Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

It's ok, I voted memory problems for you.

I turn 45 in a couple days. I got bifocals last year, and my back still hurts a month after going to the indoor trampoline park with my 4 year old and his friend and friend's dad. I kind of knew I'd be sore the next day but didn't expect it to be so severe.

I also went to the doctor for a big checkin and found out that I have both high liver enzymes and sleep apnea. The good news is that the former is quite often caused by the latter. I've had an at-home and overnight sleep study done and last night was the first that I spent using my new cpap machine.

I also bought beano yesterday so I could eat falafel and hummus for lunch without dying and killing everyone around me.

The increasing latency between mind and body.

I also bought beano yesterday so I could eat falafel and hummus for lunch without dying and killing everyone around me.

because ...you don't think it's funny? and usually read funnier comics at lunch?

i stopped midstep at a fellas desk today to discuss something with him and tweaked my MCL

ach, you athletes are always lording it, with your MCLs and whatnot. Whyn't you have ordinary muscles like the rest of god's creation?

Agree vehemently with the posters that commented on the loss of childlike enthusiasm/excitement being worse than any physical diminishment. I'm now to the point where my metabolism is definitely crashing, and my joints hurt on the regular, and my hair is long gone, except where I would rather not have hair, and yet all I want to be able to do is to attend a haunted hayride with the same level of thrill I had about it at age 13.

My tip for regaining it: learn a new skill. Be a beginner at something — anything that requires practice — the zing of being able to learn is wrapped up in that enthusiasm for me at least.

Id like to add “losing my balance” to worst things about being old. I’d love to feel super steady & nimble on my feet like I used to but every winter I live in fear of tripping, falling, and breaking myself.

Given that I lost my childlike enthusiasm/excitement when I was about 9, I'm having trouble relating.

I hate not being able to do more than ten minutes on the treadmill. Also having to spend a hundred dollars a month on face cream.

Here's something they don't tell you in the brochure: when you stab yourself, cutting the cheese, it takes a day and a half to start bleeding and another day and a half to stop.

What I've learnt is when I slip and fall in the mud in the dark and initially think: thank goodness nothing broken or sprained - I just look like a fool. But it takes three days for the pain to arrive these days, where I've pulled something in my side and now every time I even slightly strain my torso or even sneeze it hurts a lot.

Posterior vitreous detachment in both eyes now.

waking up at night to pee

― cum dude (Princess TamTam), Tuesday, May 10, 2011 10:48 AM

My biggest complaint atm. Last night was the first night in months that I made it through without having to get up.

Enjoy it while you can.

I have to get up in the night a couple of times usually, but it scarcely bothers me - unless I’m staying somewhere like a cheap hotel with a bathroom down the corridor.

I don’t fear dying, but I do fear marking as “so not gonna happen” to more and more things in my to-do list.

enjoying the randomness of how one body part will, for no good reason, hurt for a few days. then it goes away and some other body part takes its turn

Knowing the names of the last four UN secretaries- general but not the current one

I hurt my knee riding a bicycle on Friday! Didn't fucking do anything awkward or any cool tricks or anything. Was just riding and suddenly as I was pedaling downward there was pain.

Hangovers.

I only drink on rare occasions now, but inadvertently got wrecked at an xmas party last month and the hangover lasted for days.

I find I keep gagging on stuff - be it water, tea or my own saliva. Even my throat can't be arsed any more.

I definitely get things down the wrong pipe more. Vaguely concerned I am on the road to full out dysphagia. I should put in my advance directive that I would rather die from choking or inhalation pneumonia rather than go to pureed diet.

I’ve always had the wrong pipe problem, since I was a kid. I hasn’t harmed me so I’m not too worried.

Walked 12,000 steps for three days in a row in Boston last week in either Red Wing boots or Chuck Taylors and ... I am still paying for it big time. My lower back has never felt this ridiculously like a crypt-ready set of mismatched, ill-aligned bones. Bent over yesterday to put the leash on the dog and flat out ruined my back for hours and hours. Radiated pain felt like I'd been kneed in the groin.

And yet, the acute pain was for hours and hours, not days and days or years and years. So I guess it's not that bad just yet.

When I see this thread title I can't ward off "The best part of wakin up.... is Folger's in your cup!"

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand)

^^^ same for over 8 years now

I'm so old, I remember those old ads.

That was back before they were doing the incest ones.

