FITTER FOR LONGER…

Peter Hart calls on the knowledge of two eminent medical professionals to establish what the maturing ‘windy’ should be doing to deal with worn joints and decaying muscles.

- Peter Hart

If like any normal person, you read magazines backwards, you may have gleaned from the back page that I have a dodgy knee that has impaired, but happily not curtailed, my career as a professional water person. However, an arthritic condition, unlike the common cold, does not magically clear up, or like a fine wine, does not improve with age. So what to do?

One of the many annoying features of the digital world is the steady flow of often contradictory information. A bona fide scientific study becomes a press release, becomes a headline and then a news alert, shedding context and accuracy at each stage. And the more we hear, the more justified we feel in ignoring them, be it the effects of alcohol, fat in your diet, or in my case a, a medical issue for which there is no known cure.

It was the author A.A. Milne (‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ creator) who famously wrote ‘never underestimate the value of doing nothing,’ and such has been my approach to it for the past 15 years. I would like to say it’s been a carefully devised medical strategy. In truth I’ve put off a visit to the doc, partly because I’m confused, but mainly for fear of what he or she might say – for example that I’ve been an idiot to leave it so long, that the rest of my skeleton is wrecked in its effort to compensate and/ or it’s too late to do anything now.

What I craved is direct, solid, well researched information from the mouth of a qualified horse with no book or product to sell – and that’s exactly what I found on a beach in Spain.

DOCTORS AT WORK