Author Archives: Jennifer Hughes

Gifts for People with Arthritis

Posted by Jennifer Hughes
Automatic jar opener

I had a co-woker in Austin, Texas who has severe arthritis. He got arthritis from some immunization shot since early age. Even now I remember how painful it was for him during winter, and how difficult and painful it was for him to just bend down, or twist a bottle cap.

Most people with arthritis have some sort of physical pains and even physical limitations; like my friend, his fingers were always stiff, and due to the severe pain on his leg, he couldn’t even easily sit or bend down. For someone with arthritis, a gift or a bundle of gifts that would help with getting around more easily, doing chores around the house more easily or would offer comfort and relaxation will be ideal.

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Gifts for People with Back Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes

Back pain

Anyone can have back pain, but several factors that may increase the risk are our age, poor sitting posture, poor physical fitness, jobs that required long hours of sitting still or lifting weight, being pregnant, being overweight, and suffering from certain disease like arthritis. Back pain can range from a mild but constant ache to a sudden and sharp pain. If your friends or relatives are suffering from back pain or “having a bad back” as my mom referred to it, below are some practical gift ideas specifically for people suffering from different kinds of back pain and condition. Hopefully these gifts will help alleviate the pain or even better, make it go away naturally.

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Gifts for People with Ankle Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes

Continuing with the pain relief topic, another area that is quite easy to get sprained and can cause a great deal of pain and inconveniences is the ankle. My co-worker has just had a sprained ankle after a minor slip on the sidewalk. She felt fine at the time, but a week later, she had to visit the doctor and was ordered to brace her foot with a splint for two weeks. Like wrist, foot or back pain, ankle pain usually comes from over-use, improper posture of the ankle over time, disalignment between ankle and the leg, injury (ankle sprain, fracture) or diseases such as arthritis, gout etc. Some pain can be eased with simple and natural treatment and relaxation technique such as massaging or elevating your feet, while others required special care by a specialist.

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Gifts For People With Foot Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes
Foot pain relief mat

If someone you know suffers from foot pain, below are some gifts that they will truly appreciate when receiving the gifts and especially when and after using them. Foot pain is mostly caused by ill-fitting shoes/sandals, or letting the foot have too much contact with flat and hard surfaces without proper support, thus most gift ideas introduced below are to provide comfort, relaxation and support to the foot.

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Back Pain Causes and Relief

Posted by Jennifer Hughes
back pain causes and relief

Here is a little deeper research into back pain, including the causes as well as relief. The research was for my own reference of the terms used for most common back conditions. Since I often take my mom to the doctor, understanding a little background information is always a good thing.

Back pain inhibit millions of people each year, and an estimated 80% of us will experience back pain sometime in our lives. For some, the pain can be excruciating. Back pain can be caused by a large number of conditions or injuries. Back pain that occurs with other symptoms like fever and chills, severe abdominal pain or bladder and bowel problems can be an indication of a serious medical condition, and should be evaluated by your doctor immediately.

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Ergonomics – Sitting or Standing at Work?

Posted by Jennifer Hughes

Recently, at my company there’s been some wave of change (or movement if I may) when one person after another have requested to change their work desks from sitting desks to standing desks. It’s happened quite frequently that now somewhere in the on-boarding process for new comers, there’re questions regarding ergonomics, and one of which is whether the new employees prefer having regular (sitting) desks or a standing ones.

That’s not all. Lately, whenever I check my Facebook, I see an ad for Varidesk, advertized as an add-on product of regular desk and could be attached to regular desk to turn it to a standing desk.

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Gifts For People with Neck Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes

Neck pain

Besides back pain, neck pain is also a common problem today, especially for those who have to sit and work long hours in front of a computer everyday. I have a post about Gifts for people with Back Pain, which has been receiving great feedback, so here you go, a separate post dedicated to products and gift ideas for people with neck pain. Like back pain, neck pain can be a real … pain in the neck. Hopefully, the gift ideas below can help alleviate the neck pain for you or someone you know. Some products like the accupressure mat can actually help with preventing back and neck pain.

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Winter Gifts For People Who Are In Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes
Winter gifts

Winter is a holiday season with Thanks Giving, Christmas and the New Year and supposed to be a cheerful occasion for all. However, for those who have chronic pain caused by arthritis, rheumatism, back pain, neck pain or other kinds of muscle and join pains, winter and holidays can become painful.

Hopefully, the list of gifts below together with other gift ideas for different kinds of pain found throughout the site for will bring back holiday, bring back the coziness, relief and smiles to those you loved. Some of the ideas are so simple, and sometimes too simple to make it to your list. Also, although I titled this post “for people who are in pain,” these gift ideas should be good for all – your friends, your spouse, mom and dad.

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Gifts for People with Wrist Pain

Posted by Jennifer Hughes
Wrist pain

Together with back pain, using computer, computer mouse or exercising (your wrist such as playing tennis or golf) too much and repeatedly day by day without proper support and resting will gradually stiffen the muscle around your wrist and cause wrist pains. The pain will likely go away naturally if you stop doing these same repetitive activities everyday; however, more often people just cannot afford to have that kind of time off for the wrist to heal.

Wrist pain can seriously affects your work and your daily activities as besides the irritating pain, you may also lose the power of your grip. Your hand and fingers become less flexible, making some simple activities like holding things, turning door or car keys, typing, writing etc. suddenly become harder and painful.

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Back Pain Relief with Acupressure Mat

Posted by Jennifer Hughes

I’ve introduced this product from a previous post about Gifts for people with back pain but wanted to mention this family of acupressure mats again since having received lots of positive feedback from this website, through my friends and relatives who have used the products.

An acupressure mat, is a self-applied acupuncture device commonly made of a foam mattress covered in cotton sacking and embedded with hard plastic disks containing protruding spikes. Like acupuncture, acupressure mats are used to improve well-being and manage symptoms of various medical conditions, like pain and poor sleep.

The acupressure mat, also referred to as bed of nails, was also covered in CBS News / Health segment in the US a couple of years ago. You can watch it here below.



Check it out on Amazon to see if and to what extent people with serious back pain think about the products. Acupressure mats ratings and reviews.


If you have used the product, please feel free to let me and other people know about how it worked for you. Happy gifting!