This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Our cohort is few, but mighty.

abbott being a sexy cold war scientist

OH MY GOD WHY WAS I NEVER THAT

I remember Howdy Doody.

and i thought i was old for remembering leaded gasoline!

madonna, michael jackson, prince and ME -- i am now 50 and 1/2.

sept 1968 was like the gayest time to enter high school

everyone cool in those days were entering college

there is truth lurking here -- people in our sub-generation have a complicated relationship w/our older sibs, the 60s baby boomers. this usage of "gay" is uhm, anachronisitic, or something. (I entered HS in 72 FWIW.)

anachronistic! edgy, you mean!!1!

so is bimble part of this exclusive club?

I didn't expect to get shoulder and back hair this late in the game.

ha was wondering what you meant in the 40s thread

what's up y'all

had a cardiologist call me at 7am to cancel my appointment (snow)

this morning the dentist said that my teeth with metal fillings will all eventually need crowns; seems legit, the youngest of those fillings is 40+ years old

i went to the dentist for lots of work this past year, first time since forever, and it was all space aged nano whatever shit and i think the dentist and his assistant were legit smirking at my one old iron ore filling from when i was a teenager, fifty years ago, in an eastern bloc nation

oh hi, I'm 54 now

peeing takes a long time

backache is a thing

(knocks on wood)

As hinted above, I have a cardiologist now! My primary doctor, who has pretty amazing raw skills -- like hearing -- apparently, thought he heard a murmur in my heartbeat last month. GREAT!

It turns out I have an "unconcerning" prolapse which is a "2" (not a 3 or a 4), so it just has to be checked every year from now on.

Aging is a motherfucker.

all the best morbs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmur_(album)#/media/File:R.E.M._-_Murmur.jpg

i am two years older than william hartnell in this picture :D

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p01hg14p.jpg

(obviously i have regenerated several times: also did not grow up in poverty etc)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

what a feelin'

mainly feeling it in my lower back today

Rapidly approaching Sammy Hagar milestone.

Minutemen?

Can you hear me, Dr. Mu

Imagine my surprise

Just realized that the “ordinary guy” in Pavement’s “Stereo” is maybe a reference to “Dr. Wu.” I still got it!

Oh wait

I just went through all the tests you are supposed to do when you get to 50, only 7 years late.

Anyway, all passed 100%, so hey!

I guess that lower back pain is gonna go in the "what do you expect at yr age?" cart.

Thanks for reminding me. I just did the same with one test, the biggest of all, remaining to be done in the next few months. If the news is bad I will speed post my remaining backlog of screennames.

I was Big C diagnosed about five months after turning 50, so maybe i didn't get the other tests.

(i'm mostly OK now, just medicated)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

― calzino

for two months and then he got sacked. quintessential "being in your '50s" experience tbh

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

HI DERE. Raise your hand if you have been rendered depressed, rudderless, and without direction because you've structured your life around a eight-hour, salaryman working schedule for so long that when you were inevitably disrupted out of your career you've become addicted to the anxiety and panic of not being able to focus. oops TMI

raises hand

in my case it took several years to work through the trauma of being ejected and to figure out other ways to live ... I won't trivialize the difficulties involved, but now the only thing I miss from my salaryman days is the income

i need the med coverage

As mentioned on the other thread, in January I was made redundant 7 days before I hit 50.
my skills are probably no longer in demand (manual software tester) due to an increased focus on automated testing, and to be honest, I think I have had enough of software/corporate culture.
The last few months I have been a stay at home dad, and will probably remain so while mk2 goes through his teenage trials and tribulations (3 more years).
The very idea of being the Office New Boy at the age of 50 fills me with dread, and I know it would bring on a lot of stress and anxiety.
I am in a 'fortunate' position in that due to life insurance, I have no mortgage and get a small occupational pension from BH so will not be made homeless or starve, but coming to terms with a very different financial outlook is still the big stumbling block.
That and daytime TV.
Thank goodness for 'Walter Presents .. '.

In other news : re lower back pain.
Having sat on my arse in an office for 30 years the last 2 years were very problematic re my back.
My solution : swimming.
I have started swimming 4 times a week (roughly 1km each time), and the change has been very noticeable.

