A Surgeon Said My Stiff Hands Were Just Wear and Tear. My Father’s Old Drug Books Said Something Else.

The Box Behind the Water Heater

My mother died in February, and I had to empty her house on Wagner Avenue. Behind the water heater in the basement, I found a black case that belonged to my father. He ran a pharmacy on Parade Street for 37 years.

Inside were about 40 little glass bottles. He had typed every label himself. One of them said CUPRI SULPH. That is copper.

I had to stop on the stairs carrying it up, and it wasn’t because the case was heavy.

My Father’s Old Books Gave Copper a Job

My father kept all of his work books. There were eleven of them on a shelf under the stairs.

I sat down on the basement steps and opened the oldest one. Copper was right there with its own full page. It said what doctors gave it for, how much to give, and what to watch for.

I worked the register in his store from the time I was 14. Nobody ever told me copper had been used as medicine.

Then I opened a newer book, from about twenty years later. Copper was still in it. But the part about helping sick people was gone. Now the page only said how pure the copper had to be.

So copper was never banned. It just lost its job in the book.

Why Copper Lost Its Job

I wanted to know why, so I spent a lot of afternoons at the library.

To be fair, a couple of copper’s old uses were dropped for good reasons. One dose turned out to be too strong. And for fighting germs, penicillin worked better. That is how medicine is supposed to work.

But those were two lines on a long page. Nobody went back and tested the rest.

The reason is money. Testing a medicine costs a fortune. A drug company pays for it because it can own the drug and be the only one selling it for years. Nobody can own copper. It is a plain metal. So nobody paid, and new doctors stopped learning about it.

Copper is still used today. Hospitals put it in the IV bags they use to feed very sick patients, because the body needs it. It just stopped being something a doctor would bring up with you.

The Surgeon Who Would Not Operate

In April my hands got bad enough that I saw a hand surgeon. He was forty minutes late. He looked at my X rays for a long time.

Then he told me there was nothing for him to fix. Wear and tear, in both hands. He was kind about it, and he was right not to cut.

So I told him about my father’s books and asked him about copper.

He didn’t laugh. He kept typing while he talked. He said doctors mostly work with what has been tested, and copper’s old uses were never tested again. He said my yearly blood work doesn’t check copper at all. Nobody had ordered that test, and he said he hadn’t either.

Then he said, “Good luck with it,” and walked to his next room.

One more thing stuck with me. I had taken iron pills for six years because I was always tired, and they never helped. Later I read that your body needs copper to use its iron. I’m not a doctor, and I won’t guess what is going on in your body. I only know nobody had checked that in mine.

What I Figured Out About Copper and Skin

So what was I supposed to do with all of this? I am a retired bookkeeper. I wanted something simple I could do every day, on my own.

Then I thought about how people used to get copper. For most of history, copper touched their skin every single day. They cooked in copper pots and drank from copper jugs. They carried copper coins in their pockets. Lots of them wore a copper band on the wrist.

Today almost none of us touch real copper at all.

Here is something I didn’t know. Real copper reacts with your skin. When it sits on your wrist all day, your sweat picks up a tiny bit of the metal. That is why solid copper can leave a faint green mark. The mark is copper on your skin.

So I made a plan. I would wear solid copper against my skin every day, the way people used to. It was the simplest way I could think of to put copper back into my days.

The Key Test My Father Did at the Counter

There was one problem. Most “copper” jewelry is not copper. It is cheap metal with a thin copper color plated on top.

My father had a trick for that. People would bring jewelry to his counter and ask if it was real. He turned the piece over and scratched the inside with a key. If he saw gray or silver under the color, it was plated. If it was copper all the way down, it was real.

I tried it on the two copper bracelets in my jewelry box. Both of them showed gray.

A plated bracelet can’t give your skin copper. Only a thin coat touches you, and it rubs off in a few weeks.

Where I Found Real Copper

I found mine at Prescott Jewelry. They are a family jeweler in New York, and they have been making jewelry since 1964.

Every piece they sell is solid copper all the way through, with no plating. The day mine came, I scratched the inside with a key. It was copper all the way down.

If your hands bother you like mine did, start with a bracelet or a cuff. It sits on your wrist, right next to your hands, and you can wear it all day and all night. Mine is a wide hammered cuff. You squeeze it gently to fit your wrist.

Here is what it costs. Most bracelets are $39.95. Rings start at $24.95. Right now the collection is up to 50% off, and shipping in the US is free and takes 1 to 3 days.

Two more things made it easy to say yes. You get 30 days to send it back if it isn’t for you. And if a piece ever tarnishes, they give you double your money back, with no time limit. A plated bracelet could never promise that, because the color rubs off in a month.

My First Two Weeks

I put my cuff on the day it came, and I have worn it every day since. I wrote down what happened, because I am a bookkeeper and that’s what I do.

Day 1. It came in two days. It was heavier than I expected. I did the key test at the kitchen counter. Copper all the way down.

Day 4. Nothing. I want to be honest about that. My fingers felt the same as always.

Day 9. I saw a faint green line on my wrist in the shower. I almost scrubbed it off. Then I remembered what it was and left it alone.

Day 16. I opened my pill bottle standing up, holding it in the air, with no counter. I had the cap off before I even thought about it.

Week Three and After

Day 23. I buttoned my coat in the car. The top button too.

Week 6. My friend Donna asked when I started holding my coffee by the handle again. I hadn’t even noticed.

Week 10. I carried the groceries up my front steps and unlocked the door with the bag still on my hip. For three years I had set the bag down first.

My afternoons got better too. I walk by the lake after lunch now, and I don’t need to sit down at two o’clock anymore.

My hands are not perfect. I still have slow mornings when it rains. But my ten minutes are mostly gone, and I am not taking this cuff off.

I’m Not the Only One

After I told this story at church, other women started telling me theirs. Here are a few who said I could share.

The Questions I Asked Before I Ordered

“If the body needs copper inside, why wear it on the outside?”

I asked myself the same thing. If you are worried about your copper, ask your doctor for the test. I think you should. For me, the cuff was about something simple I could do every day on my own. People had copper touching their skin every day for most of history. I wanted that back, and a solid copper cuff was the easiest way to get it.

“Which piece should I get first?”

If your hands are the problem, get a bracelet or a cuff. It sits right next to your hands. Most bracelets are $39.95. Cuffs squeeze gently to fit, so you don’t have to worry much about size.

“What if it does nothing for me?”

Then send it back. You have 30 days. My first real change came around day 16, so give it a few weeks before you decide.

“Will it turn my wrist green?”

It might leave a faint green line. That only happens with real copper, and it washes off with soap. Plated jewelry never does it, because there is almost no copper in it.

If Your Mornings Look Like Mine

If you have your own ten minutes every morning, here is what I would do.

Tonight, take a key to the copper jewelry you already own. If you see gray, it is plated, and it was never giving you any copper.

Then get one solid copper piece and wear it every day for a few weeks. Start with a bracelet or a cuff. If it does nothing for you, send it back within 30 days.

That is all I did, and I would do it again.

The Prescott Copper Collection. Solid copper, never plated. Most bracelets $39.95, rings from $24.95, up to 50% off. Free US shipping. 30 days to send it back. Double refund if a piece ever tarnishes.

— Arlene Deitz, Erie, Pennsylvania

P.S. I kept my father’s case of bottles. It sits on my kitchen shelf now, next to the old book that still says what copper was for.