# Using Power Tools with Medication



## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

This may seem blindingly obvious but I'll say it anyway.

I'm, 'disabled', for whatever the term means. It's a verbal indicator, not a lifestyle.

When you're in a lot of pain, you're body very obviously tells you, that today wouldn't be a good day for hammering through lots of stock with a 1/2" bit.

It's sometimes a lot harder to appreciate that, when you're using drugs to control pain and other such stuff.

You can feel great, even euphoric. "Wow, today I'll start that new project I've put on hold for weeks".

The next thing you know, you're trying to hold onto several pounds of very fast moving cutting machinery, kicking back towards you.

As I said at the beginning, it's obvious. "Do not drive or operate machinery, whilst taking this medication". It says it on the bottle - take notice. It can save you from scars, losing an eye or losing your life.


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## smokey1945 (Jan 12, 2009)

I agree with you 100%. That said...if I followed that advice I would never get anything accomplished. I have to take 23 pills in the morning and 14 at night! Some day when I get fed up with it I will stop taking them at all.


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

Smokey, we're both on the same page. Good luck to you.


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## Gene Howe (Jul 10, 2007)

I treat pain meds, other than aspirin, just like alcohol and both are banned in the shop.


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

Couldn't agree more, Gene. There seem to be so many people who treat prescribed meds with care but view across the counter pain killers as having no side effects whatsoever. I remember working with building firms a few years ago, who had strict alcohol = fired rules on site but seemed to pay passing attention to illegal drugs and none whatsoever to prescribed and shop counter medication.


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## JCJCJC (May 15, 2012)

JanP said:


> When you're in a lot of pain, you're body very obviously tells you, that today wouldn't be a good day for hammering through lots of stock with a 1/2" bit.


Great thought-provoking post. I can shape the curves on an electric guitar neck from beech (hardwood) in about an hour or so with a spokeshave, during which time the spokeshave gets quite warm from the work, and yes- it is sharp, for the funny guys. But the day after...oh, my elbow hurts!! So your body does tell you when it's time to stop. As we get older, we put in our 10,000 hours and we get more skilful, but the moving parts wear out faster. Eight years ago I didn't have glasses, now I can do nothing without them and my prescription gets a little stronger every time I get it checked. Even with prescription glasses I can't read very fine stuff like my traditional vernier calipers or micrometers.
Still - I get a kick when my super-healthy super-fit army officer son asks for help doing things!​
JC


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

Ian I can appreciate that some may not be able to do anything at all without medication. I have days when I can't either. If this is the case it means that you need to plan your jobs that much more than others do and really carefully assess the risk level in your plans. Especially develop good habits like having good task lighting, having push sticks for saws handy, never having a saw blade higher than necessary. For handheld routing maybe a little smaller router would be in order. There are lots of strategies for doing work more safely.


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Disability is a state of mind. Many members face limitations on what they can do and that is why I suggested this section of the forums. If you can't stand at your router table them lower it to a height where you can sit at it. If you have difficulty lifting your router out of the table to change bits then use an aftermarket lift so you do not need to. When medications are involved common sense must come into play... most people know their limitations.


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## MAFoElffen (Jun 8, 2012)

"Pain let's me know I'm alive." I only tell myself this because I live with it every day. No choice about that. I have an open prescription for pain pills for the rest of my life... that I modestly try to avoid whenever I can. I want to do things. I want to live my life as I want. I don't feel in control or "right" on pain meds. 

Pain management. I ignore the pain or distract myself with something else. Woodworking is one of those passionate distractions for me. When I can't distract or ignore the pain, it is at a level where I can't really work or concentrate effectively anyways, so then I have to take care of myself. I'm talking about 9.5-10 on a scale of 1-10. I also know if I do focus on the pain, that is the wrong direction for me, because then I just feel "the pain" and everything else goes out of focus.

