So this is not a plea for money. This is something that surprised me, and chatting with people on discord, they were unaware of as well.
Discovered last year I couldnât look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.
Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.
-And I couldnât spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.
Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.
And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and Iâm still dealing with a vertigo migraine.
For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.
And itâs not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. Thereâs even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that wonât trigger eyestrain and headaches.
So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.
So I've been having some really annoying tendon tenderness over some of my knuckles for...the past little while. That arm extended, fist closed, wrist fully flexed with knuckles up? HOly. smokes. literally i went through all of these like yeah yeah w/e no big deal, same old HOLY SHIT. Thank you for troubleshooting my tight muscle XD
Brain fog in the kitchen can mean anything from forgetting an ingredient to accidentally skipping a recipe step, plus much more. Here's how to bake successfully, even when you're feeling foggy.
A useful article from King Arthur Flour (my beloved) on baking while disabled.
This genuinely might make me cry. I already deeply appreciate King Arthur for making the best GF 1 for 1 flour. And having good recipes. But an article posted by them from someone with disabilities about how to do the thing even with disabilities? Thatâs just genuinely lovely. I know that my bad there is low, but itâs low for a reason and hopefully stuff like this can continue to raise that bar for disabled people like me.
[image text: @system-splintered says: My grandmother started having severe memory issues a couple years before she passed, and her husband laminated her recipes and got her whiteboard markers so she could mark off things she did. It let her bake for a lot longer than she would have been able to otherwise. End.]
women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill
genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don't lean into diet culture / body shaming?
also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don't want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.
Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.
So, may I recommend:
Hey everyone! My name is Hampton and my brand is Hybrid Calisthenics. You can find me by that name pretty much everywhere on social media.
He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it's good for easing yourself into things.
You also don't have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don't want to/can't. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don't have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.
I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that's the program I use. It's run by one guy who's taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it's completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can't do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you're a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings
Here's his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that's easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial
when i was practically housebound by pots and many days getting out of bed was difficult, i went thrifting on a good day and bought myself a few pairs of nice, matching pajamas. i picked out a few pairs of underwear and socks and put them all together and designated them strictly for daytime wear. i didnât wear them to bed except for naps.
when i woke up I got dressed in the underwear and pajamas and socks and those were my clothes.
spending all day in bed or on the couch in dayclothes like jeans was uncomfortable, but i did hate waking up in my sleepclothes and wearing the same ones all day. my days and nights already ran together miserably, and i wanted to get dressed and feel put together and nice when i had a little bit of energy.
getting dressed in pajamas as dayclothes vastly improved my mental health. i cannot recommend it enough.
and yes, when i had the energy to drive down the street to pick up food or to the pharmacy etc. i went in my pajamas because they were most comfortable for me they were my dayclothes, even if other people didnât think so. of course sometimes when i went out i had to put on standard dayclothes if i were entering a situation where peopleâs opinions of me did matter (dr. appointments etc.) but mostly i lived in my day pajamas.
whatever you can do to improve your day & therefore your life matters, and it is good enough.
The âToddler Mobility Trainerâ is fully modular and requires no tools to assemble, making it easy to replace and grow with its user.
"The average pediatric wheelchair can cost thousands of dollars. And when children grow and their needs evolve â or a wheelchair gets damaged â those costs multiply.
So, the team at MakeGood NOLA, a New Orleans-based adaptive design lab, has made something that can transform the world for disabled children.
âIntroducing the worldâs first fully 3D-printed wheelchair,â MakeGood founder and president Noam Platt started a recent social media video.
He wheels a small, almost toy-like lime-green wheelchair into the frame, complete with a matching harness, suitable for children ages 2 to 8.
âEverything from the body, to the wheels, to the tires, the seat, and even the straps, all were 3D printed on a regular Bambu Labs A1 machine,â Platt continued.
This means the design is fully compatible with a regular 3D printer anyone can have in their home.
âWe designed this to be modular and easy to make,â Platt continued. âReally, anyone with a 3D printer and some filament can download the files and print it.â [Note: You can also use 3D printers for free or a small cost at some public libraries and maker spaces, opening up accessibility even further.]
Once the prototype is completely finished, it will be available as a fair-use download that anyone can use for free.
Pictured: The new 3D-printed chair by MakeGood. Photo courtesy of MakeGood NOLA
Platt said that because it has a modular design, the wheelchair can be put together without any tools or glue. And if any part of it breaks or is damaged, users can simply re-print the single piece they need.
âAs a wheelchair user I love everything about this,â TikTok user @thisisharlie commented on Plattâs video debuting the wheelchair.
âMine costs more than my car, I canât imagine having to buy a new one every year or two as they outgrow it,â @thisisharlie continued. âYouâre going to change the world.â
For Platt, thatâs always been the plan.
When he created MakeGood in 2021, the nonprofit design lab was thinking of the more than 1 billion people around the globe who live with disabilities.
