You might look around at people older than you and wonder what it's like to walk in their shoes. The older the person you are looking at, the more critical the question becomes.
Without wishing to tempt fate in any way, I am reasonably healthy for my age but not as fit as I should be. Still, I am independent in body and mind but age does one pernicious thing to us: it creaks up on us!
If you had seen me a month ago, you would have seen me sitting and shuffling in my chair, wincing in pain grabbing my left elbow and massaging it. Applying heat treatment creams and gels to my upper left arm, shoulder and upper left chest. I even went to the doctor and had lidocaine injections to try to numb my pain. It took me a few nights to learn how to lie in bed to keep the pain away.
This is an age related problem: don't move until your body is good and ready. Don't get into positions that your body can no longer tolerate. You will suffer if you don't heed my words.
What happened was that I spent three days glued to my office chair. Even though I learned decades ago how to take care of my back following a volleyball injury, I do still slouch from time to time. And during these three days I slouched too much. Then I paid for it over and over again.
- Sitting became difficult
- Driving became difficult
- Ordinary every day tasks became difficult
It took about two weeks before I felt any improvement, in spite of the injections, an upper body massage, the pain killers and the muscle relaxants. As the pain and discomfort eases a little, we get confident. So it comes back and bites us smack bank on our arse again.
Into the third week, though, I felt more and more relief and I even managed to determine the arm muscle stress that was causing my left elbow so much pain: I massaged that muscle and it worked wonders.
Overall, it took about a month to get back to normal but even so, if I slouch a bit or relax a bit too much in the wrong way, I get a tweak by way of gentle advice: not to mess with this ageing frame!
DW
10th March 2024
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