Slightly overlapping with what I said on the Forties thread, but I was made redundant at 51, also due to having skills which are no longer in demand. My partner has always earned a lot more than me, so we were OK - but then he was made redundant last year, at 58. Thankfully his skills are still in demand, but he refuses to re-dose himself with the poison of corporate culture - so it's taking a while to sort things out, and we are having to be careful with money, for the first time since our twenties.

I cover my monthly outgoings with DJ-ing (a weekly gig and a monthly gig) and Discogs selling (I inherited a rare and valuable collection, and am being ruthless with my own). We also have a lodger, for the first time in nearly thirty years - a good friend, also in his fifties, going through a divorce and coming to terms with being on the gay side of bi. He hates his job and wants to change back to his old career, but it would involve a precarious salary drop, at least to begin with, which isn't great timing when you're getting divorced.

Despite this difficulties, my net life satisfaction level is still hugely in credit. I feel busy, fulfilled, and grateful for all I've got. But I can't deny the presence of a persistent low-level background hum, which says "You are uniquely unemployable. Everyone else can get jobs, but you haven't got what it takes." It's bullshit, but it's there.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread. Here's to getting Saga Holiday ads and people ringing me to ask if I want to cash in my pension and/or release some equity from my home and to being told I can't increase my life insurance because YOU R 2 OLD.

Also I just put up a desk, not too shabby eh? I'll be paying for it tomorrow mind.

it doesn't start getting real until you can't remember your 40s

xp Incidentally my pension is not worth the paper it's printed on so who's laughing now Mr Random Cold Caller?

it gets really real when your pathetic gig income and Obamacare fast-track you to bankruptcy

what a feelin'

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 2, 2018 8:55 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right in my knees.

oh hi, I'm 54 now
peeing takes a long time

― WilliamC, Thursday, January 4, 2018 12:24 PM

Seven weeks shy of 56, but I found the secret: constant impotent rage keeps me young.

momus is almost 50

He’ll be 60 in February.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread.

They're just coming to grips with their ultimate mortality, poor dears. Be kind to them.

I’m 55 and having a pretty good time.

I seem to have rediscovered my mojo this year: got serious about my job, holidayed in Japan, rekindled my interests in art and photography, good clothes (lost 40lb weight which helped), and the joy of short breaks by Eurostar.

That's truly horrible Trayce, I've had a lot of that and I feel your pain.
For what it's worth, osteopaths are not a medical or allied health profession, nor are chiropractors - they just learn a doctrine/craft which lacks a decent evidence base for thinking it'll work. More belief based than anything.
Ten years back I had some nasty back stuff including MRI scans which indicated I needed surgery urgently, but I was unwilling to do that. Spent 8 years in intermittent pain and dysfunction (e.g. I could only walk for 10-15 minutes before needing to crouch and release the spasm in my lower back). Went to a series of physiotherapists of varying effectiveness but they didn't really touch the underlying drivers. Then a friend put me onto an amazing massage therapist with the ability to locate and release chronically tense muscles, including things I thought were tendons because they were always tight. After a year or so of regular visits I was able to take up trail running again, which I've been doing for 18 months now. I'm a long way from fit and still have intermittent muscle spasms etc. but she essentially gave me my life back. Worth asking at local massage centres if they have anyone specialising in chronic injuries, sports injuries etc - you might get lucky.

Yeah thats often what gets me fixed - the physio will do this sort of pressure-point focussed massage and it does seem to help. Dry needling too! I reckon it works.
Chiros are shit, but I feel like Osteos are sort of a middle ground? They do massage in a way I like, and have really helped my TMJ in the past.

Honestly I think a lot of it might just be due to ridiculous amounts of anxiety-driven tension lol.

That would contribute a lot, for sure. But osteo is more cult than even chiro. Just this one dude in Scotland iirc

osteopaths are not a medical or allied health profession

I thought they were actual doctors, no?

"A doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) is a licensed physician..."

https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-an-osteopath

You do have to be qualified, I had some treatments at the London School of Osteopathy a few years ago which is where they train them. I agreed to be model for an exam, the examiners were pretty robust! My osteopath was almost in tears.

Looks like there's some distinction:

In most countries, practitioners of osteopathy are not medically trained and are referred to as osteopaths. It is distinct from osteopathic medicine, which is a branch of the medical profession in the United States.

