Loss Of Bodily Strength (mine)

@Bill Boggs
Do you have dizziness, as I do? Ladder climbing has become pretty difficult. Also, changes in posture a a real problem. Midday today, I pulled all 4 wheels off our truck to attempt to find the source of an unusual brake-related loud clunk upon applying brakes only when barely moving. This involved squatting down, often on hands and knees, and rising up. Between the pain this has caused and the come-and-go dizziness, I am realizing just how badly "out of shape" I've become.
Frank

 

I know aging does create its problems, and various health risks do increase, but I wonder if sometimes other people's expectations play a part in it?
The subject kinda reminds me of an experience I had a couple of years before I found my current job: I was in between jobs, desperate for income, and jumped at the chance when a person I knew said his boss needed more people for labor jobs; everything was going fine and dandy til the boss happened to ask "How old are you?" and when I told him I was almost 47, he looked shocked and exclaimed "I never would have hired you if I knew you were that old!" Maybe he thought I'd drop dead on the roof or ladder or something, but it was the only time I ever experienced anyone thinking age is relevant to doing a job.

 

@Janice Martin ...."he looked shocked and exclaimed "I never would have hired you if I knew you were that old!"

What a discriminatory and disgusting demeanor! This sort of revelation always rankles me. What difference would age make, or does it EVER make, so long as the job duties expected are performed acceptably? Or, had he had other, maybe perverse thoughts in mind?

Your post compelled me to look at your profile, but there I learned little. Evidently you are still working, not retired. Once you do, things will change dramatically, I assure you! The single BEST thing I ever did was to retire, though I did it 3 times before finally calling it "QUITS".
Frank

 

@Bill Boggs If you can admit these things are bothering you to us, then you should be able to admit them to your Doctor too.

Most of the men I've known in my life including my Honey and my brothers don't like to admit to things that are bothering them...they see this as a "weakness" in stead of a "strength". But if something is affecting your life and you can't fix it, then it's time to let someone else help you. As we age we definitely will have things go wrong that we can't fix by ourselves and ignoring those things or not getting help when we notice there is something not quite right...usually only leads to things getting worse instead of better. I hope you will see your Doctor and let him know what is going on with you, it just may be something that your Doctor can help you with.

I do notice that I am more forgetful lately and my sense of direction has never been the greatest. With my Medicare Advantage Plan I picked a new Doctor for my Primary Physician and her Office is close to our home. I printed off the directions to her Office for my first visit but only the way there and not back, basically there are only two turns to her Office so it should have been real simple to get back home too. But for my last 4 visits everytime I headed home I went the wrong way and had to stop at a convenience store and ask how to get back on the highway I was supposed to be on. There is a round about on one of my turns to and from her Office and the round about lets you take 4 different streets when you are going around it and I was gettng confused which street I was supposed to take to go home. So I made myself notice exactly what landmarks was on that street when I first get on it and if I don't see those landmarks than I know I am on the wrong road. My last two Doctor visits I made it there and back just fine but I still had to make sure I saw the landmarks on the way back.

Getting old is not for "sissies" for sure, we are going to have many changes in every area of our lives and we can either face them with courage and do what we can about these things and that includes getting help when we need it...or we can just ignore and pretend everything is okay until it gets so bad that we can't ignore or pretend anymore. I can tell you @Bill Boggs that if I go into a strange store, especially at the Mall, I lose my sense of direction in those stores. Until I am familiar with a place I can and have gone into that place following one path and often find myself on a completely different path going out of it. And when I don't recognize anything that I saw when I came in...I feel some "anxiety" for a minute or two. And then I calm down and find my way out...because there is only one way in and one way out and even if I have to "roam" around a little before I find the way out...I always do.

I've never been one to not have some "anxiety" when faced with what is unfamiliar to me...and as I've gotten older this has not changed and I've noticed I need more time than I used to need to "adjust"...but that's okay. I'm still me and I'm still going to walk down unfamiliar paths so I can see what is at the end of it. And no matter how long it takes me I am still going to find my way "home" again.

 

About 20 years ago I started having a little thing called "anxiety attacks" to such a degree that focusing on simply putting a glass down on the table was almost impossible without getting the shakes coupled extreme blood pressure spikes. Another example is that I absolutely love heights and could walk a thirty story beam without any thought to it but suddenly I couldn't climb a 3 foot ladder without doubting myself with the same shakes, pressure spikes and disorientation.

