Electric wheelchair.
Pretty much been housebound since 2018. I can walk short distances, but large stores like a grocery store or a Home Depot were out of reach unless they had their own scooters available, which were often broken, or un-charged.
Malls were out entirely. City centers? Not a chance.
The wheelchair opened all that back up to me!
Tough comment to follow
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I would bet on it being a little bit (well, a lot) of ablism mixed with people wanting only answers that they personally can use. Which circles back on the ableism… people don’t want to believe that they could suddenly join this minority group at any time.
I had to be in a wheelchair for a year. The internalized shame from pervasive background ableism is horrible.
Thank you for warming my day, friend.
Ultimately trivial cost-wise and to install, but game-changer:
butt game changer.
That would have made my post so much butter.
What I was about to post, too. It’s ridiculous how much better something as simple as taking a shit can be.
Not specifically mine but definitely that of my wife: a company called Beurer in Germany makes this little tool with a small ceramic plate that you can heat. Press the hot thing against a mosquito bite and not only does the itch go away, the actual inflammation is diminished. For 20 euros one of the best impulse buys I ever did.
We’ve also put in an order for an electric bicycle which I think will lead to us leaving the car now often.
I looked up the bug bite thing. Im glad that someone paid attention to the way most proteins in bites/stings break down if heated. I bet it works pretty good
I doubt that you can get your skin hot enough to denature those proteins without damaging yourself. I’ve given myself a blister before trying.
it says it gets to 170F. thats hot enough to get shallow stuff like mosquito bites and most stings.
That temperature is dangerous, will burn you, and the mechanism of action for these things isn’t denaturation.
How hot does it need to be?
im not sure and it would vary from protein to protein but the thing says it gets up to 170F which is probably enough for a fair few
This is probably going to be life changing for my wife and daughter. They’re both super reactive to mosquito bites to the point of not wanting to be outside. Luckily, we live where there are only flies and moths so most of the time at home this is literally not a problem. However, when camping in the mountains it can be. Thanks for the tip!
You can achieve the same thing with a metal spoon dipped in hot water, like after stirring a fresh cup of tea. It should be hot enough to hurt but not to burn/damage your skin. I’ve been doing this trick for ages and it works every time :)
wife and daughter.
oh no
They
oh phew
You can also run a spoon under hot water for a more improv tool. Works great.
It’s the same principle, true enough. But this tool I think reaches higher temps which makes it more effective.
Using a hairdryer really helps do this en masse
Over many years, I’ve settled on hydrocortisone cream followed by an ice cube. Those little buggers love me.
I suffer from eczema pretty badly so I always have some sort of cortisol cream nearby. They clear up any bug bites quickly. Luckily, mosquitos prefer my wife’s blood over mine.
CPAP, so I can breathe while I sleep.
Pressure cooker, so I can make a delicious stews in 30 mins instead of hours.
Got any good recipes to share?
African ground nut stew is my favorite recipe. This set of instructions is for stovetop, for pressure cooker, I just throw it all but the peanut butter and hot sauce, which are to be stirred in after high pressure. 25 minutes on high pressure.
8-10 chicken thigh Large can of diced tomato Small can of tomato paste 1 large onion 2 medium carrot 2 stalks celery 8 mushrooms or 2 cans of sliced mushroom 1 or 1.5 cup stock chicken 2.5 tbsp peanut butter Hot sauce optional 3 clove garlic
instructions:
prep: dice the onion peel and chop the carrot/celery Clean and slice mushrooms mince garlic or one small spoon worth of pre minced cut chicken into small pieces to quickly cook or cut thigh in two or breast into three if you want bigger chunks
cooking: put olive oil in large fry pan on high add onion,carrot, and mushroom cook until onion is getting soft then add chicken and garlic keep everything moving around so the onion and mushrooms don’t burn when the chicken is half cooked (white on the outside 50% or so) then add both cans of tomatoes (paste and diced) and stock let simmer for 20-25 mins so the tomatoes break down and chicken finishes cooking, stirring every few minutes add peanut butter in 1/2 tbsp at a time to the pan and mix in with the liquids add salt and pepper approx for 2 more minutes making sure not to let the sauce burn on the bottom Add hot sauce to taste. serve over rice
This makes a good amount of leftovers too.
Custom molded ear plugs. I can play for hours and still hear the full spectrum of frequencies and no ringing.
More please, what brand did you go with? Cost?
I’m also interested. My work provides moulded ear plugs, but they definitely don’t let the same range of frequencies through.