âSince traditional design often overlooks diverse bodies and minds, it is crucial to reshape the built environment,â MakeGood shares on its website. âThe challenges our communities face â both physical and social â are solvable.â
MakeGood works with individuals to co-create their adaptive design solutions, centering the âNeed Knower,â the disabled person or their primary caregivers, throughout the entire process.
Since the founding of MakeGood, 1,600 individualized adaptive devices have been delivered to families for free. Plattâs team found a niche with this wheelchair, which they call the Toddler Mobility Trainer, or TMT.Â
On its website, the organization says the wheelchairs were âdesigned with therapists from all over the worldâ and offer âunmatched mobility and independence to young kids.â
Children and parents agree.
âItâs an A+,â one parent said of an earlier prototype of the TMT in a report by CBS News. âItâs helped [my son] become more mobile and be able to adapt into the other things that heâs going to be offered. Itâs helped his development.â
At the start of the design process, Platt reached out to area hospitals to see if he could fill a need.
âPart of it is empowering clinicians that we can go beyond what is commercially available,â Platt told CBS News. âWe can really create almost anything.â
Now in the final stages of tweaking the TMT design to be ready for release, Platt is eager to get the wheelchair rolled out and into the homes of the children who need them most.
Pictured: A rendering of the 3D printed design, which will soon be available for download. Photo courtesy of MakeGood NOLA
âWe think this sort of 3D printing and design is going to be huge for accessibility, and for wheelchairs specifically,â Platt said in his social media video.Â
In the meantime, people can request a free chair from MakeGood.
âWe have a growing list of people whoâve requested these, and once we finish the design, weâll start filling those requests with custom-printed chairs, including things that you might need for your particular chair,â Platt said in a follow-up video.
Because the chairs are easily 3D printed, they can come in any color and can be modified to include other accommodations, like a section to hold a breathing device or other aid. With years of customization and design experience under his belt, this new innovation is simply an extension of Plattâs dedication to inclusive design.
In 2023, Platt told New Mobility: âI feel like every time I deliver one of these [assistive] devices, I get a hopeful feeling that the world has been changed a little bit for the better for the next generation.â"
I've been disabled for almost 29 years. Here's what I've learned.
Tablets sink and capsules float. Separate out your tablets and capsules when you go to take them. Tip your head down when taking capsules and up when taking tablets. Liquigels don't matter, they kinda stay in the middle of whatever liquid is in your mouth.
If your pill tastes bad, coat it with a bit of butter or margarine. I learned this from my mom, who learned it from a pharmacist.
Being in pain every day isn't normal. Average people experience pain during exceptional moments, like when they stub their toe or jam their finger in a door, not when they sit cross-legged.
Make a medical binder. Make multiple medical binders. I have a small one that comes with me to appointments and two big ones that stay at home, one with old stuff and one with more recent stuff.
Find your icons. Some of mine include Daya Betty (drag queen with diabetes), Stef Sanjati (influencer with Waardenburg syndrome and ADHD), and Hank Green (guy with ulcerative colitis who... does a bunch of stuff). They don't have to be disabled in the same way as you. They don't even have to be real people. Put their pictures up somewhere if you want; I've been meaning to decorate my medical binders with pictures of my icons.
Take a bin, box, bag, basket, whatever and fill it with items to cope with. This can be stuff for mentally coping like colouring books or play clay or stuff for physically coping like pain medicine or physio tape.
Decorate your shit! My cane for at home has a plushie backpack clip hanging from the end of the handle and my cane for going places is covered in stickers. All of my medical binders have fun scrapbooking paper on the outside. Sometimes, I put stickers and washi tape on my inhalers and pill bottles. I used my Cricut to decorate my coping bin with quotes from my icons, like "I've seen enough of Ba Sing Se" and "I need you to be angrier with that bell".
If a flare-up is making you unable to eat or keep food down, consider going to the ER. A pharmacist once told me that since my eye flares can make me so nauseous that I cannot eat, then I need to go to the hospital when that happens.
Cola works wonders for nausea. I have mini cans of Diet Pepsi in my coping bin.
Shortbread is one of the only things I can eat when nauseous. Giant Tiger sells individually-wrapped servings of shortbread around Christmas or the British import store sells them year-round. I also keep these in my coping bin.
Unless it violates a pain contract or something, don't be afraid to go behind your doctor's back to get something they are refusing you. I got my cardiologist referral by getting in with a different NP at my primary care clinic than who I usually saw. I switched from Seroquel to Abilify by visiting a walk-in.
If you have a condition affecting your abdomen in some way (GI issues, reproductive problems, y'know) then invest in track pants that are too big. I bought some for my laparoscopy over a year ago and they've been handy for pelvic pain days, too. I've also heard loose pants are good for after colonoscopies.
Do whatever works, even if it's weird. I've sat on the floor of the Eaton Centre to take my pills. I've shoved heating pads down my front waistband to reach my uterus.
