HEALTH AND OLD AGE

          Dying at 70 is almost the same as dying in the crib.

                                                Ancient Pelasgian wisdom

 A phony diagnosis

Let us recall an immensely popular diagnosis. You probably have often heard something like “This condition comes with age”, “This is normal for a person of your age,” or “What do you expect when you are old?” Believe me, this stuff is sheer nonsense. Illnesses come for reasons other than age. Many young people are not in good health, while millions of agile and energetic “old folk” defy their age. If age were a key source of diseases, the young would never be sick, while the old would all die much earlier without exception.

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

There are two kinds of age. First, the calendar age brings experience, wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual depth.  The second age is that of your disease. It starts with, say, a trauma, inflammation, or lower back pain from lifting something heavy. At this point, the seed of the disease penetrates the body, germinates, and grows. If you take action to nip the disease in the bud, your age will not be affected. If the disease is not eliminated, however, it will keep evolving for several years, reach maturity, and start interfering with your life. “Here comes my old age,” you would say now.

Debts outstanding

If you take proper care of your body, it will only become stronger with age, much like premium wine, and easier to control.

If you use muscle relaxation, regular exercise, massage therapy and generally take good care of your body, it will only become stronger with age, much like premium wine, and easier to control. On the contrary, if you merely take advantage of your body, squander its energy and ignore warning signals, you deplete your health capital and soon have to start paying for it with your health. Imagine purchasing a new house, moving in, and proceeding to enjoy a fine life, but failing to repay the bank mortgage on the house. In a short while the lender starts sending you warnings and requests for payment. Instead of fixing the situation you muse: “How come my debt keeps growing every year? It’s probably because of my old age…”

This example may seem funny since most borrowers do their best to keep up with the repayment schedule. In the context of aging, however, a lot of people seem to blame old age for their mounting debt and compare thoughtful notes on the best ways of hiding their heads in the sand.

There is nothing that old men should guard against so much as languor and sloth.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Few people control their diet or maintain the flexibility of their spine and joints, to say nothing about managing stress, chronic anxiety, depression or anger. “Well, it’s just in my character! I eat what everybody eats around me… Oh, to hell with it – life is too short!” That is why the debt to one’s own body frequently becomes unsustainable as early as by the age of forty or fifty. The “money” is gone and now you have to repay with the “real estate” of your muscles, joints, blood vessels, and internal organs.

Muscular spasms come first and steadily become persistent. Then the “green shoots” of these spasms turn into a rigid “trunk” of degenerative arthritis. Sure, all this happens with time, “with age,” if you will, but it is the age of your disease rather than of yourself.

Keeping mobility and good health

Make your muscles work hard, so they will get better nutrition, become stronger, and start carrying the weight of your body with ease regardless of its age.

Can these developments be prevented? Sure! Just realize that you should not live on credit alone. Stop borrowing and consuming. Start repaying your debts on a regular schedule, daily, the more frequently the better, even if the amounts are small. Your neck or lower back are stiff? Make some shoulder, foot, and knee movements. Can’t walk for too long? Take a little walk around the house a few times a day. Make your muscles work hard, so they will get better nutrition, become stronger, and start carrying the weight of your body with ease regardless of its age. Move your shoulders, knees, and feet a bit.  “Don’t allow your soul to be lazy,” the poet said.  The body, too, should not be allowed to be lazy, to lie, sit and barely move day in, day out. Nothing sought, nothing found: if you want to stay mobile, set your body in motion, and let your blood circulate properly.

Nikolay Amosov, the famous heart surgeon, who exercised regularly, following a regiment he devised, lived to the age of 90.

Sometimes, of course, you may have neglected your body to an extent when movement becomes difficult if not impossible. In this case, seek professional help. The physician’s job is to find a weak link in the “chain” of your disease and relieve the least impaired muscles and joints using gentle targeted manipulations. This will remove stress from the most inflamed and overloaded joints and give them a chance to relax and recover.  Anti-inflammatory drugs and ointments are usually prescribed to accelerate the process.

If pain and inflammation persist despite the doctor’s efforts, painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs may be injected directly into muscle trigger points or the joints themselves. A more potent dose of the drug usually works better but also entails a higher chance of side effects.

In my practice, I prefer an alternative approach, using minimal doses of medicines with different mechanisms of action and combining injections with manual therapy.  A smaller dose of the drug can penetrate directly into the impaired area and thus do a better job with the least amount of side effects.