There’s an old bit of folk medicine advice saying that wearing a copper bracelet will help with arthritis pain. I grew up around that. My Grandpa Pankey wore copper bracelets. I don’t think I ever saw him without one. I never questioned it until I was a teenager and was just simply told that they helped with arthritis and joint pain. Huh… ok. Surely there’s a reason why it works. Maybe the body needs whatever bit of copper you might get from contact daily. I didn’t know. Didn’t ask. Didn’t look it up. Just accepted it.
I’m now “grandpa aged” and like my grandpa, I too, suffer from a bit of arthritis and some joint pain in my hands. Heck of a plight for a musician, but I remembered his bracelets and thought to myself, “What’s the harm in trying?” So, I bought a copper bracelet.
It’s nothing fancy. Really, it just seems to be a piece of 8 gauge copper wire fashioned into a bracelet. It’s austere, and I’m quite pleased with the look of it on my wrist - as if I just needed a place to put a piece of leftover wire.
I’ve had it about a month now, and I know what you’re wondering. “Is it helping?” “Can you tell a difference?” Here’s where my answer may stray from what you might expect.
I’m skeptical of most types of folk medicine or superstitions. Do I think there’s a reason folks wound up believing these things? Absolutely, but I’d like to think there’s some reasonable explanation that can be measured. So, let me say, despite my skepticism I have noticed something.
A few months ago, if you had asked me how frequently I noticed my hands hurting, I might have told you “just about every day”. That’s terrible. How was I managing? I have some diclofenac cream that I find helpful. Ibuprofen helps a bit. Those were my solutions - along with the old adage of grin and bear it.
Yet, since I’ve been wearing this bracelet I’m not feeling drawn to take the ibuprofen or use the diclofenac as often. Could this copper bracelet be working? My skepticism went into overdrive. How has this made a difference? The peer-reviewed, placebo-controlled studies have found no meaningful benefit from wearing a copper bracelet.
So, here’s what I think has happened - at least in my case:
Because of this bracelet I find that I’m more aware of the days that my hands don’t hurt. The bracelet is just enough of a reminder to let me know to assess how my hands feel. I’m creating a data point in my brain - a point where my hands feel okay. We don’t usually do that. It’s not like we sit and take inventory of all the joints and muscles. It’s the pain we notice. Pain demands our attention and we make a mental note of it - a data point.
What I have now is a more balanced dataset to measure the state of my arthritis - and right now the good days outnumber the bad. I’m grateful for that!
I think they call this “mindfulness”. This bit of copper wire around my wrist isn’t medicine or magic, but it is a tool that helps me notice when my hands feel good. Hopefully because of that I will slowly break the cycle of just focusing on the pain.
Still, with all that said, I have no plans to take off the bracelet. It can stay right there - reminding me of all the pain-free days.
