There was a

word that Gary and I were searching for.  It was on the tips of our tongues, but it just wouldn't come.

We were talking about teeth that bother us.  His new filling is still bothering him.  I have a cracked tooth, under a veneer, that is always tender.  I was talking about how, before I knew the reason why my tooth hurt, I was constantly biting down on it, pushing on it, and wiggling it to figure out where the veneer fit wrong..  Finally a dentist found that there was a crack in the tooth underneath.   He said that I should "baby it," bite down on it as little as possible, and that when I couldn't stand it anymore that I would need to get an implant.  

So, that is a long explanation for why we were trying to think of a word.  What is a word that means "making it worse?"  Bothering?  Hurting?  Irritating?  Close, but not quite.  There was a word, that we would know when we heard it, but we couldn't think of it.

 So when we got home,  I googled "irritated and to make worse."  There it was:  AGGRAVATE.  We both said, "Yes, that's the word."   I was aggravating the situation by constantly playing with my tooth.  

Unfortunately, we are having more and more of those type of conversations now days.