Alex bought the SC-ONE from us to help him with his chronic fatigue, this is his story in his own words.

Getting this wheelchair has really changed my life. It immediately improved my mental health as I no longer feel trapped in my house.

I’ve had it for 6 months now and it has been one of the key factors in my recovery from a big health flare-up, because it means I can get out and about without over exerting myself, which means I get the rest I need.

One of the things I really like doing is to use it to get to parks that are further away, and then when I get there I walk about a little bit to stretch my legs. Before I used to only be able to walk along my street which was so boring.

If I’m taking both dogs out I put them on my lap until we get to the park, and then I let them run around there. If I’m only taking one dog out he’ll walk alongside me on the lead. It’s great because I can go on the grass in the park, or on some nice wide flat tracks (I got the SC-X for this reason).

I’m a lot better at steering now than I was at first, that was a slow learning curve. It was a bit scary navigating uneven pavements and cambers on corners in the first few months, it took me quite a while to master them, but now I’m happy to say that I’m confident going anywhere in the town. I still have some work to do on navigating within buildings, as I don’t use the chair within my own home, but I’m sure that will come with practice.

Unfortunately despite getting the 6ft ramps I am not able to navigate the wheelchair into my car on my own. Now I see that LITH-TECH offer a new product for this, I may look into getting one soon as that would increase my independence a lot, so that I could go further from home.

Because of my hypermobility I do get some shoulder pain if I use my chair every day. To get round this I am swapping the side that the controller is on every few weeks, so that that arm gets a rest.

I got some battery powered fairy lights designed for bikes and wrapped them around various parts of the chair, to increase the visibility for going out in the dark, especially key in winter. I also got some reflective tape online and stuck strips of that all over it, so that the chair will light up in headlights from every angle. This makes me feel safer.

I have had various questions over the months since I’ve had the chair, and have always had quick, helpful responses from LITH-TECH.

I had so much internalised ableism when I was thinking about getting the chair, even though I have had chronic illness for 10 years, it seemed like a big change. I still encounter questions and surprise from people who think that I ‘don’t look ill’, but the quality of life improvement is so worth it, and has made me much more confident answering people’s questions. I looked on Instagram at the #babewithamobilityaid hashtag, and saw a few other people using LITH-TECH chairs, and generally having a much better life using their mobility aid. My flatmate’s mum also told me that when she was on holiday somewhere they were loads of people of all ages using electric wheelchairs to get around, so it’s really just the cultural stigma that we have here about needing support.

I hope this inspires you to get a chair – if you’re thinking about it, you will probably benefit from it! And I would definitely highly recommend LITH-TECH.

Because I was working at the time, I did an Access to Work government grant application, and was able to get funding towards it, so if you’re in employment and don’t need the chair urgently I would encourage you to inquire about that.

Thank you for sharing this with us Alex, it means a lot that we could help you find you independence through our product, and are here in case you ever need anything.