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Winter Survival Tools: Skin Cream, Back Scratcher and the “Body Back Buddy”
By
Published: Jan 13, 2019
Category:
Health
“Gotta get through January, gotta get through February.”
That’s Van Morrison, who knows a thing or three about chilly weather, internally and emotionally. We’ve got a ton of that this month. When headline after headline reads like the plot line of a paranoid thriller — “The President Is a Traitor” —- I get chills. And the weather! By day, you go out and wonder “Where is everybody?” At night, the streets and sidewalks are empty — it’s just too cold.
Can’t walk in the park. Have so much work — thank you, God of work! — that I find a daily reason not to go to the gym. Long days in warm, dry rooms and the briefest possible encounters with sunlight yield predictable results: dry skin, tight muscles, back and shoulder pain. And I bet I’m not the only one.
The first cure is to lubricate the skin. The go-to lotion around here is Gold Bond Ultimate Radiance Renewal, with Coconut Oil, Shea Butter and Cocoa Butter. It’s so thick the pump doesn’t always work; it’s like the stuff long-distance swimmers use before they swim the English Channel. But it does the job — when you look down at your legs, you won’t wonder what codger they belong to. [To buy 14 ounces of Gold Bond Ultimate Radiance Renewal for $7.79, click here.]
If only life could be lived on the surface! Because it can’t, deskbound creatures like me are going to get aches, knots and itches. And if you’re like this deskbound creature, they’ll surface around 11 AM, when you’re alone and there’s no one you can ask for a massage or its inferior substitute, a back rub.
The cheap solution is a back scratcher. You can get a nice one that extends from 8” to 22” and has nice metal “beart claws” that look as if they can do the job, and then some. You can get a set of 4 for different colored rubber handles for $8.55. [To buy a set of back scratchers from Amazon, click here.]
And then there’s the new kid on the block — on my block, anyway. The Body Back Buddy is like a Swiss Army knife, in that the knobs of the curved plastic frame have many uses. One is a self-massager. Then there’s the back, neck, shoulder, leg & feet trigger point therapy tool. And the deep tissue massager. [To buy a Body Back Buddy from Amazon for $29.95. click here.]
The Back Body Buddy provides “11 perfectly placed therapy knobs that offer you easy access to any part your body… It has three styles of therapy knobs: a dull rounded one intended for broader surface massage; a pointed type, which will let you accurately penetrate deeper into a specific area, and the two dull nubs (4 & 6) located on the center of the tool that are specifically designed to massage the upper buttocks and the back on either side of the spine.”
If I quote the explanation — “While holding the tool comfortably in front of your chest, you can manipulate the S curves to apply as much or as little pressure as you desire to any pressure point on your neck and back” — you’ll get modest insight. Better to watch…
The females around here use the Body Back Buddy for therapeutic purposes. I reach for it for a mundane purpose — when my back, which rarely gets a Gold Bond treatment, gets itchy, and I am, of course, alone. Like a cat, I stand in a corner and rub against a wall. Not how you’d like to pose for your book jacket photo!
I’m not the only one who uses this thing to relieve skin discomfort. Amazon Reviewer #1: “All I ever wanted was some way to massage my own back and make a good job of it and this lets me do that. No more rocking back and forth against wall corners or any of the other bizarre things I used to try to do to get some relief. Whoever invented this deserves a medal.” Amazon Reviewer #2: “An absolute godsend. No more corners of two walls, a golf ball, or tennis ball.” Amazon Reviewer #3: “Looks silly, works great.”
What works for you? [If you’re living in Palm Beach or the Caribbean this winter…. please, don’t reply.]
