I was at work the other day, chatting with the orthopaedic registrar about his plans for all the urgent cases he had on the acute board, when he started cracking his knuckles.
At my appalled expression, he said, rather defensively, that studies had never shown an association with earlier onset of arthritis in the fingers. I had to assure him that it wasn’t concern for his wellbeing that upset me, but rather that I didn’t like it on aesthetic grounds. It’s up there with fingers nails down a chalkboard for me. (Do any young people these days know what that sounds like? I remember having a conversation with the sadistic dental nurse in our school murder house, when she compared it, and the noise of the dental drill, to the sound of fingernails running down nylon stockings. Since our chat was just a ploy on my part to distract her from the work at hand i.e. filling every tooth I had, I agreed readily with her, even though I had no idea what she was talking about. It didn’t work anyway – she shouted at me to open wide and RELAX! Slapping me on the cheek, as usual. Ooh I’m triggering myself with these old memories…moving right along…)
My children also have a tendency to crack their knuckles, but there is no incidence of arthritis in my family, so I don’t try to stop them, but just wince quietly to myself. Yes, my family history is such that we never get age related disorders, by the simple expedient of dying early. Hooray for anti longevity genes!
Having said that, I’ve been horrified to find myself growing a Heberdens node over the last few months. It’s this thing:
Which looks like this on an xray:
It’s an osteophyte on the distal interphalangeal joint, and is undeniably a sign of arthritis and sadly, definitely age related. Luckily it’s painless or I’d be much more pissed off.