By Johanna on Saturday, June 10, 2000 - 03:03 pm:

Hi,
browsing through the board I saw that at least one other person besides me ruined her wrists by going on crutches. Are there people out there who walked on crutches for a longer period and didn't get wrist trouble or should hypermobile people never use crutches without protecting their wrists? In which other joints could you get problems from using crutches? Due to a deteriorating hip I might again need something to keep me walking in the near future but I am in fact running out of limbs. Has anyone got any experience with crutches on which you lean with your elbow or armpit instead of your wrists? Should I just drop the idea of going on any kind of crutch?

By Bianca on Sunday, June 11, 2000 - 12:07 am:

I have some experience with cruches which you lean on with your elbow. But they are very short. Directly after ruining my wrists with normal crutches: tendonitis on both wrists I tried to walk with these. In this moment it exacerbated my tendonitis just after maybe 200 meters. So I stopped it and walked on my bad ankle...
But I think although they harm less than normal crutches. I would say when you need crutches try it with them because there is not so much weight on your wrists, and try to save your wrists with braces, too.
Maybe another help. Take both: crutches you can lean on with your elbow and crutches you take under your shoulders-if your shoulders tolerate them- so the joints which have to bear the most weight change from time to time.
I hope you can need something of that. And I am very interested what works for you, because I am afraid of the moment when I will need crutches for the next time.