The Age of Aches

My back hurts.

Not the lower back, which hurt last month, but more the upper back, sort of behind the chest. It started hurting the other day. Not a big deal, really, more like discomfort or maybe just stiffness than actual pain. The good thing was, it took my mind off the ache I’ve been feeling in my left hip. Which helped me move on from the soreness in my left knee.

Of course, and I know it, I shouldn’t complain. I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve recovered very well from a heart attack at the beginning of the year. I run four or five times a week, albeit slowly, but I’m running. I lift weights. I do pushups. I can hold a plank for a couple of minutes.

I don’t need surgery for anything and I haven’t replaced a knee or a hip or needed PT to recover from replacing a knee or a hip. 

And yet, almost every day, something hurts.

The other night, while lying in bed trying to sleep, I got this very painful cramp in my left foot. I’ve had uncomfortable twinges in my right thigh and assorted pains and aches in:

·       My right ring finger

·       My left ankle

·       My neck

·       Both of my wrists

And have I mentioned my lower back?

Listen, nothing egregious, none of it, nothing life-threatening nor even life-altering, for the moment, but it gets tedious, one ache, one pain, after another. It gets tiresome wondering whether I should take this ache more seriously or mention that pain to the doctor. I would just rather not have to think about any of it.  

But we do. Because, at a certain age, according to the Cleveland Clinic, our muscles get tighter, our tendons and ligaments become less flexible—a geriatrician calls them “stiff and leathery”—and our bodies take longer to heal from injury.

According to studies, around 100 million Americans, a large percentage of them in their sixties, seventies and eighties, have some sort of chronic pain, meaning the long-term kind that sticks around after an injury or illness. Millions more—including me and probably you—have some kind of short-term (acute) pain.

We treat the pain with Tylenol or opioids or imitation opioids or with chiropractic or massage or hot tubs or meditation or arnica rubs. Finally, many of us, we just live with it, trying not to extrapolate too much, believing it’s simply endemic to an aging body, part of the process, a burden we must bear. And we choose to believe it’s better than the dire alternative.

Or we ignore the pain as much as we can, hoping it will go away soon. Or, as my wife—and many wives—would do, we go see a doctor who, we hope, will tell us it’s nothing to worry about. Or, well, it might be, down the road, something to worry about. But at least not for the moment.

Like many of us, I nevertheless can’t help but worry about it now, regularly wondering if that new twinge actually means something serious or just means that each day I’m getting one day older and achier. It’s a realization that, well, hurts.