What you can safely do at home
Most everyday aches settle with the right self-care. This page covers the problems seen most often in Indian clinics — knee pain, back pain, frozen shoulder, heel pain — what genuinely helps, what quietly makes things worse, and the warning signs that mean you should stop treating yourself and get examined.
Written and medically reviewed by Dr. Tarun Baghla, MBBS, MS (Orthopaedics)
Stop home treatment and see a doctor now if you have
- A joint that is hot, red and swollen, especially with fever — this can be infection
- Pain after a fall or accident, or a limb that looks bent or cannot bear weight
- Numbness, tingling or weakness in an arm or leg that is not settling
- Loss of bladder or bowel control with back pain — this is an emergency
- Back pain with unexplained weight loss, night sweats, or a past cancer
- Night pain that wakes you from sleep and is not relieved by position
- A joint that locks, gives way or cannot be straightened
- Calf swelling, warmth and pain — especially after surgery, a flight or long bed rest
Where does it hurt?
Heat or ice?
More people make their pain worse with the wrong one than with anything else on this page.
The simple rule
- Ice anything that is swollen, or any injury in the first 48 hours. Wrap it in a thin cloth — never put ice directly on skin.
- Heat anything that is stiff, aching and long-standing. A hot water bag or a warm bath before your exercises works well.
- Neither if the joint is hot, red and swollen with fever. That needs examining today.
If you have diabetes or reduced sensation, check the temperature with your forearm first — burns from hot water bags are common and go unnoticed.
Knee pain and early arthritis
Indian knees wear out earlier than Western ones, and the reasons are cultural as much as medical: a lifetime of squatting, sitting cross-legged on the floor, Indian-style toilets and stairs, combined with widespread vitamin D deficiency and weak thigh muscles.
What usually helps
Do this
- Straight-leg raises — lie flat, keep the knee straight, lift the leg 30 cm, hold 5 seconds. 10 times, twice a day. This is the single most useful knee exercise there is.
- Quadriceps tightening — sit with the leg straight, press the back of the knee down into the bed, hold 5 seconds. 15 times.
- Walk on level ground daily, in cushioned shoes, building up gradually
- Lose weight if you can — every 1 kg lost takes about 4 kg of load off the knee with each step
- Use a Western commode or a commode chair over an Indian toilet
- Sit on chairs rather than the floor at home and at functions
Avoid
- Squatting, kneeling and sitting cross-legged on the floor
- Stairs where a lift is available; go one step at a time if you must
- Long periods with the knee bent — straighten it every 30 minutes
- Daily anti-inflammatory tablets bought over the counter
- Deep knee bends, lunges and treadmill inclines during a flare
- Heavy weight training on the legs without supervision
Simple measures worth trying
- Warm compress for 15 minutes before your exercises, ice for 15 minutes after if the knee swells
- Cushioned footwear with a soft sole — hard chappals on hard floors transmit every step to the knee
- A thin pillow between the knees when sleeping on your side
- Adequate protein, calcium and vitamin D — see the section below
- Paracetamol occasionally for a bad day, rather than anti-inflammatories daily
Low back pain
Eight out of ten adults get it at some point. The great majority is mechanical — muscle and ligament strain, not a slipped disc — and settles within a few weeks if you keep moving. In India the usual culprits are two-wheeler commutes on bad roads, lifting badly, soft sagging mattresses and long hours at a desk.
Do this
- Keep moving. Gentle walking from day one is the best treatment
- Lift with bent knees and a straight back, load held close
- A firm mattress; if yours sags, a board underneath helps
- Sleep on your side with a pillow between the knees, or on your back with one under the knees
- Get up and walk for 2 minutes every 30–40 minutes at a desk
- Heat before activity; core and back strengthening once the acute pain settles
Avoid
- Prolonged bed rest — more than 2 days makes it worse, not better
- Bending and twisting together, especially first thing in the morning
- Lifting with straight legs and a rounded back
- Sitting on low soft sofas for long periods
- Long two-wheeler rides on bad roads during a flare
- Forceful spinal manipulation from an unqualified person
Neck pain and “text neck”
Your head weighs about 5 kg upright. Tilt it forward 60 degrees to look at a phone and the load through the neck rises to roughly 25 kg. Do that for four hours a day, as most people now do, and the muscles simply fatigue.
Fix the setup
Raise the screen so the top of the monitor is at eye level. Hold the phone up rather than dropping your chin. Keep elbows supported and shoulders relaxed. A laptop on a table with an external keyboard is far kinder to the neck than a laptop on your lap.
Three exercises
Chin tucks — draw the chin straight back, hold 5 seconds, 10 times. Shoulder rolls — 10 backward rolls hourly. Side stretch — ear gently to shoulder, hold 20 seconds each side. Never force or jerk the neck.
Sleep position
One pillow that fills the gap between your ear and the mattress — not two stacked pillows, which push the neck forward all night. Sleeping on your stomach twists the neck for hours and is best avoided.
Frozen shoulder
Common between 40 and 60, and far more common if you have diabetes — which is why India sees so much of it. The shoulder capsule thickens and tightens, so the joint becomes painful and then genuinely stiff. The tell-tale sign is difficulty reaching behind your back or fastening a blouse or bra.
What to expect
Freezing · 2–9 months
Pain dominates, especially at night. Movement gradually reduces. Pain control and gentle movement matter most here.
Frozen · 4–12 months
Pain settles but stiffness is at its worst. This is the stage where stretching does the real work.
Thawing · 5–24 months
Movement slowly returns. Most people recover well, though it genuinely takes time.
