The Medicine of Discomfort

Often, periods of growth mean, by necessity, periods of discomfort. It is not comfortable for our bones to grow in adolescence, so we have a word for this particular sensation—growing pains. It is not comfortable for hermit crabs to expose their softer parts as they exchange shells, it is not comfortable for invertebrates to molt their exoskeletons, it is not comfortable for snakes to move through the shed process.