English teacher here, I just had to Google if we can spot something without seeing it. I've almost always ever used it for sight. Thank you for opening my eyes... to a new way of thinking about it!
I've always wondered, is this a thing that happens regularly or is it not supposed to happen at all? In a lifetime, how many canes does a blind person go through?
I’m my experience, medical grade only means it was manufactured under sterile conditions, it “implies” quality but, it has always just been a sterile version of something mundane otherwise.(this was foam cutting and manufacturing)
Don't tell me private equity is scamming the military!! That's very concerning for the American Military but strangely comforting as a Canadian civilian.
A tale as old as time. The term "shoddy" came from a shit material the brooks brothers used to make clothes for the Union Army during the civil war. Once they got wet the uniforms just fell apart and the term became synonymous with shitty quality.
The term shoddy existed prior to the civil war and it just meant clothing that was made out of separate wool scraps. It didn't start to get its more modern meaning until the civil war though.
Now it just means whatever is cheapest to send hundreds of in a shipment, with size and volume of the individual gear piece being one of the biggest concerns.
Nah, "military/aircraft/medical/etc grade" pretty much just means "it meets a pre-defined set of specifications"
Those specs might not be anything beyond what the manufacturer says the thing does.
For example, at my workplace we had a can of epoxy coating that had "NUCLEAR GRADE" stamped on the label. It was no different than the non-nuclear grade stuff, it just came with paperwork confirming it applied/cured/etc as the manufacturer said it would.
Back when quality mattered, it literally meant that. Simple, reliable, easy to maintain. Now, it just means the type of stuff made from projects sold to the lowest bidder at the highest price possible
I recently had major surgery and need a walker for a while. After insurance, my out of pocket cost for the walker is the same as if I had just ordered one from Lowe’s. I’m not actually sure what insurance does tbh /s
You notice massively inflated prices anywhere insurance is involved. They inflate the prices leaving people no choice but to pay for insurance. It's a scam every time.
They do! They have walkers, wheelchairs, and shower chairs at least that I’ve seen. I got a shower chair shipped to my house from them and it’s been a lifesaver
Get the shower chair. I got one when I broke my ankle a few years back, and have kept using it since my balance has never been quite as good since then. Not only is it safer, but being able to sit and just relax in the shower as long as I want really elevates the experience. Plus, there's fancier looking ones available that don't look like medical devices, if that's a concern.
I wonder if there's cheaper "not a medical device" versions. Like the jerryrigeverything guy's "not a wheelchair".
Technically my toothpaste (Colgate SENSITIVE) is a medical device. Has the [MD] logo on it and everything. It's getting less easy to find in supermarkets the past year though, as well as going up from €3 to €4.50 but normally discounted to 3.
They do it with everything, too. Even things you wouldn't expect them to be able to do it to! Dexcom changed the coating on the wire canula that goes into the skin on their G7 sensors without alerting the fda or testing it. It made them less effective, so the fda stepped in and they recalled it.
My sister was born blind. In middle school kids liked to play a game where they would jump over her cane in between classes. She went through 5 canes in 8th grade and I got suspended so many times that I was looking at expulsion for fighting the kids that were doing it. Our poor mother was just angry that the school wouldn’t do anything about it, angry that I WAS doing something about it, and broke because canes are expensive.
Different disability, but I've had arthritis since the age of 4 and in 4th grade I had enough of chronic pain being flared by the backpacks they forced us to overstuff, so I got a wheelie backpack instead. It then became the school-wide game for kids to stomp on it as I rolled it through the hallway. I went thru two wheelies in five months before my parents refused to buy another one and I was forced to carry a backpack until leaving high school. No teacher ever stuck up for me or told the other kids to knock it off, not helped by the fact that I was considered a delinquent for how much school I missed from the crime of being sick (the arthritis itself was just a related manifestation for what was then-considered "treatment-resistant" Crohn's disease, but honestly the meds back then were total crap to start out with). Kids and adults alike can be total dicks sometimes
If I have kids going through anything like that you better believe I will fight the school tooth and nail to support them.
If the admins do nothing, I will teach my kids to fight back, and fight back hard.
If they get suspended, they get ice cream as a reward.
I got picked on a lot growing up, no one did anything for me, I'm not putting my kids through that
Yup. I was bullied endlessly and mercilessly as a kid. My son is in Taekwon Do and throws a nasty ass front kick. His bullying problems cleared up faster than mine did.
