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Does It Matter if You Die at 87 or at 88?
Odd question, isn’t it?
My wife and I were talking about Tramadol, an opioid she takes for arthritis and nerve pain. For the past few months, she has been trying to taper her pills from three a day to two, starting with taking three only every other day and then cutting that to every third day.
She was doing this because a side effect of Tramadol is constipation. The constipation can be countered with Miralax but Miralax has its own side effects which manifest as stomach cramping for my beleaguered wife.
There is no good answer for any of this. Tramadol also has other side effects, including dizziness that can be quite hazardous for an older person.
We decided that the tapering off is not working. Her pain level increases on the days where she skips that third pill.
The actuarial life expectancy for a 78 year old woman living in the United States is about 10 years. I asked an odd question.
“Does it matter if you die at 87 or at 88?”
Another way to ask that is whether you’d rather live in more pain for ten more years or have less for nine?
Of course it will matter when you are 86, unless you are severely depressed or in true physical agony. Most…