I have molded plugs, the filters are etymotics. Cost was about 200$ at an audiologist that did the molding. You can get filters with varying levels of attenuation, I think mine are 20db and they recommend 25 for drummers.
I had etymotic musicians earplugs before, but they never worked that well. I couldn’t understand lyrics with them in, for instance. But I can with these.
Thanks! $200 sounds expensive but probably very worth it to save you from tinnitus or from going deaf.
Too late on the tinnitus, but at least it doesn’t seem to be getting worse. Lost count of how many concerts and even movies I’ve used them in by now.
Interestingly, a good pair of noise canceling in ear headphones. I have ADHD, and being able to block out the world to focus on what I need to do is a godsend.
Can you share which one you are using? I am looking for good ones.
It depends on if you’re on Android or Apple. The Bose Earbuds 2 and the Apple Airpods Pro 2 trade blows pretty well, both in noise canceling and sound quality. I personally prefer the sound stage of the Apple ones but if actually care about stuff like that, I pull out my cans.
While I wouldn’t recommend this avenue… A trip to the ER and a 2 week quarantine stay at the hospital. I had pancreatitis that was suspected to be caused by a contagious virus? Idk after I was placed in my room I wasn’t allowed visitors and I was pretty isolated aside from blood draws every 4 hours. Cliché but it allowed me to reflect on my life and identify faults in myself and devise ways to become a better.
Still working on a lot of things, but comparing myself to me 6 months ago, I feel amazing about my growth that I don’t think I could have otherwise achieved without this major life event. :)
God that sounds SO expensive (then again, maybe you don’t live in the US come to think of it).
I went to the ER for a simple second-degree burn on my hand. All they gave me was a bandaged-up hand, some ointment, and a crisp high-five (on my other hand).
Cost me $600 after insurance. And the sad part is I have decent insurance for my area.
Years ago when I was on Medicaid I spent about 2 weeks in the hospital. They took my appendix out and after looking at it and running some tests found out that I had some rare parasite. I was in excruciating pain at the time, throwing up blood a few times a day and just withering away. There was a pill that I was waiting to get that would’ve killed the parasites which could’ve been given to me after my 4th day there when they confirmed what I had. I spent the rest of the 2 weeks being doped up on morphine and an array of fluids until I couldn’t take it anymore and left the hospital ‘AMA’.
I went to a different hospital and got the medicine I needed almost immediately.
I did throw up again though when I got a ~$60k bill from my 2 week stay at the first hospital. Again they took out my appendix, ran some test, and pumped me with opiods for 2 weeks without treating my actual issue.
Yeah, that’s disgusting how you were treated (or, rather, not treated, I suppose).
Insurance is a fucking scam in the US, I tell you what.
Food, everyday.
An e-bike. I used my regular bike for errands but the e-bike just made it so much easier to pedal in high winds or when I was hauling my trailer full of groceries. Plus it increased my range because I knew I could go farther in the same amount of time. I bought a class 1 e-bike so I always have to pedal, like a normal bike. Because I use it more, I think I actually get MORE exercise despite the assist. I really love it.
I live in a cycling-mad but very hilly place. They love it here. To give you an idea of the massive impact ebikes have had, the average cyclist age has jumped up twenty years in the last few years.
It’s not unusual to see octogenarians blasting up hills now. They’ve been absolutely revolutionary
Fr im B?
A lot of people make fun of me for having an ebike “it’s not proper cycling etc”, but they all want to ignore the fact that without it, I would be driving (as they are).
Yeah, it’s pretty BS. No one would ever make fun of someone driving a car for not being 100% human powered.
I will say that the only time I get a little uptight about ebikes is when I come across them on trails/paths that are designated for non-motorized traffic only. Somehow people think that motorized only means combustion engines.
A good shower head with better pressure and spray pattern. The one I got was Oxygenics, hopefully they are still good.
I went down a rabbit hole of shower head research recently and ended up with a Hammerhead. Been pretty happy with it.
Reusable, vacuum sealable ziplock bags. Cuts back on waste & lengthens the shelf life of most foods.
It’s also really nice to be able to buy bulk meats & be able to separate them into vacuum sealed single servings.
And last but not least, it really helps with using the sous vide. I like being able to separate a bulk package of chicken into individual meals with different marinades. Just pull a bag out & defrost it, then it’s 90 seconds a side to gourmet meals midweek.
What brand did you get?
Just went with a generic option. I have some that have blue zip tops & some with gray.
The one big recommendation I can make is to get one with a battery powered suction pump. They’re little bit more expensive, but the handheld pumps have broken on me in the past.
Thanks!