If I choose to take my pain med's, I don't feel safe around machinery or things that require my full faculties. I really don't need any new disabilities.

Just my thoughts...


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

Every disability is different, every individual dealing with a disability deals with it differently. As I said in my original post, I simply use the word, 'disabled', as a commonly understood communication marker, not an expression of my own, or anyone else's, mindset or lifestyle.

I, like so many others, including many I am sure on these forums, have seen and dealt with the consequences of people making unwise choices about what they were or were not capable of doing, when under the influence of, amongst other things, prescribed medication.

Being now disabled myself and, like others above, facing taking a large amount medication every day, I thought that from a perspective of having been on both sides of this fence, and not seeing the topic covered elsewhere, I would simply post a quiet reminder of an easily too often occurrence.

I am not for one minute suggesting changing ones lifestyle, nor am I unaware of the aids and techniques available for making ones life easier, when, in this case, woodworking. I use them myself.

The vast majority of people are indeed sensible of the effects of medication, for the vast majority of the time. But we are still all just human.


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## TWheels (May 26, 2006)

i too live differently than do "able bodied" people. I have no use of my legs, and I take four medications specifically to deal with complications. Three of them are muscle relaxants and pain meds, and each of these can individually put me to sleep. One of them is a controlled substance that has some of the same effects as alcohol. I take all of these meds after I am done with everything that requires quick reaction time and certainty of clear thinking. Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling drunk (at least I don't get the hung over stage.)

I never attempt to use my router unless I am well rested, alert, and feeling well. Even with those conditions my left forefinger shows the result of one split second of failure to think clearly. 
Ian, thank you so very much for starting this thread.


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## OPG3 (Jan 9, 2011)

*This is a great topic.* I am on pain meds and have been for 15 years and probably will be until my coffin is shut. My daily meds do not cause me any compromise, but it took my doctors quite a while to get my 12 prescriptions (not all pain meds) balanced to my satisfaction. I've had to have a number of surgeries, and those often cause me to need additional *super-strong* pain meds - the kinda stuff that doesn't get phoned-in, but must be a hand-carried as a written prescription - followed up with a call to the prescribing doctor. When I take those drugs, I stay upstairs and watch television or sleep. Consumption of alcohol drinks has no appeal to me, but it is largely because we lost a family member to an irresponsible alcoholic. To me a strong drink is lemonade. We all need to know ourselves and be honest about difficulties, permanent or temporarily.


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

*Is this what they mean by, 'Irony'?*

Well after starting this discussion, I suppose it had to happen.

Nice Sunday afternoon, meds working, 'Wow, I feel better than I have in days, I'm sure my grip will be strong enough today to rout that piece of timber, I've been putting off'.

Two hours later, got back from the hospital. See result attached.

Anyone know where I can get a new thumb nail?


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## N'awlins77 (Feb 25, 2011)

Ouch! Sorry about your accident, Ian! Looks like a cast, of some kind, on your rist. Did you hurt that at the same time? Hope you recover soon!


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## smokey1945 (Jan 12, 2009)

Ian I'm sorry about your hurt! I hope all heals good and quick. What happened? Are you pretty sure it was caused because of medicine?


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Slight change of direction...
Doug Ross @ Journal: UNION SUCCESS STORY #7,308: Chrysler forced to rehire workers caught drinking, getting high during lunch break
There'll be two p.o.v.s; one will champion the poor downtrodden worker, being abused by an unfeeling Corporate machine. The other will be those who wonder how it came to be that workers can openly flaunt safety regulations, endangering themselves and their fellow workers with complete impunity. (Well, not complete in this case; they've been off for two years!) 
I worked for a summer in a foundry melt shop with a couple of guys that either came to work pissed, or got that way during their shift. They were human oxen so mgmt. left them alone. Working with them scared the crap out of me...


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

Thanks for the good wishes. One part of the irony, I suppose is that feeling, 'normal', I couldn't attempt using my router because of the pain and limited use of my limbs. The meds made me feel well enough to try it.

