Ever hear the phrase “you are too young to be in pain at your age”? Conversely, if you are older, maybe you were told that your aches/pains/ailments are a result of old age. The implication is that there is nothing you can do about it because, after all, everyone gets old who lives long enough.
Some people seem to have this fixated notion that all young adults and adolescents are supposed to be robustly healthy, and that all older adults are doomed to suffer from aches/pains/ailments until the day that they die. These people unwittingly think this way based on a ridiculous premise — that aches/pains/ailments have only one cause, which is old age. By assuming that all young adults are supposed to be robustly healthy and all older adults are supposed to blame their physical problems on old age, one is implicitly assuming that only old age can cause aches/pains/ailments. Such people often admit that genes are a factor, too. In other words, they believe that physiological problems are always caused by something outside of our control.
In reality, there are a variety of factors that can cause aches/pains/ailments besides genes and old age. They include diet, over work, highly demanding physical activities and environmental toxins including radiation. Many of these other factors are within our control to some extent. Diet is something we can change. Over work also is something we can change, especially when we have the support of others. Also, by becoming aware of toxins in our environment, we can reduce our exposure to toxins, which will lead to reduced illness and reduced injury over time.
The assumption—that all young adults are supposed to be in great physical shape and that all older people are supposed to suffer aches/pains/ailments—is toxic to both younger and older age groups. It is toxic to younger age groups because it can make younger people feel like they are inferior and/or defective whenever they have a medical problem or bodily pain. In reality, many young people do highly demanding physical activities that can cause injury. When someone says that the young person is “too young to be in that kind of pain”, the implication is that the pain will only get worse as the young person gets older. Such a message is disempowering and is not necessarily aligned with reality.
This mindset can be quite toxic for older people because it gives them the often false message that any aches/pains/ailments they have are caused by something outside of their control, namely old age and genes. The implication is that there is nothing that they can do about it and they are doomed to suffer from their issues, which are only going to get worse, until they die. In reality, a major cause of these aches/pains/ailments is lifestyle factors. When you do things to your body that your body does not like, and you do it for a long time, eventually something happens. Many people will admit that their diet is not that healthy, and that they should be exercising more, but then when they get a diagnosable ailment, like migraines, they blame their genes and perhaps also their “old age”.
Why would people blame old age and genes for everything?
People who have this mindset—that all young people are supposed to be in great physical shape and all older people are supposed to suffer—do not have this mindset for the same reasons. Some people may have this mindset because of lies spread by the medical establishment. The medical establishment is corrupt (evidence not presented here) and only makes money by treating ailments. Alternatively, if an ailment is cured, then the patient no longer has the ailment, and therefore the patient is no longer a customer of the healthcare establishment. Because of the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry, medical doctors are taught very little about any treatments besides drugs. You may notice that whenever you or someone you know goes to a medical doctor, the medical doctor usually just prescribes a drug. Some people call this “a pill for every ill”.
If the medical establishment can convince us to blame all of our aches/pains/ailments on genes and old age, then we become disempowered and we go into a state of perpetual dependency over a problem that would otherwise be permanently solvable.
Another reason people blame old age and genes for everything is that they want to be relieved of the responsibility for taking care of themselves. They want to keep eating their favorite foods, and they do not want to have to do the work required to build and maintain good health. If they can convince themselves that their ailments and pains are caused by something outside of their control, then they can give themselves a free pass to eat whatever they want and do whatever they want without the guilt. The problem with these kinds of people is that they sometimes try to drag others down with them by giving them the same disempowering messages as what is spread by the healthcare establishment. They may say things like “just wait until you get to be my age, then you will know what pain is!”
Sometimes people blame old age and genes because of their personal experiences and observations. Maybe you and your friends used to be pretty healthy when you were younger, and now you all have aches, pains and ailments. Such observations can give the illusion that old age and genes are causing all of your problems. What needs to be considered is what you and your friends were doing to your bodies all of those years. While old age is not the only cause of aches/pains/ailments, it is a causative factor. A young body is more forgiving of bad habits than an older body.
My personal experiences
Based on my personal experiences, you do not have to be that young to be considered “too young to be in pain” and you do not have to be that old to be told to blame your physiological problems on old age. In other words, one week you can be told you are too young to be experiencing this, and the very next week you could be told you are “just getting old”.
