How did I get here?? (Thread for ILXors in their 60s and beyond)

For a couple years, I've been dealing with knee and foot pain, super annoying, enough to wake me up at night, tough to walk etc. I chalked it up to arthritis and being old and treated it with ice and Advil. This past spring though, it hit a new level of intensity in my right knee and I bought a shiny purple cane and upped the Advil to the max. I worried about overdoing the ibuprofen and switched to topical Voltaren - which completely worked after 5 days. But you're only supposed to use it for 21 days. So I stopped for a couple weeks then started it again - got a rash, but kept using it. The rash intensified into nonstop itching and blisters and I finally went to the doctor.

And - it's not arthritis. It's a hamstring thing and a couple months of physical therapy exercises sorted most of it out. Will I learn the lesson of not self-diagnosing? Time will tell.

It's too often the way, you anticipate a diagnosis of "well, what did you expect? You're doing pretty well otherwise..."

Convo with a much younger coworker (25ish) yesterday, commiserating about families that constantly tell "amusing" anecdotes from our past:

Me: you'd think they'd stop, I'm nearly 64, it's been fifty years!

CW: ugh seriously

Me: my mom doesn't have enough memory left but everybody else keeps it going

CW: whoa your mom is still alive!?!

Me: (feeling extra old) ... She's in her 80s, yeah

the thread of ATRIAL FIBBING
i have something in my eye (= posterior vitreous detachment, not getting worse but not getting better)
tinnitus (my hearing aid counteracts it somewhat)
help me find my asthma inhaler

also i have (so-far manageable) prostatitis and an itchy bruise-like patch on my right shin which is varicose-related

adding: Arthritis Commiseration Thread (my hands ache a lot and i need to talk to to a doctor abt it)

I'm asking the mods to change this thread title to "60s and beyond" b/c what are the next decades really but late 60s and even later 60s?

Hugs to you mark s - I'm debating getting a T-shirt made that says "This body is a traitor." But that seems unkind.

"60s and beyond" is fine by me. It was going to be lonesome in a 70s thread, at least for a half year or so.

I had a blemish behind my left ear a few days ago and convinced myself it was an incipient tumour. Some variation on that happens every couple of weeks.

Yes, I had one and my wife convinced me to go get it seen. The morning of the appt, I brushed it with a finger and it fell off.

(I had other things to discuss)

thank you jaq! if i'm honest i feel -- despite that list of links -- both healthy and happy at the moment: none of my ailments are currently unmanageable

PVD at my end too. Flashers/floaters for four weeks now. The printed diagnosis I was given began with three words I think i am going to see quite a bit of in the coming years: "As we age,..."