Well I took off my thumb nail and ended up on the floor and sprained my wrist and because I have problems getting up, I stayed there until my wife found me.

It wasn't a big job or one that I haven't done before my health problems. Like so many , my attitude is to not let illness beat you. 

Yes it was a stupid decision, in retrospect. But my body said, 'today you're well enough'.
The alternative is giving in, wrapping myself up in cotton wool and spending the rest of my life watching daytime TV. 

And that isn't going to happen.


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

I am guessing this was a table routing job?


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## JanP (Nov 1, 2012)

It was Mike, I was piercing a piece of hardboard for a close fitting, clamp on fence.


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## woodworkingmenace (Feb 7, 2013)

Back pain, I understand.
I take 4 pain pills when I workout, and that involves walking.

When Im down in the shop, I have to take at least 3 so that I can walk for a time with only one cane, and after awhile, I get sleepy from the withdrawl and have to go take a 4 hour nap!

Even though, I dont have my shop 'ready' yet, I still have to work at getting everything back in order, in order to do any woodworking and thats going to take me months or a year, with my limited mobility. I dont like that title, disabled, so I keep working at it to do something about it, but, with me taking so much medication, (20 pills a day), I can fully understand where your coming from and hope that I can avoid any injuries to myself as well...

I wish you well...

Jesse


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## Phil P (Jul 25, 2010)

JanP said:


> Well I took off my thumb nail and ended up on the floor and sprained my wrist and because I have problems getting up, I stayed there until my wife found me.


Hi Ian

You may be making a case for lateral thinking. A hand conventional hand held router, even a D-handle one requires a two hand hold and a stable stance. Using 1/2in plunge routers (sorry gents, but in the UK plunge is about all you'll get in 1/2in), with all the extra weight and power (and torque reaction that comes from that power) adds to the potential problems. There are two approaches I can think of - firstly a back-handle router and secondly an overhead (pin) router. Of the former I can only think of two models still on the market, the Festool OF1010 (which replaced the earlier OF900 and OF1000 models) and the Mafell LO50e which is is possible to us one handed and which aren't overly heavy:









_Above: Festool OF1010 8mm plunge router
Below: Mafell LO50e 8mm plunge router_









If you think they look similar it's because they are both made by Festool.....

In use, except for making the plunge, these routers are easily controlled single handed if needs be:










At 1000 and 900 watts respectively (I think) they have enough power to handle a lot of routing tasks without getting bogged down and they are considerably less "tippy" in use that laminate-trimmers or those "palm routers" such as the DW611 derived from them. Elu used to make an even lighter model, the 600 watt MOF67, but as they haven't been made since the late 1980s or early 1990s I think you'd struggle to find one.

Of course it is possible to get a heavier back-handle router, the one known example being the Festool OF1400:










but that comes with a lot greater power and a lot more weight to manage.

The other possibility might be to consider some form of overhead pin router, such as the ShopSmith attachment










or one of the many home-made add-ons for radial arm saws and drill presses seen around the web. With an overhead router you don'y have to hold the router's weight, only the weight of the material - and not even that iy your support table is big enough. I can confirm that to use a pin router (industrial in my case) for a day is somewhat less tiring than using a hand-held 2000 watt plunge router for the day, assuming the same rate of working (which in reality doesn't happen - you tend to work much faster on a pin router). Of course the other way is to attach your router beneath a table.....

Regards

Phil


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## YaBoyRob (Jan 13, 2013)

I am new here and have mostly been lurking, but I am also disabled (or so the US Gov't says, and they send me a check for it). I was injured at work in 2008 (Proctor and Gamble, Folgers Plant), and require back, neck, wrist, and elbow surgeries, and still do, haven't had the guts to do any of them as of yet. Now that I have my *SSDI* approved I will slowly get them done.