Granted, as we age we do get a little more concerned about the possibility of hurting ourselves or disorientation. But, what a lot of folks do not understand is that those concerns, if mentally amplified, will bring on even greater episodes of anxiety which then gets passed down the pike with even more things going wrong.
The crazy thing is that at that level of stress there's a lot of health risks such as digestive and heart problems, dizziness, blackouts and a miriad of other things that can go wrong that even the doctors can misdiagnose.

With me, I got some good "therapy" going and actually started to find out where the anxiety was coming from but even more important than that I learned how to breathe through the episodes.
I do not like giving advice, for to me if the advice is bad, the person giving it never has to suffer the consequences. That said, I would like to recommend you do some research into Bio-Feedback. You might negate the study for it is primarily for those people who suffer from chronic pain especially focusing on back problems. The truth is that the system is good for anyone who just wants to learn more about themselves and what we, as humans, can truly accomplish. It's about learning how to control those things concerning our bodies and parts of our brains that we heretofore thought was impossible.

My prayers are with ya Bill.............God Bless........

 

Thanks for that advise, Bobby Cole. I'll look into it.

 

No Frank, I have no dizziness, just terribly unsteady and fearful.

 

Thanks Babs Hunt for sharing your wisdom and logic. I suppose I could tell my doctor. After all we have talked of more private things. But there has always been a stigma in certain quarters for men with mental or phychological problems. In the military it was career ending so there is always a reluctice to admit to any weakness. Not a big deal I'm sure, just something that happens. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. Sometime I guess I get carried away with the sound of my own voice. Cheers to you, Rajun Cajun.

 

I'm sorry @Bill Boggs. Is this your way of telling me you see Doctors at the VA Hospital? If so I can definitely understand how they may take what you confide in them as being a side effect from your service time. Many of these Doctors may not be able to think outside the box as they have been trained to stay in it.
But Blll if you know something isn't right with you..get help if you need it outside of the system.

 

"Getting old is not for sissies" presents a rather moot statement, IMO. Many who have gotten "old" have traversed life's indecisiveness with a cunning, well-controlled understanding of just exactly what will be expected of them, and what they may expect to experience, in "old age". Some, like me, for example, never expected to "get old"; for that reason, I am not yet, in my own mind "old", even though evidence of it presents daily: the aches, pains, after a bit of yesterday's exertion, the labored breathing after climbing a mere 4 flights of stairs in the parking garage. These simple everyday efforts make the changes clear, no matter how much I wish to deny them.

I DO know that debilitation in old age is highly variant. One old coot explained he was 80, after climbing up about 100 feet of trail from the street level below our condo complex, to it's buildings, which were perched up on a hill. I found his stamina to be incredible.

Every day, I tell myself I will commit to exercise regimen to "get it back", but lately the will needed to accomplish that seems elusive.
Frank

 

At our age, we all need to have some type of exercise. It sure isn't like those "good old younger years" when we got plenty of exercise. Sitting around watching tv too long/much, sitting/relaxing reading a book too long can really stiffen up the old muscles. This is one reason we bought our Wii Game. We read how the game was put into Senior Centers for exercise. Some seniors don't like doing those normal exercises, so that's where the Wii Game came in. It's fun and competitive. One 75 year old lady said "if it wasn't for the Wii Game, I'd still have my a** glued to a chair". We don't play it as much as when we first bought it, but when we do play, it definitely gives us the exercise.

There is one thing that we use to do, but haven't done since we left Colorado.........dance. My wife use to be really good at Line Dancing and both of us could do a nice, and sometimes fast, 2-Step. We use to Square Dance as well. Don't really know if my hip (hip replacement) could handle dancing anymore or not, but if we move back to Colorado, we'll try it.

 

I really missed gardening last year, but I thought I was going to sell this cabin, and the realtor didn't want me to clutter the yard with my raised beds. He wanted people to be able to imaging whatever they might be able to do with the place.

But now that my grandson, Bobert, has decided he wants to live with me, I'm looking forward to starting some seedlings next month. I find gardening is the best exercise for me. I can loose time so easily while gardening. Best of all it doesn't feel like exercising.

 

No, saying nothing about VA doctors or civilian doctors. Guys time is the great healer.

 

@Yvonne Smith
No idea how I missed your postb here, but ,must say I heartily congradulate you r]for such pserv secderamnnce. It takex more than many of oius can u,mjuster upo. franmlk