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.

Kind of like the peg test they have you do? I can't pass them with my right hand. My right had is really bad with that test. In fact, I have a 97% impairment of my right hand. I still use it all the time and it seems to function normal until I have to do some fine motor skills such as the peg test.

I never thought of doing exercises for the hands. My left one gets weak and I lose grip strength, my right seems to lack coordination, and I have tremors with both hands. Maybe I'll make up some thick salt dough and work with that to see what happens. I can also practice picking up beans or rice with my hands to work on that, maybe?

Oh yes the peg test...hahahahaha!!! I did get better at it though after my OT...a little (my left)..

Another good finger exercise is the each finger tip to thumb and press hard. Several of those. You will do a lot of that in the putty too when you pinch and tug at it.

I did pretty good with the exercise that they use the clothespin like thingies on it. You have to clip them to different things on the tray they use with it.

I made my own at home with rubber bands and regular clothespins. (wrapped rubber bands around the mouth of the clothespin to give it resistance) I clip them to dvd and cd boxes that I have left over from some defunct computer programs.

The other exercise I like to do is crocheting and knitting, but it's actually kind of uncomfortable to do because the yarn feels like steel wool to me sometimes with the numb fingers. I havent been doing much knitting, maybe five minutes every couple of weeks. Crochet is ok for maybe a half hour, but then my fingers will feel weird after having the yarn run thru my fingers. I really miss being able to sit and crochet for 8hrs at a time. I never would have thought that someday just sitting and crocheting would be hard to do.