r/wheelchairs

Anyone have any experience or suggestions on how to get a puppy to walk nicely alongside a wheelchair?

My almost 6 month chihuahua walks beautifully on his lead when I am on foot. However I have very limited mobility and need to use a wheelchair in order to walk him both both far/long enough and frequently enough to meet his needs.

At the moment he will walk nicely if I am in my chair but have someone walking with me on foot and they hold the lead. However when I am alone in my chair, he either climbs up my legs to sit on my lap, runs around the chair getting tangled, or gets dangerously close to the wheels.

The chair is electric so I only need one hand to operate it and can hold his lead in the other. I have also tried attaching the lead round my waist and directly on the chair. He acts the same with every method.

Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.

Hii!! I have a fitting for a custom wheelchair next week and was wondering how long it roughly takes? some people on youtube said 3-4 hours and i was kinda shook!
I'd love to know cause i have cfs (fatigue) and i'd love to be prepared lol.

i heard something about people getting their thumbs hurt when self propelling but couldnt understand what type of brakes causes that issue? can someone explain please?

Hiya everyone! I'm based in the UK, and my local NHS wheelchair service has decided to order me a Quickie QS5X - This is going to be my 4th chair, 2nd active chair. I experience non epileptic seizures which means they will not give me a power chair, but suggested I self fund a power assistance device.

I live in an area with big hills/mountains, and need the assistance (especially as I hope to start classes in september but the campus has a 15% gradient hill) but unfortunately due to my various disabilities I am on a low income - Does anyone have any power assistance ideas or suggestions? Preferably non attendant ones as I live alone.

Thank you very much!!

I am currently in the process of a diagnosis. Tests are weird but nothing conclusive. (Caveat over)

I am a fine arts graduate student. I leave for summer residency in about five weeks. I am very weak and this residency requires a lot of walking and physical activity. I am thinking of getting a motorized travel chair for the summer to help with mobility as I feel like two or three city blocks a day with just my walker is going to be a challenge if not entirely impossible.

I have a generous MIL who is offering to pay 1000-1500 for my chair. (We’re love her.) but I don’t know what to buy and honestly the imposter syndrome of being an ambulatory wheelchair user is also deterring my decision making and research.

TLDR; small, fine arts student seeks recommendations for electric wheelchairs, good for travel and use on asphalt in the price range of 1000-1500. Bonus points if you can get me to shake my imposter syndrome

Has anyone done this and achieved a nice raw metal look?

Chair is functionally fine but the paint job looks bad.

Has anyone used or are currently using the Twist as their power assist? This is the model that my ATP and I decided would work best for my current chair and needs now that I am right at the one year mark with my Tilite X. If you have any positive or negative feedback, tips, or tricks anything is appreciated while I wait for insurance to approve or deny my claim. Thank you in advance.

ETA preface: this is not the worst experience ever, nor even the most blatantly wrong that i've had, it seems like just a series of ignorances to me that resulted in damage that should be mild, but impacts me quite a bit. i'm still super frustrated because it impacts my ability to get around. vent commence!

flew American Airlines recently, and when i got up to have them put my folding wheelchair in the on-board closet, they told me very firmly it was full of luggage. luggage NEVER takes precedence over assistive devices, but i just wanted to get travel over with, because the longer i fly, the less i can move around, so i just let them check it. plus, i was alone and didn't feel like making a stink. the airport i was in has given me wheelchair troubles before so i just wanted to get out of there.

well, when i landed on my layover, they bring my chair out, and the pushrim is fucking scratched. my left pushrim has just been lightly shredded, in one consistent direction, like they sent it down a fucking luggage ramp or something. i have very fragile skin, and now i can't use my chair without wearing gloves because the scratches left metal burrs. the pushrim was also loose. their support has been helpful and they've said they're going to fix it, but what even happened that somebody scratched the metal up so badly?

and to top it off, i had been instructed to make a report at baggage claim when i got to my final destination. i approached one of the airline reps and asked her who to talk to, and she actually told me, "if it's just a scratch? i wouldn't do anything." Sure, if i scratched your glasses, it's just a scratch, right? so if i were to take your glasses and grind them across some concrete once or twice, there's no point in getting help for the damage i did to them, right?

i wouldn't be SO upset if not for the fact that travel really really takes it out of me, and that that one person told me tore up metal where i put my hands every time i want to move forward is not a big deal. WTAF? YOU try using it then. i had to literally chip excess metal off so it wouldn't be as dangerous. i have to be mindful when braking or pushing that i don't cut myself. sure, the scratch doesn't LOOK bad. i'm not worried about the look. i'm worried about the metal splinters. Smfh

on the bright side, by the time i get home, i will not need to fly again ANY time soon, and i will have a new wheelchair.

Hi, there is currently a fundraiser being run for me to get new mobility aids.

Currently on my list is the smallest Oas electric chair. If you have this chair how do you like it? Does anyone know of electric chairs with seat widths less than 17"? What's the cheapest electric chair you know of?

What recommendations do people have for custom manual chairs under 2,000? I would love a chair that can be taken apart so I can load it in and out of my car myself

UPDATE:

For anyone finding this later dealing with the same issue, the wheelchair tech consulted with a colleague who told him this is actually normal and should resolve within the first twenty charges. And to basically never trust the percentage shown in the joystick display too much.

But the chair is fine, and after this charge, I get to use it!

ORIGINAL POST: I received my Permobil M3 today (yay) but the joystick is not displaying the battery charge drop reliably. I'm going to check in with my technician tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this before.

When I got it, it was at 90%, but at some point it jumped and said 100%. Then when driving it around, I noticed that it was jumping occasionally between 90 and 100.

At some point (I didn't drive very far, about 2 or 3 km) it dropped to 80%, but then it kept going between 80%, 90%, and 100%. It has not shown other numbers. So nothing in between those round values.

Has anyone experienced this with permobil or any other powerchair? Any thoughts on what it could be?

I'm scared to drive it now, because I don't want to not know when I'm close to draining the battery.

I am due to go out tomorrow alone in my chair for the first time ever, I’m really worried about getting on the bus though, specifically getting myself up the ramp!! I haven’t been out a lot in my chair since getting it and so I don’t have a lot of oomph to get up that incline! Could anyone give me any advice?