My Mom keeps complaining of BACKACHE, How I got her into Daily Exercise Routine as a Remedy
She is a working woman, she does her duty and then Household chores, but she did not want to put effort into doing Exercise or Yoga. Definitely, she was going to develop backache until she developed a habit of putting some more extra energy into doing core strengthening exercises.
She has always been strong in both body and willpower and looking after the home, doing her job beautifully. She has much more energy than I have, she gets excited at small things, and has always been the cutest person for me in the world.
Now, she is reaching 50, and she frequently complains of backache, I feel so bad that I requested her many times to quit her job or maybe make a maid do all the work at home. She doesn’t listen to me, she is going to work till her retirement, and she doesn’t want any interference in her house chores. This was not helping, she was not going to get her pain relieved. Applying analgesics was her solution, oral she doesn’t take much, she knew this was going to stay for long, and taking a painkiller daily is not good. Physiotherapy or Electrotherapy was not also permanent solution.
Only Strengthening your back muscles to take a load of your weight on prolonged standing or sitting was the only solution. I wanted that to happen to relieve her Backache.
I suggested her back muscle strengthening exercises but how many of you would not like to take a rest instead of doing exercise if you have a backache? She didn’t listen to that either. But I didn’t quit. I have been living away from her for the last 6 years now and telling her whenever I go home, or am on call was not convincing her at all.
As a doctor and I see many such patients, especially Ladies, who do not believe in doing Exercises. For prolonged Backache, please visit a Doctor, this can be more than the Mechanical Backache. Mechanical Backache is the one that subsides on rest, and increases on strenuous activity, prolonged standing or sitting or bad posture. Do visit a Doctor to know what’s happening there and what is the right thing for you to do.
Let’s get back (I have typed Back so many times) to making my Mom adopt a habit of doing stretching and exercises.
She kept continuing using Diclofenac Gel and her old busy routine and resting whenever possible. Until…….
I was giving a Lecture to many Ladies on various Basic Health Issues and their solutions, one of them was Low Back Ache. I felt most of them are not going to follow it, and will always be having this complaint as I was not even able to convince my Mom.
Lifestyle Modification is one of the main therapy for the treatment of many many diseases.
I decided I would do it before the end of my upcoming holiday when I would be at home. I preplanned it, I kept asking her to do it on each call. I asked my father to make her do it when he visited her on his work leave. Yeah, we are four members in my family including my brother, and we are living separately for our jobs.
I told her to start with stretching when she would get time in between work, and whenever she would remember. She at least started doing it once in a while. I sometimes made her do stretching in front of me on video calls.
Stretching relaxes your muscles, Increases blood circulation and so helps heal fatigued muscles.
Then my Father went home, he made her do small easy exercises. It was tough to get her doing, she would always give reasons for work or she was tired or other things. He did help her with house chores, and he did exercise along with her. It was a good start.
I told her to start doing it daily, even getting a yoga mat, sitting for a few minutes, or stretching. Just do it regularly at a fixed time.
Don’t think that doing it one or two days a week or whenever you get time at any time in a day is going to help you. You will never develop a habit of it, and will always need a push from others, and every day you will think of quitting it.
She started making this her routine, sitting on her Yoga mat, doing stretching, maybe 5 minutes a day if she is late for her office. She was doing it in the morning daily. And in the evening she started going for a walk.
Later I went home, I started doing exercises with her for her core muscle strengthening. Till then her backache was much better. But still, pain was there on prolonged standing. Stretching in between restless hours helped her. But for her core muscles to strengthen she needed to do some real exercise daily, at least 5 days a week. For which I had already made her a routine and habit.
Do it for a month, you will see results before that. And you ain’t going to quit it. It makes you feel Strong, Disciplined, and with No pain, and it controls your weight. Everything is good about this, after that month you will do it in a flow.
For a Healthy Lifestyle, one must give priority to Exercise, Good Sleep, Healthy Diet, and Healthy Social Behaviour and Relation. These are the things one must not compromise for any reason. For all those who are young and busy with studies or jobs, if you can not make time now, when will you? Why are you working hard if can not make time for your Health?
I just kept lecturing and kept doing exercises with her daily in the morning. Two weeks passed and it was the time for me to leave home, and till then she had already started waking me up in the morning for the exercise session. I asked her before leaving “How do you feel about your Backache, and are you going to continue exercising?”. She replied, “I don’t feel my back anymore, it’s like my back is doing the job perfectly. I m loving doing exercise, and I don’t feel complete if any morning I don’t do it.”
This is now when I m writing this, I still ask her how is she doing and she says she is doing great. Now I have a complete story for my patients to inspire them to start their routine. I m gonna tell them my Mom is the same as others and if she has done it, they can too.
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