One time I had pain in my legs that was so bad that I went to the emergency room. They found evidence of arthritis in the knees on the X-ray. “You are not 15 anymore” the ER doctor said. The thing is, I was only 25 years old at the time, and I was already being told that I am getting old. What I found out later was that dairy and wheat gluten are the two biggest dietary culprits in rheumatoid arthritis. I realized that I had recently been eating very large amounts of wheat gluten in the form of seitan, which is a meat substitute consisting of purified wheat gluten. After just a few days of minimizing wheat gluten intake, the pain went away. So much for getting old.
Also when I was 25 years old, I was hospitalized with severe colitis. As I was lying in the hospital bed, the nurse said “you are awfully young to be in here”. I explained to her that colitis is actually more common among young people. “I didn’t know that” she said. I wonder what else she doesn’t know.
Sometimes I get told by older women just wait until you are our age, then you will get all of these aches and pains. Now I don’t know what my body will be like at a certain age until I am that age, but the fact is that they don’t know what my body will be like in years to come either. Furthermore, these women who tell me this do little to no exercise, and do not eat nearly as much fruits and vegetables as I do. Their diets also consist of more meat, dairy and processed foods than my diet does. Yet they are making assumptions about my body based on their experiences in their bodies. In addition, some of the women who tell me this have not gone to college, let alone understand the science behind where aches, pains and ailments come from. They seem to be making the over-simplified assumption that everybody has the same experiences in old age as they do, regardless of environment and lifestyle.
Chronic disease: which side are you on?
When people are diagnosed with a chronic disease, they often think of their situation as a battle that they are trying to win. In my mind, to win against a chronic disease means to get rid of the chronic disease entirely so that it never comes back. Some people, however, just cope with the chronic disease. They take medications that just mask the symptoms, and do not address the underlying causes of the chronic disease. They get flare-ups from time to time, but may still congratulate themselves on their fighting spirit.
Unfortunately, the medical profession is corrupt, and tends to only supply drugs that mask the symptoms of chronic disease. If you want to address the underlying causes of the chronic disease and get rid of the disease entirely, you often have to venture outside of mainstream medicine.
Lots of times, people with chronic diseases such as diabetes are told that what they are experiencing is a normal part of aging. In other words, there is nothing they can do about it. They may be assured that they can live a “normal life”, but the doctors’ definition of a “normal life” is often questionable, and often includes chronic dependency on pharmaceutical drugs.
Evidence in the science literature (not presented here) shows that diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are curable with intensive lifestyle changes. In other words, there is something you can do about it. While some cases are more difficult to cure than others, blaming all of your health problems on old age is just wrong.
Some medical doctors may say that they have never seen a chronic disease be cured. What they do not understand is that chronic diseases are cured all the time, just not in their office. When a person’s chronic disease is cured, that person is not likely to go back to the medical doctor, especially if the medical doctor is not the one who helped them to cure their disease. Indeed, the only patients who return to the doctor’s office are the ones who still have the disease.
So does this mean we can prevent aches, pains and ailments entirely as we age? Probably not, but we can dramatically reduce the aches, pains and ailments by addressing the factors that we can control. Exactly to what extent can we prevent physical suffering as we age? I believe that the people who best know the answer to this question are the select few medical doctors who do aim to cure chronic disease and restore patients to good health. They are the ones who see the positive effects of healthy lifestyle in a sizable number of patients. The majority of medical doctors do not keep close tabs on the lifestyle of their patients, so they will not know to what extent these aches and pains with age are preventable.
Summary
Many people will admit that their lifestyle is not exactly a healthy one, yet when they get a disease diagnosis, they often blame their bad genes and/or old age. Common sense should tell you that if you do things to your body that it does not like throughout the course of your lifetime, then of course you will eventually get aches, pains and ailments. Yet culture tells people to blame all of their physical problems on “old age”. While old age is certainly a causative factor, it is only a factor, not the sole cause. Of course when given enough time, an unhealthy lifestyle will do damage. Younger people are just better off because their unhealthy lifestyles have not had enough time to do noticeable damage yet.