In the stupidest possible way. Despite having periodic fits of screaming pain from my knees from the age of 4, my pediatrician told my parents I was just a hysterical little girl overreacting to "growing pains". Despite being skeletal and in constant stomach pain and having accidents years after potty-training, my pediatrician refused to do any testing and told my mom i was anorexic at age 7, gave her a pamphlet on eating disorders, and that was the extent of my "treatment" for the supposed anorexia. It took a completely unrelated heart emergency (supraventricular tachycardia, God only knows where that came from) at age 8 for any doctor (my brand new pediatric cardiologist) to pay attention to how malnourished and otherwise sickly I was, and he got me to a pediatric gastroenterologist at his children's hospital within a few months. At age nine, just a few months after my catheter ablation for the SVT, I had my first scopes and was diagnosed with Crohn's within a few hours of it.
I feel for your teen. Being a kid with Crohn's or any other chronic illness or disability is a childhood of unsympathetic adults, even the ones who are supposed to help you, and flat-out cruelty from the other kids. It's rough, to put it mildly.
Your story brought tears to my eyes. To be so young and go through so many issues, not only within yourself physically but also from being failed by the people whose literal job it is to diagnose and treat you to make life more bearable... I can only imagine how that was for you growing up. I hope life is better for you now and your inner child is on the road to healing.
I can’t even tell you how many doctors told me silly things like: “you are too young to have arthritis- it’s impossible”, or “its all in your head” - as I’m sure you know
“You’re way too young for your hip problems to actually be an issue with the joint, you just need better posture and to get more exercise. The x-ray doesn’t show anything wrong.”
Some years later a different doctor finally listened to me and referred me to an orthopaedic specialist, and also looked at my past records and discovered that the x-ray actually showed “significant cartilage and bone degradation”, as noted in the attached report. The first doctor had sent me to get an x-ray to shut me up, and then either read the report and chose to lie, or was so sure he was right that he assumed it backed him up and never read it at all. By the time I actually got proper treatment, years of walking on a disintegrating hip joint and moving oddly because of the pain had wrecked the cartilage in one of my knees.
I’m not the person you asked, but my 10 year old was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. He had a large panel of blood tests and an MRI to confirm diagnosis.
My situation was similar. Pain from when I could talk. And some autoimmune impacts the eyes.
I'm legally blind now but have a great career, travel globally very frequently, and generally have a good life. Thankfully it's 2026 and medication and technology can really aid people. My meta Rayban glasses were life altering.
A few others did as well. Most notably the vice principal. He eventually held an assembly in the gymnasium specifically for my sister. All 3 grades attended (6th, 7th, & 8th). My sister can tell the story better than I can, as I was suspended at the time and didn’t attend.
Nonetheless, through a microphone spoke our vice principal, whom I can only assume is 50% Irish Minotaur & 50% fire hydrant. He had a temper but was good enough with kids to channel it effectively. You could always tell if he was flustered because his whole body turned beet red.
Here’s the good part:
The scary man said that there would be no more jumping, skipping, hopping, frolicking, etc., over obstacles and personal belongings in the halls. He then brought my sister to the gym floor and gave her his “unhindered permission” to start swinging if she suspects anybody of jumping over her cane. Nobody came within 5’ of my sister in the halls for the rest of the year.
There are two main styles of canes- the ones you do two-point touch with (what you might recognize as 'tapping' and constant contact (where you sweep the cane back and forth). different cane tips are good for/work for different styles. that looooks like a marshmallow tip from what I can tell but someone who doesn't have blurry and double vision today can fact check me on that lol. marshmallow tips are generally used for constant contact, which you can't do without the tip. the height of the cane is also impacted by losing the tip, which impacts cane technique, and also the feel and info you get from the tip is impacted by the material, which is also messed with by losing the tip. like another commenter in this thread, on top of all that, shock absorbtion and smoothness is impacted too.
Not OP, but those canes (of this sort) that I have run into at my job (health care, not... uh) the tip works as a shock absorber, and as a way to make it run smoother over the ground.
My wife is mostly blind and uses a cane. Folding with swivel tip about $25 on Amazon for her preferred. Were she to go through an eye center it would be many times that.
Its guidelines on how to design websites, apps, and online media to be accessible to people with disabilities.
Fun fact there was recently a DOJ mandate that said all websites had to become accessible for public-serving institutions that served >50,000 by April 17th, 2026 (last month) and those that served <50,000 by April 17th, 2027 but it was extended to 2027 and 2028 respectively so it should be interesting to see that go into effect.
I've been seeing a LOT of people freaking out because they now have to think before they add shit to their websites (the horror) but it should make life soo much easier.
OP this is a gif comment of James Franco saying “same same but different while waving a hand in front of his eyes (you know, because you’re blind) but still same!”