How reusable have you found the bags to be? I recently (as in, just today) started looking into getting one, but I don’t want to be constantly throwing out bags.
I’ve found that with proper care & paying attention to what I use each bag for helps.
If I use a bag say for tandoori chicken sous vide…
When the chicken’s done, I rinse the bag thoroughly, fill it to ¼, add a lil soap, seal it up, & put it back in the sous vide bath, while it’s still warm.
Let it cool off & then give it a rinse & scrub, before drying.
It’s gentler on the bag than the dishwasher, but still gets it sanitary & clean.
I’ll try to continue using that bag for chicken, if not specifically tandoori chicken.
This is where having two different colors can be helpful. I use gray for meat & blue for everything else.
Blue bags obviously last a bit longer, but this current batch of gray is a year old & still in decent shape.
Tech to make day to day chores easier have had the largest impact for us. The automated self cleaning liter box for the cats, the cordless vacuum, the cordless electric mop (such as Tineco), electric lawn mowers (no maintenance), smart outlets and automations via home assistant.
Another big one is the RO water filter at the kitchen sink. No more bottled water. Bonus points if you get one that tells you when fillters need to be changed. So nice.
I have heard nothing better than mediocre reviews of any of the robotic litter boxes. May I ask which you have, and what you like/don’t like about it?
I got the new Litter Robot 4. I was worried about the price, but after 5 months with 2 cats, I love it. It scoops the litter 15 minutes after they go and keeps the smells contained really well. We change the tray about every 5 days and it takes a regular kitchen trash bag. So it’s just as easy and taking out the trash. No regrets, money well spent
I got a Litter Robot 3 a couple years ago and its the best money I’ve spent in a long while. Super convenient and I haven’t had any issues with it even with 2 cats.
We have the litter robot. It was pretty expensive, and can be a little quirky at times, but for the most part it’s been a real time saver.
The biggest problem is that it can get stuck while doing it’s rotation, which then requires you to intervene. It really doesn’t happen often, though. It’s had errors similar to that around 5 times or so in the past couple years. Not too bad.
We change out the turd bag around once per week. 2 cats have access 24/7, and another cat has access 12-15 hours per day.
I live in Finland and so the seasonal daylight varies from almost none in winter to always in summer. I got a smart socket connected to my grow lamps for all my plants. I used to have an analogue timer that I would have to keep changing the times on as the season progressed. The smart one now turns on when my alarm goes off in the morning and turns off an hour after sunrise, turns on again an hour before sunset and turns off at bedtime.
No messing about anymore, it’s one less thing to worry about.
That’s great! I also use smart plugs for grow lamps! So convenient. The home country of the creator of Linux. Lucky! :)
Private therapy sessions. Get therapy.
OK but you need money.
This is a thread about things people bought. Money is implied.
because everything else people have listed are free
A lot of it is single time purchases, therapy is a subscription service.
Absolutely, but its well worth the cost. You improve your own life and the lives of all of the people you interact with since you’re not projecting your trauma or having them bear the weight of your mental ill health as much.
It isn’t a cost that everyone can afford and that’s okay, but it should be high on pretty much everybody’s list of “things to get”.
Not everyone can afford to spend 60-70 EUR each week plus driving and 1.5h to see a shrink. And those who can’t afford that are usually the ones who need therapy the most.
You don’t have to go every week necessarily, though for some people that might be beneficial. I personally only see my therapist for 1 hour every month. Therefore, it only costs me 80 USD (≈74 EUR) per month.
If people are here to receive recommendations, I’m preaching to the choir. But responding the question directly, a computer of my own. Being able to go online or work on digital stuff whenever I want to has changed my life for the better.
Headphones to sleep with. It’s a big stretchy headband with flat speakers sewn in, and it works on Bluetooth (speakers are removable with a little effort to wash the band). I’ve always needed stories to fall asleep, and now I can’t believe how many years I spent propping my phone just-so against my ear to not bother my sleeping partner.
Game changer for sleepless me.
I know i may sound like a boomer but it’s not great for your sleep quality to sleep with sounds. Im not a doctor and i don’t know how it work in your country, but you could try CBD oil, doctors can prescribe it where i live.
I set a timer to turn it off after 45 minutes or so, but it’s much better than not falling asleep at all. And at 3:00 when I wake up again, I set another 45 minute timer. I’m not sure what the issue would be with my sleep when I’m only listening to droning voices. Maybe if the symphony snare drum kicked in it would be disruptive, but what I listen to is almost white noise with words.
I smoke weed to fall asleep nightly. That’s also very helpful.
