Quote:
Originally Posted by momzpeachy
Hi all
I have to ask...do any of you drive a stick shift? If so, how..without the pain involved! I always drive my mini van but yesterday my hubby needed the van so I took his car which is a stick (manual transmission) and I though as I was going to get in the car...how the heck was I gonna manage this 
OH MY WHAT AN EXPERIENCE! That was not easy and very painful I might add. Trying to get it in reverse was not cool. My daughter had to ppull up on the parking brake and put it down for me. There was no way I could manage it.
Then I paid for the drive (which wasn't a long one either). I had such a flare up last night that I thought I was dying. I couldn't swallow and my neck burned so bad I cried. There goes another flare up.
I went to bed early and woke up still in pain so didn't do much today. I made cupcakes...which was a HUGE accomplishment but wasn't easy. I can't believe how hard it is to do just about everything. I can't hold my arm up at all anymore. I can see that this is gonna take a LONG time to heal and get better.
Well I'm still in pain so I have to go....man do I hate driving now!  |
I drive a stick. But my vulnerability is on my LEFT, not my right (though I am worse structurally on my RIGHT than on my LEFT...I have bilateral TOS).
One thing that helped me with driving was to realize that "bucket seats" (most of the seats are bucket like) are the WORST thing for those of us with TOS. They force the shoulders to round forward. Look at where your shoulders are in a bucket seat. What helped me was a foam pillow (long) up against my spine...this seemed to help my posture be more "chest open" and shoulders back....thus while driving it was easier for me to maintain that posture and not have a flare up. I used to not be able to drive for more than 10 minutes without consistently having a flare up...it took awhile for me to figure out what the "cause" might be....after using the pillow and continuing to strengthen my muscles and posture...I can now drive for at least 1-2 hours without problems. (I haven't had a longer drive yet to see what happens then).
03-30-2007, 05:54 PM
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