It's so easy to forget the hand, fingers and arm stretches and exercises. I try to do some of them at the same time I'm doing my legs. I notice the weakness and uncoordination, if I don't do them every day, too.

Since seeing Annette with her little bent fist and arm, I have been very aware..thanks Cynthia. PT/OT at the hospital, sent me home with my own little jar of soft putty, that I can work thru my fingers and mold things with my hands. It really works!!

Move it or lose it, and whenever or if ever you have weakened do to illness or a flare, ask your Doc to schedule some PT/OT sessions.

Im so glad PT/OT works for you Sally. It makes my spasms and stiffness worse.

I might just have to buy my own Silly Putty again!

Nice picture pretty Kittylady..

Thanks so much for this post, Sally.

This sounded like such a good idea that I went looking for soft putty for hand exercise and find that it comes in several types of resistance. I thought I'd get some and am thinking of the medium-firm resistance type. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I have the medium resistance putty (it's pink/coral colored). I think it's almost too easy to use. I've used the heavier resistance (green color) that was harder to work with, but that was only at PT. I need to order some of that.

I also have a ergonomic hand exerciser that is really nice. I know I lost a little muscle in my wrist/arm during my last flare. Hoping all these "toys" will help me build up the strength again.

I've also been doing typing exercises. I found a few websites online that have exercises and they time them for me and tell me how many mistakes I've made. Before that flare I used to be able to type 120wpm with almost no mistakes, now I'm lucky to do 70wpm with less than 4 mistakes. (when I started the typing exercises I couldnt do better than 40wpm with less than 6 errors) I'm just happy I can type again with all ten fingers and am not doing two-fingered typing now. (unless I'm on my iPad, then you pretty much do have to do two-fingered typing. I cant do traditional typing on an iPad)

I don't know what mine is, since I put it together at the hosp., but it's 4 diff. colors and it seems hard to manipulate. I guess it's pretty resistant.? OR I'm a weakling..

You can also put tiny trinkets molded into the putty and then try to pick them out, one at a time, using only one hand. At first my left hand/fingers were commical.