I am also on strong pain meds (_Oxycodone 30mg, Hydrocodone 10/650_, and at night I take a _Soma_ and a _Xanax_ to help me sleep). I have slowly built a tolerance to these meds over the last few years and am at the max dose of each. I dread one day having to go through the withdrawals of these strong opiates when I am finally fixed, but sometimes I could not even get out of bed if it were not for these meds! 

I recently found woodworking (much to the chagrin of my girlfriend) and it has really piqued my interest. It is so very therapeutic to me, and I refuse to give it up due to being on medication. The pain meds do not have a sedating feeling to me, but the opposite, they give me incredible energy, and help me to focus even more on safety. I did have a near miss yesterday on the router table, but I am new to it, and it had nothing to do with my meds. 

I look forward to learning much about this hobby and being the best I can at it. I am also in my 2nd semester of College (Occupational Therapy Major), because I do not want to be on *SSDI* for the rest of my life! Although woodworking is cutting into my study time, I am still doing great and cannot wait to get back into the work force. I am just glad to have found this very satisfying hobby, and forums like this to help people like me.


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

Welcome to the forum, Rob.

As you have discovered, routing is not a hobby to be taken lightly even for us in the lucky position not to be on medication. [but it does not take much to change that situation].


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## smokey1945 (Jan 12, 2009)

We are glad to have you Rob! There is a lot of know how here and they don't mind helping a guy out.:moil:
Smokey


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## VITO1943 (Mar 30, 2013)

Salve. la tua macchina mi piace molto!!!
Ciao Vito


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## Goblu (Mar 5, 2012)

*Some regular meds are tricky*

There are some meds that can cause a person to have problems that could affect them in doing woodworking but I'm not talking about painkillers and the like. I was taking zetia for high cholesterol and it caused extreme disorientation in me. But this came out of left field because it was not known to do so at the time. My sister had the same problem with it. She didn't know about my taking it, so that seems pretty clear. I got so disoriented driving that I couldn't figure out where I was :wacko:, even though it was an oft traveled route that I'd traveled for years. The doctor didn't know about this side effect. Now I think there's been some reports of these problems (cognitive difficulties).

The message is that many drugs, not just the usual suspects, can have effect that are unexpected, and it's wise to be on the lookout when taking a new drug.

One explanation for the cholesterol drug causing this is that it messes with the production of various brain chemicals. Cholesterol is used a lot by the brain for good things, it doesn't just clog arteries. Just a word of warning.


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## idioms (Nov 14, 2013)

Lagta Hai, Ye Saale Saare Ke Saare Apni Maa Ki Tukai Karvaane Aaye Hain...


Hey Guys, I can you understand this reply, if not please tell me, it is written in Hinglish. I will translate.


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## Phil P (Jul 25, 2010)

Yes please, translation much appreciated!

Regards

Phil


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

hahah, Phil.. Lily says she is a school teacher?


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## Phil P (Jul 25, 2010)

Well, it's all "Dutch" to me, James......


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

Missed this thread before somehow. I have arthritis, bad joints, and a 24/7 headache since 1980. That all translates as daily pain, sometimes not so much, sometimes a lot. When my joints are giving me seven kinds of Hell, I stay out of the shop, because I figure I might make a mistake using a power tool. I do not take pain meds of any type; however I do take a daily dose of five baby aspirin for the heart - never had heart problems, and hope to never have any. Instead, for the pain, I meditate. When I was in my 20s I read a lot on various subjects, including various forms of meditation, The Third Eye, religions, and so on. Most of it I considered BS, but eventually developed my own meditation version, I think it might also include a bit of bio-feedback, evolving thru the years. Among other things, I can usually reduce my heartbeat if needed, lower my blood pressure, and other simple things. When I am at the dentist and the pain shot starts to wear off, I can usually push the pain away, but if my concentration is broken, it comes back, fast. Can't say meditation will work for you, but so far it has for me.


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