The worst part of getting old is that there's so much more incest in advertising.

my left knee was throbbing during most of Little Women last night. I am going to have to start dropping some theaters based on what their seats/legroom inflict on me.

xp

Marry Yo’ Brothers?

apparently when you reach a certain age you start insisting on speakerphone; fortunately i'm not there yet

When I see this thread title I can't ward off "The best part of wakin up.... is Folger's in your cup!"

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand)

^^^ same for over 8 years now

― buzza, Monday, January 20, 2020 3:47 AM (seventeen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't remember ever seeing this thread but it just happened to me now

I find it exhausting feeling panicked over every little thing I notice health-wise. I think I've diagnosed myself with some calamitous malady about 30 times the past year. Typical: this morning I noticed some redness on my left foot. No big deal, but when it was still there when I got back from a movie a few hours later, the first thing I thought of was diabetes, and that I was headed for amputation. (Not having any idea what a diabetic foot actually looks like, but remembering that many years ago a doctor told me I was at risk for diabetes.) Two after hours that, the redness was of course gone. This panic is routine for me, and knowing how irrational it is doesn't help.

boring answer but stiff, aching joints. i walk like i'm 90 yrs old for the first 10 minutes of the day

cosign

Walked 12,000 steps for three days in a row in Boston last week in either Red Wing boots or Chuck Taylors

while one "should" be walking 7000 steps a day or more, doing it barefoot is much more healthy than doing it in Converse. (idk what Red Wing boots are like)

People need to lay off on Converse sneakers on these boards! Perfectly good shoes until oh wait what thread is this

Anyway the correct answer to this thread is outliving your loved ones. The rest is narcissism

I find it exhausting feeling panicked over every little thing I notice health-wise. I think I've diagnosed myself with some calamitous malady about 30 times the past year. Typical: this morning I noticed some redness on my left foot. No big deal, but when it was still there when I got back from a movie a few hours later, the first thing I thought of was diabetes, and that I was headed for amputation. (Not having any idea what a diabetic foot actually looks like, but remembering that many years ago a doctor told me I was at risk for diabetes.) Two after hours that, the redness was of course gone. This panic is routine for me, and knowing how irrational it is doesn't help.

― clemenza, Thursday, January 23, 2020 10:51 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this has been my entire year so far; the age component is primarily that a) you no longer get to reassure yourself with "it's probably nothing; this isn't generally a concern for people yet at your age," and b) your parents are growing older too, so it might happen that they experience the same symptoms and then for them it turns out to be congestive heart failure (not the advanced kind, thank god)

Yes! I keep getting mystery ailments that last just long enough to convince me that I'm really dying this time before they disappear just as mysteriously. I spend way too much time convinced that I definitely have a deadly disease.

We’ve had about three (very minor and false) cancer scares in the last year. But cancer is v close to us.

I've been taking out of date Co-dydramols to deal with pain from a nasty fall outside last week. The kind of minor accident I'd have forgotten about in days in my 20's/30's but now the pain lingers on for a week. That sense that even seemingly minor accidents can be life-changing events in an ageing fucked up body is what I'm feeling today. And still every time I need to sneeze I have to brace myself for a sharp pain down the side of my torso.

while one "should" be walking 7000 steps a day or more, doing it barefoot is much more healthy than doing it in Converse. (idk what Red Wing boots are like)

― don't care didn't ask still clappin (sic)

Barefoot only if you're walking on sand or grass. Concrete not so much.

I'm at the age now where my among my friends everyone who is going to get married probably has, everyone who wants kids does or has moved on, and the first round "we made a mistake" divorces have happened. Friend's kids graduating / marrying / having kids is still to come, along with some number of "we've grown apart and the kids are grown" divorces.

But right now seems to be the "friends get cancer and die" stage and it fucking sucks. A former colleague's husband died in December, a very close friend's wife died last night, and former colleague of my wife is starting hospice this week. I kind of knew this was inevitable but the randomness of fate and mortality is just sad and awful.

When I celebrated my 50th birthday I told people that, realistically speaking, I was now in 'the death zone', where age-related mortality rates begin to rise. It seemed important to acknowledge that. It still does, now that I am mid-60s.

50 years ago today pic.twitter.com/FrRIjUXQrF

— Geezer Butler (@geezerbutler) February 13, 2020

"Geezer" indeed

Forever young in the UK tho.

think i'm about to receive my first invitation to a friend's child's wedding