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Can't Dry Off After a Shower? Skip the Towel

Your hands or your energy give out before the towel does. On Parkinson's, ALS and ME/CFS forums, the fix people pass round does the drying for you.

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Digby the mole, damp and spiky from the shower, stands on a raspberry bath mat trying to swing a big burgundy towel round to his back with one tired arm. The far end drags on the tiles and his shoulders sag.

Drying off asks for more than you'd think. Two hands that grip, a shoulder that reaches round, and enough left in you after the shower to get through it. Lose any one of the three and the towel turns into the hard part.

That's where the person who started a thread on the Parkinson's UK forum had got to. Their dexterity, or lack of it, made drying properly very difficult, and they were looking at full-body dryers. The thread pointed them at a towelling bathrobe instead, put on wet.

If your hands shake or the shower wipes you out, the robe is the fix people on these forums pass on to each other. Nobody presents it as a discovery. Somebody says they're struggling with a towel, and somebody else says "robe".

Can you use a robe instead of a towel?

Yes, and the people doing it say the robe does most of the job. One member of that thread has a couple of towelling robes that soak up a lot of the water, like blotting paper, and finds them easier to manage than a towel.

Two years later another member of the same forum posted it as a tip, after their family bought them a proper terry towelling robe for Christmas:

The robe is great, by the time I have made my way to the bedroom, I'm dry.

Esme, on the Parkinson's UK forum

They add that you just potter about a bit and you're dry in all the right places.

The first reply came from someone looking for exactly that for their husband, who has Parkinson's and struggles with bath towels these days.

The same tip turns up well beyond Parkinson's. On an ALS forum, one member passes on a woman's routine: a terrycloth robe after the shower, then sit and let the robe do the work while she rests.

The American Stroke Association's bathing tips for survivors skip the towel altogether. After the shower, you put on a terrycloth robe and slipper socks, and you're dry in minutes. WebMD's checklist for stroke caregivers gives the same advice.

The version that sums it up is from an r/cfs thread about showering with POTS, where the person who started it lays a towel on the bed to lie on afterwards:

I am so happy I got myself a terry cloth bathrobe. Just put that on afterwards and lie down wherever. No drying off required whatsoever.

u/blablablub444, in r/cfs

Which robe?

Terry towelling is the word in the robe threads, and it's the fabric the stroke page names. One member uses a microfibre robe instead, worn while shaving, and says that when they take it off their back is dry.

The member who's dry by the bedroom adds one condition: once you've got your arms in. Sleeves are the hard bit of a robe when your hands are at their worst, so a loose cut beats a fitted one.

A hood does the hair. One member's robe has one for exactly that.

In the bedroom next door, Digby sits on the edge of the bed in a thick burgundy bathrobe a size too big, paws in his lap and an easy smile. The robe has gone dark with damp at the shoulders.

When getting the robe on is the problem

Getting your arms into sleeves is itself a hand-and-shoulder job, and for some people it's the one that fails. One member of the ALS thread can't put on a robe by themselves. Instead, someone hangs a towel on the back of the door for them, and they lean against it, then stand in front of a fan.

If sleeves are the problem, a towel wrap with shoulder straps does the robe's job without them. On the Scope forum, one member uses one that fastens with buttons at the straps, and says it's worth a try if you can't manage a robe.

Another has one with Velcro at the top. It won't win prizes for soaking up water, its owner says, but it's great when the shower has left you exhausted and you need your hands free.

Warm air for the bits a robe misses

The robe does the body. For the rest, the first thread had two more tips:

Back on the bath mat, Digby stands in the burgundy robe with his fur dry and fluffed and both paws in its pockets, smiling. The bath towel sits folded and unused on the stool beside him.

Try it tonight with the robe on the back of your door, if there's one there. Put it on wet, sit down for a few minutes and see how much towel you still need.

Buying one? A cotton terry robe is what the threads reach for. Pick a cut loose enough that the sleeves go on when your hands are at their worst.

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