Healing benefits of exercise

Exercise should be a four-letter word.

Instead it just receives 400 negative thoughts from folks like yours truly.

Maybe the negativity began when I slapped the mat with my back practicing tumbling as a third grader and seeing the gym teacher’s half-hidden smile. (I will always wonder if he was at fault as the spotter).

Maybe it began with the annoyance of always losing the races on field day to the twins who had failed two years in a row so they raced against the much younger kids in their class.

Maybe I just prefer reading a book any day to using exercise equipment that goes nowhere and accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Whatever, exercise just does not make my list of favorite things to do.

So when pain shot down my leg and the medical folks diagnosed “sciatic nerve” and each individual clinician showed me exercises guaranteed to help, I reluctantly, awkwardly tried the exercises. I left my desk to try them every time I felt the crippling pain creeping down my left leg. The pain thrust me out of my chair to silently grimace and hobble around until it dissipated.

Back exercises are the most ridiculous motions and positions ever. Just not as ridiculous as the discomfort of sciatic nerve pain. I tried to incorporate them — sort of — into my life.

Then the smart phone entered my life with an installed step counter. Shyly I studied it, pressed the right places to initiate counting and tested this new tool. For several months I worked toward the ideal of 10,000 steps every day. I forgot about the back exercises because I could sit at my desk without sciatic nerve pain yanking my chain. The day the light dawned that I had not pain, I Googled walking for sciatic nerve pain and discovered it is highly recommended. I don’t mind walking around the grocery store or the department store to rack up the steps. Sometimes I even buy stuff. At home, taking care of our daily clutter always requires plenty of steps every day.

Simply getting up and walking fixed my sciatic nerve pain. What a discovery! – an exercise I could and would do because I saw the benefit.

My husband sort of heard what I said, but mostly he was too busy groaning about the pain in his shoulder. He had injured it in some minor accident and for months afterward favored his shoulder. He concluded he had a torn rotator cuff and needed surgery.

He went to the family doctor and asked for a referral to the surgeon who had done his partial knee replacement.

The doctor said, “Try these exercises.”

He tried – sort of. He continued to grimace and groan anytime he had to lift that arm.

He went back and insisted he needed a referral to the surgeon.

The surgeon poked and prodded, turned his arm this way and that and gave him a prescription for a few sessions with a physical therapist.

Our in-house medical resident came home quite displeased. “He sent me to a physical therapist. I need surgery and he sent me to get exercises.”

He grumbled about it so much that I very tentatively ventured to ask, “are you going to go to the therapy?”

“Yes,” he humphed.

He came home with sheaves of papers describing what to do to stretch the shoulder muscles.

He scoffed and scorned as he washed the wall with an invisible sponge. He used a broom handle to do some weird twists and turns as he laid on his back. He shook his head as he tolerated therapy and did the exercise just to prove to the surgeon that he needed to be cut.

Back and forth he went to physical therapy. Twice a day he faithfully exercised his shoulder.

And slowly the unhappy mutters turned into an astonished praise. He could move his arm freely. The specially designed exercises made a major difference. He began telling friends and family the story of his conversion to the pain relieving aspect of exercises prescribed by physical therapists.

He returned to the surgeon and they both agreed he did not need surgery.

I still am not fond of exercise. For a couple months I started to get lazy about walking until I felt the sciatic nerve pain begin to creep back into my life. I sighed, took up my book and began walking in circles as I read.

If I must do what I hate, I will do what I love as I get moving to avoid the pain.

(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer for the El Dorado News Times. She can be reached at joanh@eldoradonews.com)


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