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Wellness Wednesday for August 2, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Half the reason why I, unlike most of my family, didn't opt for a surgical specialization is because I hate standing for hours. It often involves having to hunch forwards too, so both my back and my legs end up absolutely aching by the time I'm done.

Well, I just started a job as a Simia custodialis, or humble Ward Monkey in an oncology department and my legs are fucking killing me. Standing around being useless while Consultants perform interminable ward rounds is absolutely my least favorite part of the profession.

It's so bad that I've been stealing paracetamol and chlorzoxazone tablets to help with the body ache, or I can't drag myself out of bed in the morning.

Anybody have any suggestions for how to tolerate it better? It's not like this is a new thing, I've always hated standing, and I've had to tolerate similar nonsense for years so it's not a matter of just losing the habit from lazing around for a few months. I semi-seriously conjecture that my body is akin to a chihuahua fed human canine growth hormone till it's the size of a St. Bernard, my poor spine can't take it.

Miss me with walkable cities, I'm going to surgically remove my legs and put on a motorized rocket powered wheelchair as soon as the Scienceā„¢ is there.

Many people just acclimate after a few weeks, but if you need help with that all the exercise oriented advice is good. You'll also see tons of discussion on /r/residency and /r/nursing about this topic. Many people benefit from compression socks and excellent shoes (2-3 pairs that you'll cycle through).

In the U.S. most surgery people will use upscale clogs (ex: Danksos and Calzuros) and they work great but you should be able to find some options that are in a regular sneaker form factor, just search on the medical subreddits.

Footwear makes a HUGE difference.

This who I think this is? If so, nice to see you around these parts.

Many people just acclimate after a few weeks

I just started this job after several months of being a couch potato, but past experience suggests that I won't acclimatize, given that I worked for 6 months in similar conditions and still had my legs and back killing me.

Many people benefit from compression socks and excellent shoes (2-3 pairs that you'll cycle through).

I was thinking about compression socks or stockings, should probably get a pair for my dad while I'm at it.

but if you need help with that all the exercise oriented advice is good.

Sigh, that's what I was afraid of, but I thought asking around for easier solutions was worth a shot. At least the paracetamol+cholorxozazone combination works wonders, and as far as I can tell the latter doesn't have any major risk associated with it.

If you stuck with it for awhile and still had problems you should look into the socks and shoes - they can make a huge difference. OR staff, nurses in general, and good podiatrists can all give you tips, otherwise I'd dig around on Reddit as this is a problem that pops up every late June/July.

Personally I swear by my Calzuros but Hokas and Ons are much trendier.

A solid piece of advice I've heard is that it's always worth investing in shit that's between you and the ground.