i JUST bought a cane for this exact purpose! 💕

People can be rude but I just use it anyways because it helps me. ❤️

When I used a cane in public for the same purpose, I did get weird looks and comments, but the pain relief alone definitely outweighed all the shit from other people for me. It also became sort of fun for me because I could use it to make ableists uncomfortable or to like herd them out of my way lol. A way of thinking about it that helped me a lot was "people are going to be mean if they want to no matter what I do, so I might as well take care of myself"