A Grumpy Old King? Or was it ‘Irritable Male Syndrome’?
You’ve probably heard the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, to which we may now add the real-life example of the petulant prince and the pen.
Ok, he was actually King Charles when he threw a wobbly after being presented with a leaky fountain pen for his royal signature in a Belfast visitor’s book.
But was his exasperation, “I can’t bear this bloody thing”, an example, as some critics put it, of being a ‘grumpy old man’? Or was it a more profound and even more widespread condition?
The armchair clinicians suggested the King and, by association, millions of more mature men may be victims of ‘irritable male syndrome.’
And IMS, also known as ‘male menopause’, is a controversial condition caused by the hormonal decline of testosterone in men in their later years.
Read below to see some more of the scientific debate around the validity of this diagnosis, which is said not just to make older men more cranky but also to provoke other symptoms.
There’s no debate that from the age of 30, testosterone levels in males decline maybe by up to 50% from their peak when you reach 70.
The so-called male menopause can cause physical, emotional and cognitive changes. There are four core symptoms: hyper-sensitivity, anxiety, anger and frustration.
“Men with low testosterone find that their emotional reserves are lower,” says Dr Abraham Morgentaler founder and director of Men’s Health Boston medical clinic on the WebMD site.
“They have a shorter fuse. In popular culture, people link male anger with high testosterone, but as a rule we see it more in men with low testosterone -- most commonly when levels are dropping. That’s when men get cranky.”
If it’s all true, you can see how the grumpy old man label originates. However, there’s little funny about the damage to relationships and lifestyles caused by the condition.
If you think there’s a medical issue, you can be tested for testosterone levels, and as with the female menopause, hormone replacement therapy is available. Living a healthier lifestyle and counselling is also suggested.
But not all medics agree. “It’s nonsense,” says Dr Bradley Anawalt, chief of medicine at the University of Washington, also on WebMD. “Older men are irritable -- it’s almost never due to testosterone.”
I’m not suggesting that all older men expressing irritation, be they prince or pauper, might suffer from hormonal deficiency, but some may find this syndrome worth exploring.
The Princess and the Pea is an immortal Hans Christian Anderson story of how only a genuine princess could feel the tiny legume beneath so much bedding.
But there are more and deeper interpretations of what his tale really means. Likewise, the Petulant King and the Pen. Beneath the leaky pen incident may lurk another story.
Do you suspect Irritable Male Syndrome in yourself or a loved one? I’m not sure, but after reading this blog, my wife might have her own ideas.
