Comfortably Numb

I have felt it. I know that others have as well.

It is a strange sensation, a bit like a short, low voltage electric shock that is felt in arms, legs, knees and main muscle groups of people in my age group, that being the over 50's.

It is not altogether unpleasant. It passes quickly so that more often than not you do not notice it or not until a few moments later, a bit like a belly laugh for a joke that you heard a few weeks earlier and only just remembered.

After a certain age, however, you are best advised to heed any messages that are sent via the brain pain sensory system from limbs, appendages, joints, cartilage, main joints and organs. I have found it difficult to come to terms with ageing having been in a blessed state of health for my adult life that has meant that if I feel like going out for a bike ride, kicking a ball around the park, swimming or just setting off on a long, rambling trek I , as Nike marketing preaches, "Just Do It!".

Of course, my recovery time from any physical exertion is longer so that an energetic cycling route on a weekend demands the following 5 to 6 days for rest, whereas in my younger ,fitter years I did a few endurance rides in every seven day period.

So, back to this sensation, it turns out that it has been given a name, "Phantom Vibration Syndrome" or "PVS" for short.

The discovery, or rather, naming of this syndrome, if indeed it can be given that sort of medical/physiological/psychological label was made by a group of doctors in the United States. A reasonable proportion of the population appear to have experienced the symptoms but it has not been until recently that notes have been compared indicating the commonplace occurrence.

Sufferers, perhaps the wrong terminology for a sensation that is tingling and not unpleasant, take the same approach as I do, running through possible causes and concerns and then resort to taking their mobile phone out of their pocket or wherever it may be kept on their bodies.

In fact, the first response of many is, upon feeling the first vibration, to reach for their phone and check if someone has been calling, texting ,sending an e mail or an alert has been received.

Vibrations have also been felt when not carrying a phone but leading to that frantic patting down of clothing as though looking for such a bit of technology.

A particular group reporting PVS are medical staff. A hospital in Massachussets, USA recorded a whopping 70% of their staff having experienced phantom vibrations. This is not strictly relaible as a figure given that working practices amongst the subjects of the study involved the carrying of vibrating paging technology.

Further studies attribute PVS to the way people interact with their portable devices. We have, in our busy lives, become so accustomed to detecting a vibrating phone that our brains misread other slight physical signals as proof of a call.

I can understand the thought process when PVS is felt but do realise that the sensation is something to do with nervous energy and how it is transmitted through the cognitive pathways and complex neurological networks of the human brain.

It could however, on a more sinister level, just be my youth and vitality slipping away gradually but with a certain inevitability. Now, where did I put the Radox and Voltarol............