Why does she call everyone to share her medical issues?

Her complaints may seem "grating" to you...but maybe not to everyone. Others could be experiencing similar problems. I don't know how old your mom is, but many in her generation do not use Facebook, hence the phone calls. If her friends or family get tired of her complaints, that's THEIR problem, maybe your mom's, but not YOURS. They are adults, after all.

I live in an Independent Living facility and hear many complaints (of all sorts) from fellow residents. Sometimes my answer to them is, "hey, I know just what you mean!" and I describe my own. Sometimes, it's kind of reassuring to know that others have similar problems. Sometimes it even allows us to laugh at ourselves a bit. And that's healthy! If the complaints get annoying, I know how to distance myself a bit.

As someone who can have 30 minute commiseration discussions over the current state of bowels and their movements, I would say, don't worry. If they don't wanna hear it they'll stop answering or find a way out.

I try to be optimistic about people. Which means if I see someone oversharing, it is because they are overburdened, and they're looking for someone else to tell them "Oh this is normal we're all this borked at this age"

I just hear my aunt saying "OLD AGE ISNT FOR SISSIES" on repeat at least 3x every conversation. :D

I have a family member who is the bore at every gathering, he talks incessantly about his own interests and no matter what strategy we've employed to change the subject he always manages to bring to conversation back to his preferred topics. I gave up rescuing people a long time ago, I figure once people become adults it's up to them to figure out how to rescue themselves.
(My grandmother had a phone friend who could go on and on so she would sometimes ring her own doorbell as an excuse to end the conversation LOL)

Truthfully - you don't have to do a thing. People will do it for you over time. My FIL has a decent number of phone numbers in his cell phone that he goes through about once every month to two months to "check in" . He too spends the entire call talking about his medical issues, how miserable he is, how they never call him or come see him (he has never actually invited them, but I guess that's probably not important), If you listened to the calls, he almost never asked anyone about themselves, how they were, anything at all. To be clear - these people do not call him.. And they range from family members and friends, to the former cleaning people and even a man who once rear-ended him on the highway and they exchanged phone numbers because the man wanted to pay for the damages instead of filing on his insurance. (I wish I was kidding.)

There was a time that I actually considered deleting the numbers from the phone and the provider servers so that he would stop bothering these people, and only leave the numbers of the people that I knew actually talked to him. But then I started to realize something. When he first started doing this about 5 years ago - he would get a lot of people who would pick up and some would even chat with him. You could hear him leave a voice mail or two and sometimes those people would call back.

Over time, fewer and fewer people picked up, no one returned the voice mails. Then before too long, only one or two people were actually picking up at all. And in some cases - the numbers didn't work anymore. Oh, he still tries them all. He's actually quite dedicated about it. But rarely does anyone answer.

My advice - just leave it alone. If people don't want to talk to her - they won't answer the phone. There are people out there that LOVE to listen to other people talk about their problems. They may be stuck at home and live for her calls. Let her make her calls and talk about her medical details.

It's when she starts sharing YOUR private life (made up or real) that you have to worry. If we could just break FIL of talking about US, it we would be happy as larks.

I agree, its up to the people she calls to ghost her or make an excuse to get off the phone. If they are calling you complaining, you need to tell them you have no control over Mom. If they don't want to talk to her, don't answer the phone or make an excuse to cut the call short.

How your mother chooses to conduct herself with others is none of your business. Don't involve yourself in matters that have nothing to do with you. Which also translates to Don't Borrow Trouble. And remember, we all need people to talk to. Others we feel may want to know about our lives and what's going on. Let those she calls tell mom they don't want to hear from her or else let her calls go to voicemail. That's always an option.

The recipients of the calls will respond how they wish.

Maybe stream off their own medical issues (#1 topic) daily complaints, how the world is going, how the birds don't song like they used to etc.

Or if it has become a one-way doom call, the recipients will place their own limits. Find their own strategies.

I watched my DH be 'busy right now, can't talk' for many many calls.. hangs up, resumes his life. Anything past 'fine' or 'not so great' may gets the wind-up. He won't listen to medical updates unless just the bare facts, in 10 seconds or less.

But many others thrive on medical details & drama calls.

It seems that your mother tells you who she calls and what she says – otherwise you wouldn’t know. Perhaps you could call one recipient a day (or every so often), thank them for keeping in touch, sympathise with how difficult/boring your M is on the phone, and ask them if they have any ideas about how to make things more positive and/or more about them (not her). Then share any of your own tricks.

It is up to others to protect their own time. If your Mom overshares suggest to these others (who apparently are complaining to YOU as though you could control this) that they politely extricate themselves from her calls. Not only can you not control your Mom, but you can't protect those she calls either. You are trying to take too much on. It is fine to care about others, but it isn't fine to burden yourself when others should be/are perfectly capable to doing as they wish.

Sadly that is all a lot of elderly folk have to talk about. I'm not sure I'm understanding why it bothers you so though.
She's more than likely very lonely and just wants to be able to share with the few friends and family members that she has, what is going on with her.
Let your mother be and let her enjoy whatever outside communication she has, as I'm sure it means a lot to her.
You can plug your ears if you don't want to listen.

She call her doctor to share her medical issues , about how she feel of the symptoms, how symptoms affecting her sleeping or increase her physically, emotionally and mentally.
matilda

I don’t see how you can get your mom to act differently. If this is her personality, why would you expect her to change now?

Don’t most old people talk endlessly about health issues? It’s either that or the latest ‘death’ of a family member or friend.

I’m sure others will cut her off when they get tired of it. So, don’t let her behavior stress you out.

Could she be lonely? Many seniors don’t have much socialization.

Best wishes to you and your family.

Short answer...nope.
If conversations of aches, pains, complaints were eliminated there would be a lot of silent Independent, Assisted living facilities as well as gatherings of elders at local coffee shops, McDonalds and any other place more than 2 gather.
If her friends do not want to hear what she is saying they will tell her....after they have their turn talking about their aches, pains and complaints.

Nope, not really. What your mom is doing is fishing for sympathy. After mom had worn us all out due to her complaints of this and that, she called friends and all they ever talked about was their current health issues.

I tried a couple times to get mom to be aware that a couple of minutes of 'updating' a friend or family member was enough. After a half hour--everyone is worn out. She didn't want HELP, she wanted SYMPATHY.

When mom had a 'vocal' bird, she talked to the bird. Sadly, although it helped her somewhat...it didn't live very long. Her replacement birds were not chatty, so no help there.