Things that get harder when your hands hurt, and what actually helps. Written by the person who makes PALM, which means these pages are honest about the times the answer is something we do not sell — and they say so plainly, because a guide that only ever recommends its own author is not a guide.
The short version, if you only read one line: if a soap pump is too stiff, the cheapest fix is a foaming dispenser and a bottle of diluted hand soap, and it costs about two pounds. If the force is fine but pressing with a fingertip is what hurts, that is a different problem and a wider surface is what solves it.
Where these guides name another company's product or another shop, there is no affiliate link, no commission and no arrangement of any kind. We are not paid if you buy any of it. That is deliberate: a recommendation that pays the person making it is worth less than one that does not, and we would rather have the trust.
Start here
- When your hands hurt: what gets harder, and what helps
Twelve everyday things that get difficult, with the cheap fix for each. Where hand pain commonly comes from, and where to get proper help — most of it free.
- The things we don't make
Jar openers, tap turners, kettle tippers, dressing aids: the problems we do not solve, who genuinely solves them in the UK, and the two free routes almost nobody knows about. We earn nothing from any of it.
Pressing things
- Pressing things without your fingers
Palm, fist, knuckle, forearm, elbow, wrist, chin, nose, foot. What each is good for, how much force it gives you, where it fails, and how to change the thing you are pressing so it works. Plus one-handed, with a splint, with long nails and with tremor.
- Your soap pump is too hard to press
Why pumps are stiff, and five things that help — ordered by what costs least and works soonest. Four of the five are not us.
- Every way to solve a pump you can't press
Six routes compared honestly — a wider bottle, a foaming dispenser, an easy-press bottle, a wall-mounted lever, an electric sensor dispenser, or a clip-on adapter — including the two cases where somebody else's product is the better buy.
The engineering
- What the mechanism actually does
The mechanical advantage is exactly 1 — no lever, no pivot, no force reduction of any kind. What changes is the pressing area. The full calculation from the CAD geometry, every figure labelled calculated, cited or measured, and a plain list of what nobody knows.
Buying something
- Buying for someone else
How to choose a present for someone with arthritis, hand pain, tremor or a limb difference that helps without landing as pity. When to ask first, what gets used, what to avoid, and how to give it well.
- Buying for yourself
What to get first, what is genuinely worth the money, and the free things to claim before you spend anything at all.
Why this site sends you to other people's products
It is a fair question to ask of a shop, so here is the answer in Kareem's own words rather than a mission statement.
“My objective is genuinely to help the most people I can, whether it is with my product or someone else's. I am not going to get rich from this. I am hoping I sell enough to be able to afford to make the product cheaper — more efficient production methods — and to develop more innovative and intuitive products for other problem areas.”
That is the whole commercial plan. It is why the guide to a stiff soap pump opens by recommending a two-pound foaming dispenser we do not sell, why the page on everything else names other makers and shops, and why the comparison of dispenser options says plainly which ones are better than ours and for whom.
There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site and we earn nothing from any recommendation made on it.
Who writes these
Kareem Chouiki, in Greenford. I design and 3D-print PALM, a small adapter that slides onto a soap pump so it can be pressed with a palm or a forearm instead of a fingertip. I made it because I could not press the pump in my own bathroom. It has not been tested or certified by anybody, and I make no medical claims for it — the reasoning is simply that a mechanism which helps one pair of hands may help others with a similar difficulty, even where the underlying reason is completely different.
I am not an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist or a doctor, and where a page needs one of those it says so and points at them.
What I do have is the specific end of it: I have handled a great many pump heads, I know which shapes are common and which are awkward, and I know what a pump actually needs in order to be pressable by something other than a fingertip. That is the part these pages are worth reading for.
Everything here is dated and reviewed. If something is wrong, or your experience contradicts it, tell me and I will change it and say that I did.
Where to get proper help, most of it free
Nothing on this website is a substitute for any of the following, and all of it is better than a website.
- A pharmacist. No appointment, no referral, and they will talk to you about hand pain and about what is worth trying. The most under-used free advice in the country.
- Your GP. Particularly if the difficulty is new, getting worse, worse in the morning, or in both hands at once.
- An occupational therapist. This is the profession whose actual job is the problem this page is about — they look at your hands and your kitchen, not at a category page. In England you can ask your council for a needs assessment for equipment and adaptations, and much of what they recommend is provided at no cost. Ask your GP, or your council's adult social care team directly.
- Arthritis UK — the charity that was Versus Arthritis until its 2026 rebrand — and NRAS both run free helplines staffed by people who know this subject properly.
- Living Made Easy, run by the Disabled Living Foundation, is an impartial database of daily-living equipment. It lists products from everyone, including our competitors and including things that would replace PALM entirely. If you want to compare options without being sold to, start there.
PALM is a daily-living aid, not a medical device. It makes a soap pump easier to press. It does not treat, prevent or improve any condition, and nothing here is medical advice or a diagnosis. If your hands hurt, the people in the list above are the ones to ask.