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If you've been doing the hedges by hand until now, why not compromise and get a small battery powered hedge trimmer.

I used to loathe doing my hedge by hand until I spent about £120 on a reputable make of hand held trimmer (the name sounds like bush) five years later it's still going strong; I'm not however!

Crikey, even when I was younger and fitter I wouldn't dream of tackling a hedge that size with hand held shears! There's really no shame in admitting defeat when you have arthritis and it puts you in pain for days!

I agree, let your husband buy his hedge trimmer, and allow him to do the hedge. Boys need their toys!! He'll probably even enjoy it. It's amazing how much vacuuming my husband does once I let him go out and choose his own vacuum cleaner. He really enjoys the new window vac to clear condensation from the windows. Funny man. He can also be persuaded to trim the hedge - I find our hedge trimmer hard to use as it's so heavy, so I let him "do the manly bit" with the Big Dangerous Hedge Trimmer. It'a bloke thing.

If money really is tight, you can almost certainly get a good second hand one on line. But they are worth their weight in gold.

But I agree with the others, if it hurts, don't do it. It's just not worth it. Find something less painful to fill your time instead.

Our son is a professional gardener at a stately home, and has private clients. He has all the gear, is 6’x4” tall and is as fit of a butcher’s dog, so it’s pay back time, all the trees, bushes and hedges are down to him, we can manage the rest. 😄

Briefly – don’t feel guilty. Guilt is a useless emotion. Do what you have to do.

Less briefly, I don’t know if you’re doing permanent damage or not but you’re certainly not doing your wrists any good with such heavy, awkward work. Keeping things moving is essential but constantly straining joints is not. What will do damage, one way or another, is having high doses of steroids as a regular thing. It really is not worth it.

We have to give some things up with arthritis in order to preserve our joints and strength for the more important things in life. However much you may love your hedges, and even hedge-cutting, I’m sure, in the grand order of things, it’s not an essential. I have given up tons of stuff in my many arthritic years and always tried to ensure I took up something else to replace what was lost.

Your GP has advised you not to do it and your husband is happy to spend money on a trimmer though they, too are heavy. And dangerous. (The surgeon who put my first TKR in later sliced the palm of his hand with a hedge trimmer.) Have you ‘had the chat’ about why (a)your husband won’t do it but (b)is willing to buy a trimmer? Is he himself not up to the job? (Men are usually reluctant to admit to physical weaknesses.) Would he do it with a trimmer? Does he not like the hedges in the first place?

Something has to give here. Don’t let it be your health or your marriage. Perhaps someone locally would be willing to do it with the right equipment ie the trimmer. £400 is a lot of money but savings can usually be made if we are adaptable.

Personally, I’d find out exactly what my husband thought and felt about the hedges and go forward from there on the basis that you should no longer be doing it. If he’s happy to do it then you could do ‘one of his jobs’ in return, maybe a relatively easy one which he dislikes.

The one thing that we all should appreciate is that the rheumatology medics need to know exactly how we feel about our respective medications, if we don’t tell them how are they supposed to know? How many times have I heard medical staff say “how are you today” to patients? only to be answered in a positive manner, were British, that’s what we do. I’m not a moaner, but these guys need to know how their work is progressing or not, whichever the case may be.

I told my consultant that I would not take oral Methotrexate any more as it had bad side effects on me, some being visibly evident. He offered me the Metoject PEN straight away and I haven’t had a problem with it.

Hi SuzanneF and lkn

I have psoriatic arthritis and the oral methotrexate side effects were too severe for me so you're definitely not alone with this. I haven't tried the Metoject pen as yet,may be my next option when I see the rheumatologist next (whenever that may be)

I'm interested to try it after reading Crookesey's comments above.

I'm on low dose prednisolone at the moment which isn't taking all the pain away.

Please let us know how you get on.