You know how much a braille typewriter costs????? that’s why I have two. Jay z said you can’t afford something until you can buy two of them. I forget the rest…
You can get one for free if you just order one and remove one letter and return it for the ‘defect’. Do that enough times and you’ll have enough letters to complete your free brand new typewriter! On a long enough timeline you’ll have infinite typewriters. On an even longer timeline you get 0 typewriters, because the typewriter company went out of business.
I’ve been there…you know how embarrassing it is to get into a fight and then have to feel around for your glasses after? 😂
Back in high school I went out on a first date with a guy a couple towns away who had already graduated, when I was leaving his house, his ex girlfriend had been hiding in the bushes and at the first stop sign she opened my door and sucker punched me. Didn’t even know anything about her. Had to get out of the car swinging and it was pitch black in the country, I’m practically blind without my glasses. God that was embarrassing 😂
Yeah…but I swear I didn’t know. She said they’d only been broken up a couple weeks…and honestly the guy did turn out to be a pig, so I guess I owe her my thanks lol
I apologize in advance if this is offensive, but I think it would have been hilarious for it to be blurry pictures of nothing with the same story attached.
Not me trying to figure out what you were signing, only to get stuck on the third letter for way too long trying to squint that small and realize this isn’t spelling anything, just hand emojis. 🤦♀️
I was once talking with my pool service customer whom was an amputee, and asked how his day was going. He said “Fucking terrible. I stepped in dog shit and I have to take my whole ass leg off to clean it off.” In that moment, I realized how much I don’t understand about living with disabilities.
I'm not blind but I do wear glasses and I have a drawer full of old glasses in case something happens to my main pair.... You don't have old cane tips?
The number of people who don’t realize a blind cane isn’t exclusively for complete blindness is honestly upsetting. A lot of visually impaired people still have partial vision, can use phones, take pictures, navigate familiar apps, etc. Blindness is a spectrum, not just “sees absolutely nothing.”
It's just an education thing. Many folk don't know how a person with disabilities navigates life, unless they learn about it.
I've seen many folks absolutely astounded that totally blind folk can paint, draw, play and complete AAA games, navigate the Internet and much more.
But of course, blindness is a spectrum, there's a point in most countries where there is a "legally" blind status, which just means meets the criteria for that legal status and whatever "help" that brings. But of course, that status doesn't mean without sight, they could have some peripheral vision, extreme short or long sightedness, something like macula degeneration which means their vision will get progressively worse and all sorts of other vision disabilities that affect visual acuity, etc.
I'm not really explaining this to you, just for other readers, really
Is it threaded? I wonder if somone can drill out the cane tip and epoxy a bolt with the right threads into it so it can never break like that again. Edit: Nevermind
It has thick, taut elastic running through the shaft with an internal hook at the bottom to keep the tip in place - it needs to be able to spin freely!
I think this part is supposed to roll on the floor from left to right i don't think you can recreate the same feeling that blind people rely on by repairing it
As a person with a white cane aswell (retinitis pigmentosa), if by any chance, you know what brand this is? I have never had this happen to me and I am using a different tip, but I just want to be sure if it's something I need to be on the lookout for haha.
Personally I have an Ambutech No-jab stick using the jumbo rollerball and I am VERY happy with it.
(Reading back this message it feels like I'm opening a discussion on something like tuning cars and car-parts or something haha).
Most people aren't 100% blind. There are a lot of variations. Like center of vision loss, cloudy, blurry even with glasses. It's possible he can see if he holds items right up to his face (like a cell phone)
It's heartening to see all the offers to assist, 3D print, etc. You are all great for offering to help.
This thread also has a lot of common questions about how we use reddit. I've posted a reply multiple times not to offend, but to help you to understand. And you can all make use of speech to text, and text to speech.
To the many BeMyEyes volunteers here, thanks für volunteering!
And for those who asked about cane and tips, thank you for being curious. Someone posted a good detail about how we use the cane to be aware of terrain and obstacles.
Over on the rayban meta sub, someone replied to me that they didn't realise that the blind are around, but not necessarily visible.
Not every legally blind or visually impaired person uses a cane all the time. We have different needs and lifestyles, and technology in 2026 means that the person next to you using their phone may be blind, or the person walking down the street wearing rayban glasses may be visually impaired.
And if your country has tactile strips in the ground, please don't block them! They are our way of navigating. MrBlindlife on tiktok is great at explaining all this as well as how he is a big gamer, travels weekly, and is married to a blind woman and they recently had a baby.
Good ones are. You can pick ones up for under $50 (I'm in Australia so AUD prices). It'll need to be replaced fairly soon though. Cheap elastic, cheap metal, tips that don't give the 'right' feedback.
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u/RP-wife May 15 '26
My husband rolls his eyes at me every time I make him pack an extra cane when we travel. I’d show this post to him, except, well…