February 23, 2022

11 Hacks to Make Cleaning with Chronic Pain Easier

Cleaning with chronic pain is never fun. Aches and pains can make it almost impossible to clean. However, we’re going to cover some of our favorite hacks to make cleaning with chronic pain easier and more manageable.

11 Hacks to Make Cleaning with Chronic Pain Easier

1. Break Cleaning Into Sections

If you’re the type of person who gets the urge to clean the entire house in a single day or right before someone comes over, it’s not an optimal solution for anyone in chronic pain. Instead, break your cleaning up into sections or chunks.

Many people aim to clean one room a day.

When you break your cleaning into sections, it will make cleaning faster and less painful.

2. Invest in a Roomba

11 hacks to make cleaning with chronic pain easier woman resting on the couch while robotic vacuum cleans

Vacuuming is difficult if you have pain in your shoulders, back, or even hips. However, there’s an easy way to vacuum that is more efficient than you are: robotic vacuums. You can invest in a Roomba, or similar vacuum, to do your vacuuming on auto-pilot.

3. Turn to a Minimalistic Lifestyle

If you have a lot of clutter, you have to clean it all. Instead, ditch the clutter and make cleaning easier. The idea is to keep the must-have items in your home and get rid of the extra, tedious items to clean.

You can discard the items or even sell them on eBay or Facebook Marketplace to make some money from them. You might even make enough extra money to buy a Roomba or other robotic vacuum cleaner!

4. Clean the Shower With a Mop

One of the trouble areas to clean for people that have chronic pain is the shower. You'll have to bend over, scrub and maybe even get on your hands and knees. However, if you have a mop, you can simply put some cleaner on the walls or shower floor and clean it without bending over. It may be a good idea to pick up an extra mop for the store specifically for the shower.

5. Baking Soda and Vinegar are Your Non-scrubbing Alternative

Baking soda and vinegar are great for lifting dirt and grime from surfaces. Sprinkle baking soda on the surface and then add vinegar to make the substance bubble. When you do this, you’ll be lifting dirt without needing to scrub.

A few areas where this technique works best are:

Sinks
Stoves
Tile floors
Etc.

6. Start Using Spray and Wipe Cleaners

Scrubbing is the bane of existence for people suffering from chronic pain. A general rule of thumb is that if you’re experiencing any form of chronic pain, avoid scrubbing. Thankfully, a lot of manufacturers make spray and wipe cleaners.

The cleaner will need to sit on the surface for a while, often 20 – 30 minutes, and then you simply wipe it away.

You'll find many spray and wipe cleaners for bathroom tiles and showers.

7. Use Wheeled Utility Carts

Carting around cleaning supplies can be difficult, especially if you have a lot of supplies. A wheeled utility cart will make it easy to bring everything you need from one room to another without stressing your body.

Most wheeled utility carts can hold hundreds of pounds, so you can easily use them to cart around your cleaning supplies. Depending on the size, you may even be able to add your vacuum to the cart.

We don’t recommend bringing your cart up or downstairs, but if you have two stories, you can keep a cart and cleaning supplies on each level for convenience.

8. Aim to Take Breaks

Cleaning can be hard work, and if you’re planning to clean the entire house, it can take quite a while. In addition, even short cleaning bursts can be difficult for people with chronic pain.

Overdoing it can leave you in pain for days, so plan to take breaks while cleaning. For example, take a five-minute break after cleaning the shower or floors to give your body a rest. In addition, any cleaning tasks that are especially intensive should be followed by a rest.

9. Spray Rain-X on Shower Doors

Rain-X, the same product you use on your car’s windshield to repel rain, can also be sprayed on your shower doors. The company makes a special shower door water repellent product that causes water to bead and slide down the glass. It can help prevent hard water build-up while effortlessly keeping your shower doors clean.

10. Make Life Easy with a Drill Brush

For people with chronic pain, it’s not always easy to give stubborn stains “a little elbow grease.” A drill brush can make quick work of tough scrubbing jobs.

These brushes attach to electric drills to quickly scrub tile or other hard surfaces. You can find brushes of different sizes and shapes, allowing you to choose the perfect brush for the job.

11. Long-handled Brushes and Dusters

Reaching up high to clean showers or bending down to clean floors can aggravate chronic pain. To minimize discomfort, try using:

Long-handled brushes to clean shower floors and walls, flooring, or windows.
Long-handled dusters to keep fans, shelves, the tops of cabinets, and other high areas free of dust.

Cleaning tools with telescoping handles are ideal because you can adjust the length as you go along. Some tools allow you to use different attachments, so you can use one handle for virtually any job in the home.

Long-handled cleaning tools can help you avoid having to reach or bend when cleaning.

Final Thoughts

Cleaning with chronic pain requires that you clean smarter not harder. Scrubbing, bending, and standing for hours on end will only make your pain worse. If you follow the few hacks outlined above, we’re confident that you’ll reduce the pain you experience when cleaning.

Looking for a natural solution to reduce your chronic pain, especially while cleaning? Try Pain Warrior+ Cream!

Made with a pain bomb of essential oils, DMSO, full-strength CBD from hemp, and essential vitamins and minerals, this cream brings relief from pain and inflammation in 5 minutes or less!

So you can apply this non-greasy cream and start checking things off your to-do list pain-free!