When your hands hurt

Hand pain is not one thing, and this page will not tell you what yours is. What it can do is set out what tends to get harder, the cheap fix for each, and where to get help from people who are qualified to give it — most of which is free and most of which is quicker than you would expect.

Twelve things that get harder

Nearly all of these are the same problem wearing different clothes: a strong pinch or twist, held for a few seconds, through the smallest joints you have. The fixes below are the ones that come up again and again, and most of them cost very little. How much force that comes to on a soap pump, measured on a kitchen scale rather than estimated, is written up here.

Everyday tasks, why they are hard, and what tends to help

The task	Why it is hard	What tends to help
Soap and lotion pumps	A stiff spring, and a 20 mm top that only a fingertip fits.	A foaming dispenser first — far less force. Then a wider pressing surface: a clip-on disc like ours, which goes on the bottle you already have and travels, or a wall lever. The long version.
Jar lids	A hard twist with the wrist and the thumb base loaded at once.	A rubber mesh mat, a wall-mounted jar opener, or running the lid under hot water. Buy jars with lug lids where you can.
Bottle tops and screw caps	Small diameter means very little leverage.	A cap-sized grip aid, or the mesh mat again. Ask the pharmacist for non-click-lock lids on prescriptions — they are free and most people do not know to ask.
Taps	Round knurled taps need a twist and a squeeze together.	Lever tap heads that push-fit over existing taps, or a full lever mixer. Both are common OT recommendations.
A full kettle	The weight is out on the end of a lever arm.	Fill it from a jug, fill it half full, or use a kettle tipper. A one-cup boiler removes the lift entirely.
Ring-pull tins	A hook grip through one finger, plus a sharp edge.	A ring-pull hook, or an electric tin opener. Tins with a plain lid and a separate opener can be easier than a ring pull.
Keys in stiff locks	A pinch and a twist through the thumb base.	A key turner — a plastic arm that clips on and triples the leverage. A few pounds, and one of the most effective aids there is.
Zips and small buttons	Fine pinch, and no force available in that grip.	A zip pull or a loop of cord, a buttonhook, or replacing buttons with magnetic fastenings.
Plugs in tight sockets	A pinch grip pulling against friction.	Plug pulls that clip onto the plug and give you a handle. Also just leaving things plugged in at a switched socket.
Phones and touchscreens	Sustained fine pinch to hold, taps that hurt the fingertip.	A stand or a strap so nothing is held. Tap with a knuckle — the screen responds to skin, not pressure. A stylus works too.
Carrier bags	Thin handles cut into the fingers and load one joint.	A bag-carrying handle spreads it across the palm. A trolley or a rucksack removes the grip altogether.
Heavy doors	Round knobs need a twist; the door needs a shove.	Lever handles instead of knobs. A hip or a forearm on the push side. More on that.

Where hand trouble commonly comes from

These are the contexts people usually arrive here from. They are named so you can find the right proper source, not so this page can guess which is yours — that is a job for a clinician and it genuinely matters which one it is, because the treatments are completely different.

Three different things can make a hand hard to use, and it is worth knowing which yours is, because the answers differ: pain, weakness, and loss of feeling. Plenty of people have more than one.

Pain and stiffness

• Osteoarthritis, most often at the base of the thumb, which is the joint doing the work in nearly every task in the table above.
• Rheumatoid arthritis, which typically affects both hands and is often worse first thing. NHS overview of arthritis; NRAS specialises in it.
• Tendonitis and trigger finger, where a tendon is inflamed or catches. NHS on tendonitis; NHS on trigger finger.
• Repetitive strain injury, from a job or a hobby that repeats one movement. NHS page.
• Dupuytren's contracture, where fingers gradually curl towards the palm. NHS page.

Weakness, tremor and control

• After a stroke, where one side may be affected and one-handed technique becomes the immediate question. NHS page; the Stroke Association publishes practical guidance.
• Parkinson's disease, where tremor, slowness and stiffness affect fine movement. NHS page; Parkinson's UK.
• Multiple sclerosis, where weakness, tremor or numbness may come and go. MS Society.
• Cerebral palsy, where muscle control and coordination are affected from birth. NHS page.
• Hypermobility, including Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, where joints move further than they should and grip tires quickly. NHS page.
• Limb difference and amputation, where the question is usually one-handed technique rather than force. Limbless Association; LimbPower.
• Simply getting older. Grip strength declines gradually with age in most people. Normal, common, and still worth adapting for rather than putting up with.

Loss of feeling

Different from both of the above, and often missed by advice written about grip. If you cannot feel how hard you are pressing, being strong enough does not help. We have a whole page on it.

• Peripheral neuropathy — nerve damage causing numbness, tingling or altered sensation. NHS page. This is the one the person who makes PALM has, and the reason the product exists.
• Diabetes, the commonest cause of peripheral neuropathy in the UK. Diabetes UK.
• Chemotherapy, which can leave numbness and tingling in the hands during or after treatment. Macmillan.
• Vitamin B12 deficiency — worth naming because it is treatable and easily missed. NHS page.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome — numbness, tingling and weakness, often worse at night. NHS page.
• Raynaud's, where cold takes the feeling and the strength out of fingers for a while. NHS page.
• After surgery or an injury, where a nerve has been stretched, compressed or cut.

If the difficulty is new, worsening, in both hands, worse in the morning, or comes with numbness or tingling — that is worth mentioning to a GP rather than only working around.

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.

What we make

For completeness, since this is a shop as well as a set of guides: we make one thing, a small printed adapter that clips onto a soap or lotion pump so it can be pressed with a palm, a fist or a forearm instead of a fingertip. It costs £9.99 and it solves exactly one of the twelve rows in the table above. Everything else in that table is somebody else's product or no product at all, and the recommendations are the same ones we would give a relative. One disc covers one pump, so soap in the kitchen and soap in the bathroom is two — the twin and trio packs exist for that rather than for keeping spares in a drawer.