High-top Converse are good for weak ankles. I almost exclusively wear them.
You can reuse your pill bottles for stuff. I use my jumbo ones to store makeup sponges and my long skinny ones to hold a travel-size amount of Q-Tips.
Just because your diagnostics come back with nothing, it doesn't mean nothing is wrong. Maybe you were checking the wrong thing, or the diagnostic tool wasn't sensitive enough. I have bradycardia episodes even though multiple cardiac tests caught nothing. I probably have endometriosis even though my gynecologist didn't see anything.
You can bring your comfort item to appointments, and it's generally a green flag when someone talks to you about it. I brought a Squishmallow turkey (named Ulana) to my laparoscopy and they had her wearing my mask when I woke up. I brought a Build-A-Bear cat (named Blinx) to another procedure and a nurse told me that everyone in the hall on the way to the procedure room saw him and were talking about how cute he was. Both of those ended up being positive experiences and every person who talked to me about my plushies was nice to me. If you don't feel comfortable having it visible to your provider during the appointment, you can hide it in your bag and just know it's there, or if you're in a video appointment, you can hold it below frame in your lap.
Get a small bucket, fill it with stuff, and stick it in your bed (if you have room for it). I filled a bucket with Ensure, juice boxes, oatmeal bars, lotion, my rescue inhaler, etc. in October 2023 in anticipation of my laparoscopy and I still have it in my bed as of January 2025.
If your disability impacts your impulse control (e.g. ADHD, bipolar disorder), you should consider setting limits around your spending -- no more than X dollars at a time, nothing online unless it's absolutely necessary, and so on. Or, run these purchases by someone you trust before committing to them; I use my BFF groupchat to help talk sense into myself when I buy stuff.
Feel free to add on what you've learned about disability!
Some people donât want to hear this but sometimes accessibility is not sustainable or eco-friendly. Disabled people sometimes need straws, or pre-made meals in plastic containers, or single-use items. Just because you can work with your foods in their least processed and packaged form doesnât mean everyone else can.
YES. I wish I could recycle and not just throw everything in the trash can, but I need that energy to clean my room or leave my house this month.
Sometimes I can't boycott things that I wish I could because I live in a rural area and it's the only company who delivers where I live.
A lot of helping the environment involves extra effort, time, or energy that some disabled people just don't have.
And some able-bodied people cannot fathom a world where you can't take a shower instead of filling up a bath, or you can't recycle metal or paper or compost.
Don't shame people for doing shit differently than you, even if it looks selfish or lazy, because you never know what their life looks like.
if you're mentally ill and struggle with structured eating here is some friendly advice I've collected over the years:
-if making a sandwhich is too hard for you, just eat the ingredients seperately, you can even stand at the fridge and pick at ham and cheese if you want. any food is better than no food.
-buy snack food that are easy to access and low maintence but vaguely healthy. i always buy one or two pieces of fruit or yoghurt or a box of museli bars. cereal is also fine. anything that you can grab and eat on the way, or reach into your drawer at the desk and eat. nobody cares how you're eating as long as you eat.
-work on adding some fruit, veggies or nuts to your meal. eating chips? add some peanuts, eating chocolate? add some blueberries or strawberries. its always better to add rather than restrict.
-eat with other people if it works for you. matching other peoples structure makes certain you eat and usually at a regular time.
- if you need to, play your favourite youtuber or tv show. its fine as long as youre eating. I love to sing but I hate cooking so I play music and sing while I cook. it makes the experience more enjoyable.
-take notice of when you get hungry. are you a three meals a day type of person? four meals a day? one meal and snacks? you might be different on different days. use an alarm to remind you when to eat if you need to, or a fun app. or simply get into the habit of taking regulars screen breaks to do a chore or eat a snack.
you are more likely to hear your body's needs when you're not hyperfocused on something so give yourself time to tune into your body (my screenbreaks are every two hours, as I like to change activities after two hours. everyone is different, find something that works for you)
-you dont need to eat breakfast in the morning. you do not need to be a morning person to have a structured pattern. you can eat breakfast at 6pm, lunch at 12am and dinner at 4am if you want. you can meal prep for three nights ahead if you want to. you can greet the sunrise with a bowl of cereal and go straight to bed (ive done it many times.)
when I'm up at late hours, I like to liken it to night duty in fantasy worlds. Someone has to watch over the castle while everyone is sleeping, and tonight its my turn.đ
to paraphrase someone else: if being a little bit mentally ill about a character helps you get mentally better than just go ahead and do it.
if coming up with a scenario alleviates you of your guilt about not being awake in the day, just think whatever you want. There are heaps of people who work at night, for some people it's normal. So don't feel like your life is too messy to have structure just because you're awake past 2am.
- eat food. when you can, eat regularly. do whatever works to make your body get the juice it needs. take small steps. your body will form habits over time. teach it good habits.
