16 thoughts on “Seventy”

  1. Hmm. When I say “Seventy is the new sixty-five,” I mean retirement (Social Security, etc.). I guess this is the same situation, seen from a different angle.

    1. Too bad actuarial tables aren’t used for setting the retirement age. It made sense to set it at 65 when Kaiser Wilhelm started the first pension system, because that was the average lifespan in Germany in 1889. Today if we used the same logic the retirement age would be somewhere around 80.

      1. That should read Otto von Bismarck. And they initially set the retirement age at 70 and dialed it back to 65 later.

      2. “It made sense to set it at 65 when Kaiser Wilhelm started the first pension system, because that was the average lifespan in Germany in 1889”

        Don’t think so, no offense. I believe the average life expectancy in the US in 1900 was only 47. So either Germans were living allot longer than in the US or it was way less than 65, I would favor the later explanation; I seem to recall reading that Bismarck picked “70” initially as the age you received the pension on purpose. Statistically few people back then were (or lived to) the age of 70; so it was great PR for the gov to give people a pension that in actuality few folks would live to collect.

  3. If it isn’t cause by a herniated disc, sciatica could be an impingement of the nerve somewhere between where it exits your spinal column and lower down your leg. You could see a physical therapist to put together some stretching and exercising to help keep it in check. Or you can identify the muscle groups involved and then hit youtube and google up for stretches and exercises to target those muscle groups.

    With the back though, it is good to see a a professional. Some stretches can be bad for your back depending on what’s wrong with it.

    Vitamin B is also supposed to help with nerve damage.

    I had something similar but with a different nerve. Doctors weren’t much help so I had to put together my own rehab plan. What has become a feature of life, are many of the exercises I did to rehab the nerve. Still get flareups occasionally and that’s when I go through the whole system of stretches and whatnot.

    Nerve pain can be horrific, so if you think sciatica might return, best to get a jump on prevention.

    1. I had a friend who had some back problems like that. Then, one day, he suffered catastrophic nerve damage to the nerves exiting the base of the spine (“cauda equina syndrome”). Scans revealed he had congenital narrowing the bone structures there, and the nerves got smashed.

      He had an emergency laminectomy to make space, but the damage had been done. This kind of damage isn’t necessarily permanent, because peripheral nerves can regrow. He never got the chance to find out though, as some weeks later he suddenly when into cardiac arrest and died from massive bilateral pulmonary embolism, likely induced by clots in his legs from reduced mobility from the nerve damage (and yes, he was on blood thinners as a precaution). He was 41.

  4. Laser acupuncture did wonders for my back pain. I was kinda skeptical, but my dad had it and it worked for him, so I tried it out and it worked for me too.

  5. I never had sciatica until I lost 170 lbs. then it hit me like a freight train. I haven’t had it for a lot of years now and I definitely don’t miss it. That’s pain dialed up to eleven.

    1. I don’t know that it was sciatica, I never got it diagnosed. It was a pain in my left hip that came and went, and felt sort like a pulled muscle in my glute (which it may have been), but it seems to be gone now.

      1. In my case it went misdiagnosed for years. The orthopedist ordered a CAT scan to my spine and it showed no broken discs. I insisted on an MRI scan and it showed one of the discs had swollen outwards and pinched the nerve right on the spot I told him it should be.

        1. I guessed it was there because my pain subsided if I pressed the spine in that region with my fingers.

        2. I’ve become an expert on doctors and find them to be all over the map. I like the one’s I’ve got now which is pretty unusual.

          I hate the fact that you often have to be your own doctor… “hey doc, tell me again which one of us went to medical school?” But too often that’s the case. I can usually find out if a doctor is any good before even meeting them… that’s what nurses are for… especially the older one’s that aren’t afraid to speak their minds (being a good patient helps with that.)

    1. For some reason I always fixated on 98 meaning I’ve got 40 years to go, but for the last three decades doctors have been telling me I’ve got about six months so I’ve been tuning them out. But recently my current doctor said I’ve got another ten years which has really freaked me out!

      After all is said, trying to do the best with each day is about all there is.

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