Age-related pain syndrome

When I dutifully called to check up on my 83-year-old mother recently and inquired what she was up to, she replied that she had just returned home from an organ recital with her lady friends.

"I didn't know you liked the organ," I said.

"No, not that kind. We get together for bridge and before we shuffle the cards, we all talk about our aches and pains, what hurts where. We call it our organ recital."

I thought this might be just an amusing quaint custom of Missouri senior ladies who hang out with my mother.

And then I started noticing the conversations I was having when I gathered with my 50-something contemporaries. No longer obsessed with the latest stock tip, our conversations are now dominated by -- guess what -- "our aches and pains, what hurts where."

We are victims of what I have started calling our age-related pain syndrome.

And just what exactly is this thing called pain that we are so obsessed with?

Pain is the body's emotional interpretation of trauma or the possibility of trauma. These interpretations alert us to take action. For example, when a wasp stings you on the arm, chemical signals shoot out from neurons in the skin through nerves in the spinal cord to your brain, where they are interpreted as pain. It's our body's Code Orange.

We are immediately energized to correct the situation that is activating the pain signal, move away from the wasp nest, stop digging in the garden, etc. And then our body's built-in pharmacy goes into action, cascading our brains with our natural pain-killing opioids called endorphins as well as norepinephrine, which signals the body to mobilize and take action that counters the pain.

It's all a very useful system. So why are we complaining?

Those of us who are obsessed with staying young and fit, are particularly vulnerable to making these more dramatic interpretations and therefore are more subject to the age-related pain syndrome.

A pain in our lower back is not necessarily interpreted as what it is -- a signal to back off our exercise routine or to wear a back brace while gardening -- but as a sign of our deterioration, our loss of vitality, the loss of power.

There is a well-documented relationship between depression and pain. Dr. Catherine Bushnell, one of the leading researchers in the field of "cognitive mediation of pain" has shown how one's mood definitely impacts the actual experience of pain in the brain.

Furthermore, Dr. Bushnell found that when people are distracted by something pleasant -- a sweet smell, for example -- they don't register pain at the same intensity as those who aren't distracted; a truth mothers throughout the ages have known through their experience with crying infants.

So, a good mood and an ability to shift focus are effective cognitive weapons to employ in our battle with age-related pain.

If we insist upon making interpretations about the aches and pains we experience as we get older based upon our fears of getting older ... well, it isn't hard to see how we can actually begin to create the very thing we fear: a life of aches and pains that does lead to a loss of vigor.

Our minds are our best defense against the age-related pain syndrome. So I say: If you've got one, use it!

Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaugh is a Cape Girardeau native who is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years experience helping individuals and couples with their emotional and relationship issues. He has a private practice in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, Calif. Contact him at mseabaugh@semissourian.com.