and ache becomes pain - literal & metaphorical

and ache becomes pain – literal & metaphorical

I wrote, quite recently, about the difficulty of defining / distinguishing an ache from a pain. This morning, sundry expressions of the former were, rather rapidly, transformed into examples of the latter.

Sudden onset nauseating aches in fingers, wrists, elbows, knees and armpits soon had me curling up on the sofa, upper arms clamped firmly to my side, fingers tightly intertwined and the heels of my hands clasped firmly together.

At the same time, the heels of my feet were drawn up close to the buttocks and, my forehead pressed onto my clasped hands; the initial ache was temporarily subdued by my adopting this unusual posture but, within a further ten minutes, the aches transmogrified into acute sharp searing pain which manipulated lacrimal, salivary and mucous glands into overdrive.

A sore grating feel to the throat, such as may signify the onset of a cold, provided a counterpoint to those other aches which by now had become a real pain!