PN and handwriting …

My handwriting has deteriorated significantly but no relationship to PN was indicated. What I have is essential tremor. A physical therapist has helped me deal with it, given me exercises to strengthen muscles that help control movement in my hands, had me modify the pens I use regularly so that they are heavier (I used tire weights. They come with adhesive backing so are easy to stick on, and they are steel.) I had noticed that it is easy to carry something that is heavy with less shaking than it is something light. So adding weight to a pen or pencil helps.

Yes, Ray. My handwriting has noticeably deteriorated. I do part time work teaching and I have to make a real effort to write corrections legibly. As I learnt running writing in the '50s, I usually print for my students. Any work I give them is always via a computer- faster and definitely more legible! I have even found my signature to be quite variable!! Age probably has something to do with it, but my manual dexterity generally has noticeable declined- buttons, jewellery clasps, lids and packaging of all kinds cause me great frustration!

It’s the motor part of the neuropathy. Some days I can’t sign my name at all and other days I can.

Handwriting? I can't even begin to sign my name anymore. Although, I don't really think it matters that much anymore. I make a scribble across devices that require my approval. No one seems to care. My frustration comes with trying to write a short status on a sticky note.

Hello, @allwheeldrive

Ah, yes, those darn buttons! Anyone who’s never experienced life with neuropathy can’t possibly know how challenging the simple task of buttoning a button-up garment can be. I’m glad no one is within earshot when I’m trying to button a shirt. I’ve been known to use language that would make an especially foul-mouthed sailor blush. I can recall only one other time when buttons could raise my blood pressure like that: Army basic training. The barrack lights would snap on at 4:30 am, and we trainees would have 30 minutes to:

1. Use the toilet.
2. Make our bunks.
3. Get dressed.
4. Scramble into the company street, ready for pushups and jumping jacks.

Invariably, the khaki button-fly pants (no zippers!) I’d be trying to put on would have been freshly starched, making trying to force your legs through the khaki pants legs like trying to power-push your legs through the midline of a sheet of half-inch ply. Ah, yes, those darn buttons!

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)

Hi, @luffing

When you say, 'I can't even begin to sign my name anymore,' I know what you mean. These days, I'm not asked to sign my name very often––with one exception. I receive home health care visits twice weekly in the wake of my sepsis infection. At the conclusion of each visit, the home health therapist will present me with her smartphone and ask that I use a fingertip to sign my name. What a laugh! My signature, signed with the tip of my index finger, looks more like the path a confused earthworm had taken while wiggling across the therapist's smartphone screen.

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)

Hello!

I’d forgotten that you’re a day ahead of those of us on the other side of the Pacific. I’m surprised I hadn’t remembered because I have a correspondent in Perth with whom I’m exchanging messages every three or four days.

I, too, have tried a medley of blood pressure medications. Today, I take only a low-dose Losartan (25 mg), once daily. Until recently, I was taking both a higher dose Losartan (50 mg, also 100 mg), once daily; also, Amlodipine (spelling?). Amlodipine, it seems, comes with foot and leg swelling as an undesirable side effect; when I complained to my primary doctor about such swelling, she took me off the Amlodipine. That happened right about the time I got my sepsis infection. The various medications I was given to fight that infection wreaked havoc with my blood pressure. Now that I’m getting over the infection, I’m waiting to see if my low-dose Losartan will settle my blood pressure right about where it should be.

As far as supplements go, I take 2000 units of D3 daily, as well as a ‘medicinal food’ called EB-N5.
EB-N5 (available in the U.S. by prescription only) is a power packet of various vitamins, including the non-toxic B6 pyridoxal phosphate, which may aid (if I’m lucky) my neuropathy.

Cheers!
Ray

Hello, Joan (@joanland)

I, too, have found weight to be of a measurable benefit but under somewhat different circumstances. I have never tried different weight pens (but I am going to). What I discovered is that my ordinarily wobbly balance is far less wobbly–almost non-existent–when I've got two weighty (not 'dangerously' weighty) dangly from my hands, one bag a-dangly from the grip of each hand. Weight, in some fashion, must anchor us to the earth in a way that partially compensates for the steadiness that our neuropathies have stolen from us. It would make sense that a little weight on a pen or pencil would be of help, too.

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)

Hi Ray,
I had to stop all meds for a breath test recently and never restarted most of them.
I'm noticeable better off meds, but then the organs complain!
Facing not seeing 2025 so it really only matters that I take the BP pill to keep the intense migraine at bay, for my sanity. More often than not I'm getting less than desirable days now, but on a good day I try to take full advantage of the time available. With ANS more in control of me than I am, I just make do with what I can at the time. I could forego everything but the BP meds and nothing would change. Been living with negative stats for everything with no meds for well over 30 years and I'm still here. Not even 15 TIA's over 3 days last year could slow me, just kept on chugging along.
I'm getting a bigger collection of health issues as time goes on and am not sure what to do with them! They don't bother me and I don't think about them often, I'm beyond caring now. I work with the thought if I wake up on a day then I'll deal with what comes my way. If I don't wake up I'm pretty sure I won't be too concerned.
Cheers.

@ray666 Ray, two quick comments. First, back in basic training, our drill instructor would not only snap on the lights at 4:30 AM but before turning on the lights at 4:29AM, he would throw a metal trash can down between the bunks and scare the you know what out of all of us. Second, in the last 4 years, I mainly wear golf style 3 button shirts and the button-down collars on dress shirts, they got tossed a few years back. Could never quite understand why the collar had to be buttoned down. And if the hole and button were there, we could not just ignore it. Thanks to PN, pull over 3 button shirts became popular with me with the top two buttons not buttoned at all. Next will be all T-shirts. 🙂 Ed