For those of you with HAND arthritis

[nervousnurse, ASN]

Hi, I was a CNA, LPN, RN for 22 years and I still miss it sometimes; however, 3 years ago, I realized I was DONE with bedside! I was just re-reading that longgg thread about finding non-nursing and/or non-beside jobs. When I last posted there, I did NOT have hand/ wrist pain (especially my THUMB on my dominant hand is sometimes SO painful, it's unbelievable!!!)

I'm curious how many of you that have tried to get away from bedside nursing

and into some type of office job (coding, MDS, insurance, telephone triage, etc) have

HAND/ FINGER/ WRIST arthritis and/or other issues with your hands?

On that thread, I also posted about my unsuccessful search for unit clerk/ admission clerk/ MDS

positions and also considered para-professional at an elementary school, nursery

school teacher, etc.....But ---again-----that was before my hands and wrists became so painful, I know I

wouldn't be able to do those jobs, either.

To help with the almost-constant pain, I wear some wonderful, thin arthritis gloves and braces on both hands. I am SO thankful for them; they do help my pain A LOT! But as I said above, I'm curious if any of you have painful hand /wrist issues and are still able to work?

Thank you, and ((hugs)) to my fellow burnt-out nurses, and those with chronic pain!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Maybe this sounds a little extreme, but have you considered filing for Social Security Disability? People can often do at least some work with bad knees, sore backs and so on, but we use our hands/wrists for EVERYTHING. Your arthritis makes it difficult to do any kind of work, except maybe for something that involves talking on the phone all the time.

For what it's worth, I have arthritis just about everywhere and I got disability on the basis of that (plus my mental health issues, which is a whole other post). My hands and wrists aren't good, but it sounds like yours are much worse. At the very least, you may want to look into SSDI. Just a suggestion.

[poppycat, ADN, BSN]

This won't help you as far as finding work but I have arthritis in my fingers, too. I recently bought some buckwheat-filled terry cloth mittens which you can heat in the microwave or chill in the freezer so you can have heat or cold therapy. I'm amazed at how much pain relief I get from them. If you're interested in where you can get them, send me a PM.