Anti-Aging Information

Theory 3The "Live Life Dangerously Factor"

This can often be part of "counterphobic" behavior of midlife. We're talking hang gliding, bungee jumping (with or without a bungee), dangerous liaisons (right place, right time, wrong woman concept), or taking up car racing or ski jumping at age 40. But there is often a renewed reluctance to believe we are mortal similar to those wild and crazy days of late adolescence and shortly thereafter.

Many of us can end up enjoying the sport of our choicegolf, tennis (so-called unidirectional sports), jogging, waterskiingin ways that could end up producing low back pain. Certain sports, such as golf or tennis, include a notorious twisting motion.

Still others of those repetitively jarring or grinding passions, such as -jogging, high-impact aerobics, and even mogul jumping, can wear down not only your bones but also your intervertebral discs, those cushions between vertebrae so structurally vital that show such horrendous consequences if they become ed off. By the luck of the wrong draw, you could end up either temporarily or permanently disabled.

A siege of severe low-back pain can start innocently, just from bending, swinging, lifting, carrying, jumping, sneezing, or intercourse. Just sitting in an airplane seat may be all that some peopleand especially tall onesneed. It may often be difficult, if not impossible, for you to sort out just what is wrong with you other than the reality that your back hurts like hell, you can't move, and you can hardly find a comfortable position. Like a wounded animal, you soon discover that lying very still in the fetal position, with your legs curled up against your chest, may be the only possible way you will ever survive. Have someone place pillows under your knees to relieve some of the stretch on your sciatic nerve and some of that painful torque on the deep muscles in your back.

If you end up in the emergency room, your doctor there will immediately assess just how severe your pain really is and, if necessary, try to relieve the pain with a shot of any of a number of preparations that can make your life temporarily livable again (assuming you are not allergic to any of them): They can include Toradol, Demerol, morphine, or a combination of the above.

Such an aggressive initial approach to treating acute and even intolerable back pain can make your doctor's subsequent neurological examination possible. The trauma to the specific part of your back can show up in the body part the affected nerve supplies. Your clinician will check your knee reflexes to determine if your third or fourth lumbar nerves are injured. The fifth lumbar nerve can be checked by seeing how your big toe lifts upward. Finally, ankle jerks help test for an injury of your first sacral nerve roots. Wow, we've practically got you halfway through medical school already. All this sounds very technical, but when you are really hurting, there can be a lot of overlap of symptoms or findings, so it is important from the outset to relieve your pain even if it is transitory.