How to Open Pull-Tab Cans With Arthritis

In one r/rheumatoid member's kitchen drawer there's a medium screwdriver and a pair of adjustable pliers. Neither is for fixing anything.

In a thread of gadgets and tricks, they explain that the screwdriver lifts the tab on a can, and the pliers finish the pull when it needs them. Cat food gets an old thin salad fork, whose handle is just the right size to pop the top.

That's what a pull tab turns into once your fingers stop doing what they're told. The ring on a can of soup, tuna or cat food is there so you won't need an opener. It still asks for the move arthritic hands find hardest: a nail wedged under a flat bit of metal, then a pinch, then a pull. The kettle on the same counter asks for a lift those hands can't make either.

If your fingers can't get under a pull tab, or the pinch is the part that hurts, there's a tool to open pull-tab cans that does both jobs for you. A ring-pull can opener is a hook on a handle that gets under the tab and lifts it.

Another member of the same thread has a tool for pop-top cans and opens the cats' food with it every morning. They could manage before, they say, but with it the job is so much easier.

A hook and a lever instead of a pinch

The hooked end slides under the ring. You fold the tab forward, then roll the handle back, and the lever lifts the seal. The versions the arthritis-aid shops sell are all the same idea, a J-shaped hook worked with a rocking motion.

Your fingers hold a handle instead of pinching a tab, and the wrist or the weight of your arm does the pulling. The person who started the thread put the case for leverage plainly, talking about a strap wrench and the pliers that came up there too:

Leverage is easier for me because I don't actually have to grip it I can use just the weight of my arm or body to push down and the leverage does the work for me without my hands/fingers having to have better grip strength.

u/Important-Bid-9792, in r/rheumatoid

Leverage is also why an under-cabinet jar opener suits the same hands: a turn of the wrist instead of a squeeze.

On the forum of Scope, the UK disability charity, a full-time carer for their daughter keeps a little gadget for slipping under the pull on a tin, and says it saves their nails.

The free fixes: a butter knife, a screwdriver, a fork

The drawer at the top of this page works, and so does a butter knife, which you already own. The thread starter lifts the tab with one, then slides the knife into the tab hole and levers against the can while peeling the lid back.

The same person has one more trick: wherever there's a choice, they buy cans without a pull tab on purpose, so an electric can opener does the work. Sometimes there isn't a choice.

When there isn't, the hook does the lift and the pull on its own, with no pliers to find halfway through.

Where it falls short

Arthritis UK sells its own version, and one buyer on its shop page says it took some working out, then worked well on tins of beans and soup. Another found you still have to lift the ring a little before the hook will go under it.

The first buyer still struggled to get the whole lid off without spraying the contents about. Drinks cans are the place to skip it: the same buyer found it snapped the ring off an aluminium can, which a thumb manages on its own too. On a food can, a tab that's already gone is a job for the ordinary can opener, since there's nothing left for a hook to lift.

Expect easier rather than effortless. A customer with severe osteoarthritis on another shop's page found their version did the job, but not as easily as they'd hoped.

Keep the butter knife for the day the tool goes missing. For every other morning, put a ring-pull can opener in the drawer nearest the cans, and open the next one with your wrist instead of your fingertips.