Ways to Save Energy Everyday

Orthostatic intolerance affects just about everything about daily living. There are ways to do activities that will take less energy and use your muscles and blood flow best.

While you are getting stable and retraining, it is important to learn to save your energy and use it where you will need it each day. This means you will need to set priorities for what you need to do each day and what you want to do. You can find more in the Deal and Heal section about pacing your activities, setting limits, setting priorities and developing a realistic retraining plan.

If you do activities while standing up and your BP and pulse are not stable with medications, you will be challenging your body. It will be stressing your body. There are ways to do things that will not be such a stressor. Our goal is to keep you doing what you can to take care of yourself - and buy time for you to stabilize and retrain your body. Our ideal goal would be that you don't need to do any of these things ever again. Our realistic goal is to do the best possible with where things are today.

 

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Author/Caregiver Mom's Note: For those of you with OI, you know a lot of this already. There is a lot of it that is not so obvious to us caregivers (or physicians). We take these things for granted.

It took some time but I am more aware of what it takes to do everything things - thanks to my daughter and my cat, Patches, who constantly reminded me to pay more attention.

I have included some of the information here to help you and your caregivers - so you don't have to reinvent the wheel or take a long time to figure out what's out there and what might help.

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Personal Care - showers, washing your hair, skin care, shaving and more

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References

1. Personal experience of author as physician and caregiver since 2004 as well as recommendations from physical and occupational therapists seen in consultation.