Nairn woman backs new Royal Osteoporosis Society guide to build bone strength
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A WOMAN from Nairn is backing a campaign encouraging people with a condition that weakens their bones to exercise.
Gill Pullan is supporting the Royal Osteoporosis Society’s new guides to inspire people to improve balance and build strength.
In 2005, she was injured in a boating accident, on a cross-Atlantic sailing trip with her husband.
She said: “I caught my arm in a winch, suffering significant damage to my arm and had to have a major operation in the West Indies. I was airlifted to a hospital on another island and it was very traumatic.
“For three years afterwards, my arm was paralysed and when the feeling eventually came back I was sent for an X-ray to check all was well, and to my surprise – and I must say a bit of shock – that’s when I was told I had osteoporosis.
“I know a lots of people get a lot of pain, but I’m lucky I don’t.
“I think that’s because I do weight-bearing, high-intensity and muscle-strengthening exercises and not the same thing all the time. I also do line dancing, so it’s good mentally, physically and socially – it’s wonderful.”
She exercises every day, plays golf and is a keen walker, and believes the osteoporosis society has helped her take on more activities.
She said: “I think these new online resources to get more people to know what exercises to do safely are hugely important in terms of physical, as well as mental, wellbeing and they’ll give more people the confidence to do more exercise.”
Professor Dawn Skelton, chairwoman of the society’s steering group that developed the guides, said: “I’ve got countless heart-breaking stories of watching people’s lives simply collapse when they get an osteoporosis diagnosis.
“They stay indoors worrying about their fragile bones, when they are capable of doing things to keep their bones strong, which could add so much life to their remaining years.”
