Did you do things in your youth that now your senior body is paying the price? Hindsight is so much clearer.... Maybe you pushed yourself to lift heavy items just because you could. Did without adequate sleep. Too many diets. Wrong daily diet. Too much exercise. So many things come to mind...
That is for sure ! Mostly, I lived a pretty good life health wise, and was an outdoors person, and very active. However, I was in several bad car accidents, plus horse riding accidents, and my body feels the effects from that in a lot of ways. I think that when I was in the Yugo accident is when I damaged my heart, because it was after that when I started having the a-fib episodes, which gradually got worse and worse over the years until I finally was in continuous afib and had congestive heart failure/ of course, that didn’t help the rest of my body, so I now also have the other heart problems, plus the kidney failure. Due to that, I am now weak physically, so I have been unable to exercise like I want to do, and have now lost a great deal of my muscle tone. Just the swimming days wears me out so much that it takes me a whole day afterwards to recuperate from an hour of swimming. However, I would be even worse if I didn’t at least try to swim and exercise, so I am still doing as much as I can to at least maintain my health as possible.
Yes. Oddly enough my physical ailments come almost exclusively from doing something thoughtless. Yes, I had a broken bone, a few torn tendons and sprains from martial arts, but those healed nicely. However, the stupid things, leaning over and lifting an exhibit case from the back of a closet, moving too large rocks in my back yard, those repeated type injuries to my back accumulated into the mess I have to live with today.
Not really; I just did "normal" stuff. I tend to be cautious and also have been lucky, up until 2021 when my luck ran out. I am still fairly active, have good balance, no pains to speak of, etc.
I think most of us suffer from things done at a younger age when we felt invincible. Bad diets, taking risks, etc. I was in pretty good shape until I fell off the roof and broke my back. Things went downhill from there.
I used to do a lot of bike riding, and I played a lot of racquetball. I think I might be benefiting from all the cardiovascular exercise I had at that stage of my life. But I did trash my knee by hotdogging it on a 3 day weekend bike ride over the hills of Amish country in Pennsylvania. My hamstrings have always been short, and there's scar tissue that makes my right leg even tighter. Even the chiropractor for UVA athletics could not help. So I suffer the tightness and kinks one gets from not being able to stretch. Any other damage is purely emotional.
On my life, all the damage was done from doing FUN STUFF and then in 2010 one bad hip replacement, talk about damge done to my body. The FUN STUFF was primarily dancing, and started doing that at 12 doing tap dancing and then older discoed thru a lot of years probably into later 50's.... Food wise, I am sorry I didn't know more about consuming more and more fiber foods... and ate less sugar foods...
Yep! I worked way to hard putting excessive wear and tear on my back and neck. I tell young women that work on jobs requiring heavy lifting to be aware that while they can do it, their estrogen muscles are more elastic than the males and they can put a lot more wear on their disc doing the same job. Work smart and avoid too much brute force. Also spending time windsurfing and playing beach volleyball in bikinis has me going to the skin docs regularly.
I learned early on that standing around and looking helpless was a lot easier than heavy lifting. I guess that is "working smart." And I forgot about all the sun damage from slathering with baby oil and "laying out" all during my teens and college years. I did love a good tan, and I still love the sunshine on my face.
Standing around looking helpless didn't work when I was in the mountains living by myself. When Zek was next door, I had several unexplained attacks of helplessness hahaha!
I have seen that many female firefighters suffer terrible consequences of performing that job. I am sure some in the military may also suffer similar issues.
I too started sunworshipping while living in East and heading for Jersey shores for vacations, then end up living in a beach city here in CA, my skin is good, must be the Italian olive oil in my Italian genes....Probably saw a skin doc 3 times in my life...
Oh yes for sure my Senior body is paying a price somewhat, mostly though I will say from strains, sprains, of cervical spine, hardships on my lower back, knees in younger years through my 50's. Gosh why was I not more careful with avoiding those type injuries, some to do with my work as a nursing assistant, not always anticipating the proper use of my body mechanics so to say. Now the residual of all that coupled with my Osteoporosis, and several falls or tripping over something the past ten years, and my hips are ailing. I get occasional corticosteroid injections which truly are helping. Well anyway, and my sunbathing years, some sunburns that aged my skin, looking back, why the need for all that sun, I don't need it now, or even desire it much, too hot temps actually make me feel ill, I like sun with some shade actually. I do alright for my Senior age now, but sure has not been without some medical health struggles, ongoing to present. I've always been semi active over my years, and now due to some things a bit slowed down, but still getting around well and put importance on my keeping in motion. I walk daily, not a lot but some, hit the gym now and then, I go in cycles with that.
I was aware of this stuff, and for a single guy I always ate well because I like to cook (minimal fast or junk foods), and I even went meatless for 6 months when I was initially diagnosed with high cholesterol (my numbers dropped real low.) But at some point there's a balance. If I wanted a life of deprivation (I did spell that right, didn't I?) I would have joined a monastery. It's all about the middle ground.
Too low cholesterol NOT GOOD, I think so many cases of dementia more than ever is due to too low cholesterol, thanks to docs and their statin push.....Our body and BRAIN needs good Oils., A smart doc started checking my homocystein years back, it was elevated and I've worked on that one with several supplements...