything worse except for the hot flashes, those are better in winter, whatever better means as far as constant hot flashes go. My new knee is better than the old, unfortunately the hip on that side is giving me grief today. I guess I have bursitis in both hips now.

 

[starri33]

Arthritis in just about every joint of the body, hands are the absolute worst, then knee's are a close second, Hubby found a golf cart that I can get up close to the door to the run, I've gotten 2 of those metal trash cans at TSC. I keep a bag of scratch in one, just outside the run and one just inside the run for the feed. We buy the large bags of feed and scratch, I get help getting them in the car, when I get home I drag them out of the trunk and either onto the golf cart or onto a lawn wagon we have that the sides will fold down so I can slide stuff off, My golf cart has a hitch on it and I can hook the handle of the wagon to it and use it to move things around. I use a scoop to empty as much of the feed/scratch out of the bag and into the can, till I can pick it up with out ending up in the ER from throwing the back out. We've taken one of those auto fill dog water bowls and that is what they have for their water dish. Washing it out is all I ever have to do. We are water haul and they have knocked their bowl over before and ran the tank dry, (1,500 gallons of water) I made sure it would take dynamite after that to move it. For as long as I can, I'll keep my feathered children, if it gets to where I can't give them the care they need, it will be time to rehome them.

 

[pennyJo1960]

@starri33 Have to agree completely there are days it is hard as get out to get out there to clean right now out weather is being very friendly to me where do you live ?

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Welcome @nomoreemptynest! So glad to have you join our little circle and at the same time sorry you are having to deal with the same challenges most of us are dealing with!

My wagon is something like this:

Only I think the one he showed me is yellow maybe?

I did the rubber glove over both hands this morning, put them on over my gloves and it worked like a charm. No wet gloves, hands warm. Only one little tear on the back where a juvenile pullet panicked when I picked her up and gave me a quick bite. She gave up when she realized she wasn't biting skin. So that experiment was a success. I will probably pick up some 'chore' rubber gloves next time I'm out also so I can get them over thicker gloves.

Also a tip I wanted to pass on. Two years ago I took a spill on black ice and broke a rib. No fun at all. After that, DH bought a box of hex drive quarter inch sheet metal screws and proceeded to screw them into the soles of a pair of old boots of mine. The soles were thick treaded and by the time he was finished I had a set of ice boots to wear.

These are fantastic! I wear them when ever I am dealing with icy conditions outside and they dig in like the expensive ones you can buy on line at a fraction of the cost.

If anyone is interested I will take pictures and post.

I have the same cart. My husband got it for me for gardening. Speaking of which, my gardens are changing to self-care gardens. My perennial garden is morphing into a wildflower garden. I dig up and put a few plants out in the front yard with a free sign on them every year and the wildflowers fill in the next year. I stopped covering my roses in the winter and figured the strong would survive and I wouldn't have to cover what's left. My husband, bless his heart, just about finished up the backyard plan I had conceived of but never finished because pain started. Parts of it are ground cover instead of the planned flowers or veggies, but still pretty. I tried to help but had to rest more than help that summer.
I'm going to try the rubber gloves over warm gloves. My gloves always get wet when bringing water out to the chickens and was just trying to figure out what to do when I found you all!

 

[microchick]

You ride a dirt bike? Yee-HAW!! Do you take it on sweet jumps? I used to have one......

You bet! I have a 125cc Yamaha and a 150cc Honda. No jumps, just trail riding and ripping around our woods and pastures. I really miss it, especially the 125. That is just one sweet little bike. We also use our dirt bikes for transportation around the neighborhood. Here in MO we can ride them on the gravel roads. Just can't 'ride' them on black top although you can cross a blacktop if you push the bike across, mount and take off again. We've been known to stretch that rule a bit from time to time but shhhhhhhh.....don't tell anyone, LOL

I'm a bit frustrated at the moment. Three weeks ago, I saw my doc and he changed my Fosamax to Prolia since I didn't tolerate the Fosamax. They told me that somebody from their infusion center would be in touch with me soon to set up an appointment as they didn't do those injections in their regular office. A week goes by.....no call So I call the doctor's office back and finally get to talk to the head unit manager who looked around and then appologized because the order hadn't been sent over to the infusion center. He promised it would be sent over immediately and they would get in touch with me. Two weeks later, still no call so today I call them as we have to be in the city tomorrow for a different doctor appointment and it would be really convenient if I could get the shot while DH was dealing with his doctor.

4 calls later still no joy. They found the order. Wrong order so they were back in touch with my doctor trying to get the right order sent over so they can start the paperwork, blah blah blah. I have to call back in the morning in route to DH's doctor to see if they have got their ducks in a row so I can get this treatment started! But it may take a second trip to get it done.

I told DH when I was working clinical I had 24 hours to get tests and med changes in place for a patient and 8 hours or sooner to get antibiotics started.

Rant over.

 

[microchick]

I have the same cart. My husband got it for me for gardening. Speaking of which, my gardens are changing to self-care gardens. My perennial garden is morphing into a wildflower garden. I dig up and put a few plants out in the front yard with a free sign on them every year and the wildflowers fill in the next year. I stopped covering my roses in the winter and figured the strong would survive and I wouldn't have to cover what's left. My husband, bless his heart, just about finished up the backyard plan I had conceived of but never finished because pain started. Parts of it are ground cover instead of the planned flowers or veggies, but still pretty. I tried to help but had to rest more than help that summer.
I'm going to try the rubber gloves over warm gloves. My gloves always get wet when bringing water out to the chickens and was just trying to figure out what to do when I found you all!

As things have gotten worse for me with joint pain, my gardening has taken a back seat thanks to the hand pain that worsened over the summer months. I usually plant a garden--this year didn't. I just planted a few squash but it was so hot and dry that nothing did well not only for me but everyone around us also

I'm leaning heavily towards container gardening for next year. Maybe some green beans and container sweet corn and the like. I enjoy planting flowers though more than things I can eat so I may just take a year off from vegetable gardening and enjoy myself planting flowers.

 

[microchick]

Welcome @starri33!

Nobody can say that arthritis discriminates. It's an equal opportunity pain in the backside.

I'd love to have a golf cart! They are so popular where we live. People in town drive the all over. Not unusual to see three or four parked outside the grocery store. The town is so small that people opt to drive them around then their cars and even enclose them for winter months. DH wants a mini truck with a dump bed on it and I'd go for one of those also. RIght now I'm trying to keep active and taking care of my flock figures into that plan.

@oldhenlikesdogs. Bursitis in both hips? OUCH! I've had it in one hip before after doing Relay For Life. I walked something like 46 miles and paid for it afterwards. Now it's just plain old arthritis especially in the left hip which has osteoporosis going on in it now. Looking into my crystal ball I see in my future ...wait....it's clearing yes I see it now...hip replacement. Seriously, I hope not but I'm realistic.