Home stretches — daily, gently
- Pendulum — lean forward, let the arm hang, swing it in small circles 20 times each way
- Wall walk — face a wall, walk the fingers up as high as comfortable, hold 15 seconds
- Towel stretch — hold a towel behind your back with both hands, pull gently upward with the good arm
- Cross-body stretch — bring the arm across the chest, support it with the other hand, hold 20 seconds
Heel pain — plantar fasciitis
The giveaway is pain in the first few steps out of bed in the morning, easing as you walk about and returning after rest. Common in India because of walking barefoot on hard floors at home and flat unsupportive chappals outside.
Do this
- Calf stretch against a wall, 30 seconds, 3 times, twice a day
- Roll the sole over a frozen water bottle for 10 minutes in the evening
- Towel stretch before your first step out of bed each morning
- Wear cushioned footwear with arch support — including indoors
- Silicone heel cups, which are cheap and often help
Avoid
- Walking barefoot on hard floors at home
- Flat chappals and worn-out shoes with no cushioning
- Sudden increases in walking or running distance
- Repeated steroid injections into the heel
How long it takes
This is a slow condition. Done consistently, stretching and footwear settle around 80–90% of cases, but it commonly takes three to six months. Most people fail because they stretch for a fortnight and stop.
Weight matters here more than almost anywhere else — the heel takes the full body load with every step.
Tennis elbow and wrist pain
Very few of the people who get tennis elbow have ever played tennis. In Indian homes it comes from wringing out clothes, grinding masala, kneading atta, lifting cooking vessels and using a screwdriver or mouse all day.
Tennis elbow
Pain on the outer elbow, worst when gripping or lifting a kettle. Rest from the aggravating movement, ice for 15 minutes after activity, and a counterforce strap worn just below the elbow. Once the sharp pain settles, slow eccentric wrist exercises with a light weight are the treatment with the best evidence.
De Quervain’s — new mothers
Pain at the thumb side of the wrist, from repeatedly lifting a baby with the thumb spread out. Very common in the months after childbirth. Lift the baby from under the bottom with flat hands rather than scooping under the arms, use a thumb spica splint, and ice the area.
Trigger finger
A finger that catches or clicks and may lock bent, again far more common in diabetics. Gentle passive straightening, avoiding a tight sustained grip, and a night splint help early cases. If it is locking regularly, it needs treatment rather than home care.
Night cramps and muscle spasm
When the cramp strikes
- Stretch the muscle — for a calf cramp, straighten the knee and pull the toes up towards you and hold
- Stand up and put weight through the leg
- Massage the muscle firmly, then apply warmth
- Walk about for a minute or two afterwards
Preventing them
- Drink enough water — in an Indian summer most people are quietly dehydrated
- Calf stretches before bed
- Keep bedding loose over the feet
- Correct low vitamin D, calcium and magnesium if your tests show a deficiency
Vitamin D and bone health
Surveys repeatedly find that a large majority of Indians are vitamin D deficient — in a country with abundant sunshine. It is one of the most common findings in an orthopaedic clinic and a frequent cause of vague bone aches, muscle weakness and fatigue that gets dismissed as “weakness”.
What to actually do
- Get tested. A serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D test is inexpensive and takes the guesswork out
- Sunlight — 20–30 minutes on the arms, legs and face, mid-morning, without sunscreen. Through a window does not work; glass blocks the UVB that makes vitamin D
- Correct a real deficiency properly. Low levels need a supervised loading dose followed by maintenance, not an occasional sachet
- Calcium from food first — milk, curd, paneer, ragi, til, almonds, green leafy vegetables
- Protein matters too. Dal, curd, eggs, paneer. Bone is not made of minerals alone
- Weight-bearing exercise — walking and light resistance work signal bone to stay strong
Six things that cause real harm
Every one of these walks into an orthopaedic clinic in India every week.
1 · Traditional bone setters
Forceful pulling and tight bandaging on a broken bone causes malunion, permanent stiffness, and sometimes limb-threatening loss of blood supply. A fracture needs an X-ray before anyone touches it.
2 · Painkillers as a daily habit
Diclofenac and nimesulide are sold freely here and taken like vitamins. Long-term use damages the stomach and kidneys. If you need a painkiller most days, the problem needs diagnosing, not masking.
3 · Unlabelled “ayurvedic” pain powders
Some products sold for joint pain have been found to contain undeclared steroids. They work briefly and spectacularly, then cause weight gain, diabetes, hypertension and bone death. Buy only from reputable, labelled sources.
4 · Massage over a fresh injury
Vigorous oil massage on a swollen limb increases bleeding into the tissues and can worsen a fracture. Massage is for muscle stiffness, not for acute injury.
5 · “Rest completely until it stops hurting”
For most back and joint pain, prolonged rest weakens muscles and prolongs the problem. Controlled movement is treatment, not a risk.
6 · Ignoring a limp for years
Early hip arthritis and AVN are far easier to treat than late ones. Groin pain and difficulty sitting cross-legged or wearing socks deserve an X-ray, not another year of tolerating it.
Ten minutes a day
A short routine that protects the knees, hips and back for most adults. Do it after a warm bath, or after a few minutes of walking so the muscles are warm.
Straight-leg raises · 2 min
10 each leg. Builds the quadriceps, which is the knee’s own shock absorber.
Calf stretch · 2 min
30 seconds each side, 2 rounds. Protects the heel, ankle and knee.
Bridging · 2 min
Lie on your back, knees bent, lift the hips. 10 times. Strengthens the glutes and lower back.
Chin tucks and shoulder rolls · 2 min
10 of each. Undoes a day spent looking down at a screen.
Brisk walk · as long as you can
Level ground, cushioned shoes. The single most useful thing for joints, weight and bone density.
Questions patients ask about self-care
Tried all this and it is still hurting?
If six weeks of sensible home care has not helped, the problem needs a name before it needs more treatment. Bring any X-rays you already have.