Does your doctor pay attention ?

I guess it depends what the aim of the exercise is - if it is to get your heart rate up and give your muscles a workout, then swimming is fine. And you sound as though you are doing loads against all the odds.

If it is to try and increase your bone mass, then weight-bearing exercise is the thing. But it has to be tailored to your capabilities, and this is where your GP is not thinking. To suggest you go up and down the stairs so many times is clearly silly, and he/she will finish up having to give you more pain relief if you do that - or sending an ambulance to mop you up from the bottom of the stairs!

In your circumstances then simply walking as much s possible and sitting as little as possible is probably the best thing to do.

Or you could ask your GP to send you to a physio for advice on weight-bearing exercises that you can safely do.

My GP suggested an excellent choice of exercise would be to go up ad down the stairs for 15 mins everyday.

Does he mean continuously going up and down stairs for a total of 15 minutes or the total of journeys throughout the day because you have forgotten something (or several somethings)?

I'm afraid not, greyduster
The best exercise for your bones is the weight-bearing kind, which forces you to work against gravity. Some examples of weight-bearing exercises include weight training, walking, hiking, jogging, climbing stairs, tennis, and dancing. Examples of exercises that are *not weight-bearing include swimming*and bicycling
Exercise for Your Bone Health - National Institute of Arthritis and ...
www.niams.nih.gov › health_info

While swimming is fantastic exercise, good for your heart, lungs and muscles it will not protect against e.g,osteoporosis as it is not weight bearing exercise.

I am another who thinks your swimming is probably better for you than trying to get up and down the stairs for fifteen minutes (what planet is he on for God's sake!). If you can swim 40 lengths in as many minutes you are going great guns. Swimming is also weight bearing so has to be better for you if your joints are painful. I like aquarobics; it's a bit intensive, but you do feel better for it.

No, I don't think he is really listening to you. You do extremely well to go swimming four times a week already, what more does he want? I tried the water exercise last year. It was called aquatonic but it was so exhausting I gave it up.