Yeah, osteopathic GPs are becoming more common, at least around me. Some explanation here: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/do-vs-md#do-vs-md

The biggest difference seems to be that people with the osteopath degree are more likely to go into primary care, while MDs are more likely to specialize.

Also I think it's funny that the acronym is DO rather than OD, which would match MD. Not what you want on a diploma.

The osteos I go to all have "Dr" in front of their names but of course I guess that could mean anything. They all have some kind of quals from reputable unis though.

My mom's doctor is a DO. I know this because she texted me about her annual wellness visit this week. Her cholesterol is high, but it always is. And she's not getting a covid shot because she thinks she had covid in May and she lived. She says she'll get one next year before traveling. (She goes on multiple cruises each year now.)

Update of sorts — last month I posted about some pain in my hands and the possible efficacy of paraffin wax treatment. I actually bought a little paraffin wax machine, and wow it’s nice. Basically a hot wax heat treatment for hands or feet (I use it for hands, my spouse reports good results for her feet). A mild indulgence, but even buying the best machine (according to reviews) it was only like $150. Then you can just buy wax refills as needed. Feels great while using it, but I really think it’s having benefits beyond that.

Just putting it out there for the wax curious.

What does “good results” consist of? I have never heard of this.

I will say this about reaching your 50s, it is a trip. By the time you’re in your 50s you don’t really have any more secrets from yourself. unsettling. No matter where you go, there you are, and you’re strapped into this rocket ship and you have no idea where it’s going and you’re sort of styling it out like you know what you’re doing buuuuuut you don’t. It’s a fuckin trip.

The lamest thing about getting older is the pressure to take more and more invasive looks under the hood, as such, which inevitably reveal more and more stuff you've been unaware of, and might have remained unaware of forever had you not bothered to look. Kind of like opening the walls of an old house. I went to my usual annual physical last spring, they noticed something in my numbers that was probably fine but that I should get checked out, just to be safe. Got it checked out, just to be safe, and they found no obvious cause for what they initially found, but they did find something else they wanted me to follow up with in six months, with a different minor procedure sooner. Fine. The different minor procedure found nothing of note related to the initial concern, but it did find something else that while apparently pretty common they want me to follow up on in a year, and something else even more common and minor they suggested I may need to get checked out if it ever starts to give me a problem. None of these things were giving me a problem to begin with, btw, but now I have a three year ladder of visits and bills and procedures, none of which have revealed anything much of note so far, which was I suppose the point, to make sure what was noticed is actually not notable. But it's annoying all the same, paying for a relentless reminder of the fragility of our aging bodies.

From my perspective in the UK I love this phenomenon because eek, what if I had never looked, and this stuff got out of control? But I don’t have to pay for any of it. Just insane how perverse all the incentives are in US health care.

What does “good results” consist of? I have never heard of this.

Good results being at least temporary relief of pain or inflammation. Wax therapy is just a means of heat treatment, but unlike some other body parts like back muscles etc., where you can use a heating pad, hands and feet are difficult to provide concentrated heat to. But the hot wax completely covers them, and then you put on plastic gloves or booties and these oven-mitt kind of things to hold the heat in for 20 minutes or so. So the heat is getting to all those tiny finger joints and the nerves along the back of the hand and so forth. It's not a miracle cure, but in my so far limited experience it a.) feels great, and b.) does seem to have some ongoing benefits for my low-level hand pains.

you’re strapped into this rocket ship and you have no idea where it’s going and you’re sort of styling it out like you know what you’re doing buuuuuut you don’t

I've been hearing similar repeatedly during my 20s,30s,40s, and 50s. In my experience though , some people are hyper-focussed and really know what they are aiming for.

By your 60s though: the rocket ship is heading towards a fairly inevitable conclusion.

Just insane how perverse all the incentives are in US health care.

A curious data point is that I have family in the UK and Australia, and both people (now dual-citizens) and their own families sometimes shell out for private health care costs for health, eyes, teeth, etc. Don't know why. Regardless, I suspect many of those disinclined to visit the doctor for regular checkups would be of the same mind whether the visit was free or with a copay. I for sure personally know people that put this stuff off for years.

Fully automated luxury communism?

xpost