This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

I feel really lucky...

- i had gerd but gum + slippery elm tea has nuked the symptoms
- i messed up my knee and it hurt for years but despite half-assing the PT its all better now
- my hearing isn't getting any worse
- my insurance let me do the poop in the box thing (up thread) and it came out negative this time (my wife's insurance didn't let her do that)

But i didn't dance the night away last night. I just went to sleep at the normal time.

gonna be 42 in a few weeks' time and haven't stayed up to ring in the new year in at least a decade. cheers.

slippery elm you say

Yeah try slippery elm tea! There's actually studies showing it works. Don't drink more than a few cups a day though because there are side effects if you have too much.

But yeah i had it really bad 10 years ago and now basically no problems.

Gonna have to look up 'gerd'

My dad has GERD but it didn't manifest until his 50s/60s, so I have some time still

vision update - it took me a while from noticing my first presbyopia symptoms a year or two ago but i now have a couple of pairs of off the shelf reading glasses, mainly for low light or when the print is particularly small. even with just +1.25 the magnification is quite something, so now when i peer at a label without my glasses on i basically turn into an old man - 'why do they make this writing so small? it was much larger in my day'.

i hurt my knee really badly last year and am accepting that it will probably never be 100% in my life again, maybe, but it is doing a lot better and i'm really grateful for that!

I went through something where I could barely get up the stairs because of my right knee. Wore one of those stretchy knee brace things under my pants.

Kept putting off going to a doctor until one day, I realize the problem was gone! It was a gradual thing, not overnight.

Still have no idea what that was or where it came from.

Still having weird auto-immune issues w/low platelets and also some upper GI stuff, maybe all related maybe not. Doing everything I can think of - intermittent fasting (not eating until around 2pm and then just having some bone broth until dinner), no gluten, sugar, or nightshades, etc. Not sure if any of it is really helping or not. Meanwhile everyone says "you look great, did you lose weight?" as blissfully live their pizza & beer lifestyles. Sucks.

Actually it's not that bad as long as I'm in my daily routine, and not having fomo about going out, meeting friends for dinner, or traveling.

started ab exercises today.

4 minutes and I felt like a 93 year old man afterward

then again, i even struggled w/ those as a kid, but not this bad!

pplains, i went to a doc and did physical therapy for my knee. my doc said that 9 times out of 10 knee things heal on their own O_O

It took a full 12+ months for my knee to get back to normal post-ACL and meniscus surgery. I was convinced it would never get back to 100%, but it did! It just took a long damn while.

Still having weird auto-immune issues w/low platelets and also some upper GI stuff, maybe all related maybe not.

I have a bunch of auto-immune stuff in my family and I suddenly developed psoriasis (which is auto immune I believe) about 5 or so years ago. It kept getting worse and worse, though treatable with medication, and then about 3 months ago started getting a lot better. Very weird.

Feels like auto-immune issues are rife these days. Hopefully this stuff will go away one day, although I feel like it's all gut-related and I wish I knew how much all the diet & lifestyle stuff was actually affecting this. Got an appointment for a breath test for SIBO etc, but not until five months from now, lol.

started ab exercises today.

I have abs of steel and yet am apparently the least healthy person in my friend group.

Sorry, trying not to feel self-pity but I'm spiraling a bit today, I know everyone's got their own issues and it doesn't make sense to compare.

nah it's all good, say what ya need <3

Ok fine, fuck all these fat healthy people enjoying their lives :)

Yeah, don't worry about it. It would rattle anyone.

I do miss my abs

pplains, i went to a doc and did physical therapy for my knee. my doc said that 9 times out of 10 knee things heal on their own O_O

I'm just about convinced that you can say that about the whole body.

But that 1 out of 10 will getcha!

Sorry, trying not to feel self-pity but I'm spiraling a bit today, I know everyone's got their own issues and it doesn't make sense to compare.

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, January 18, 2023 9:29 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I'm sorry, Jordan! It sucks for sure. I also struggle with eating "healthy" foods that are harder for my body to deal with than unhealthy foods. Like on a lentils vs steak level, steak will go down fine and I'll feel great except for my cholesterlol levels.

Psst idk if you can get it there but Against the Grain is a northeast brand of gluten-free pizza that's a pretty good base if you add more toppings at home. The pesto pie (sans tomato) is a great building block, even my bf loves it (he is not gluten-free).

Dang, that's so close (tapioca and pesto are fine), but believe it or not I'm trying to avoid canola oil and non-aged cheeses, lol.

Really we've got the hang of making delicious food for dinner at home, it's just the fomo and leaving the house that I'm having issues with. Last night was sweet potato curry soup with sorghum (which is surprisingly delicious in its natural grain form, a lot like couscous) and an egg, almond flour biscuits, and salad.

I do miss my abs

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Thursday, 19 January 2023 11:45 (seven hours ago)

I miss having abs a reasonably flat stomach but I like food why because it tastes nice.

I can eat whatever garbage meat / cheese / dairy / garlic / chile / wheat concoction you can come up with and have no digestive issues but of course broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and any legumes wreck me. I moved to a place with lots of middle eastern places and realized that falafel with hummus is like the worst thing I can eat.

I can load up on beano and have falfel or channa masala or dal but only once - if I have leftovers the next day my body will scoff at any chemical intervention.

I like food why because it tastes nice.

Covid has fucked up the taste of food for me at the moment and my life is lacking a significant joy :(

^ one of my biggest motivations for continuing to mask up in all public spaces.

Yes, that served me well. I caught it at a family event so I know exactly who to give the side-eye...

Broccoli good, cauliflower bad, artichokes are basically the nazis of digestion

Potatoes mostly just make me fart, which is acceptable

Currently have a concussion-related dizziness which may last several more months (!), but at least it's not age-related (and MRI fine)

Currently having "are you mumbling more or am I deaf more" arguments with partner, answer probably a bit from both column

Any time I try to eat something healthy, my body tells me, "Oh, no. We've adapted to crap food since the early 80s to survive. Don't bring anything new in here or we will fuck you up."

Here comes 46

yeah i feel like our bodies get more finicky about food as we age and really punishes us for the foods it doesn't like.

back from an ultrasound on my gut, let's see what that tells me

might not be a magic bullet for everyone but psyllium husk pills have really helped for any reflux or digestive things for me

my body tells me, "Oh, no. We've adapted to crap food since the early 80s to survive. Don't bring anything new in here or we will fuck you up."

Sounds about right. A few years back when people were getting all excited about gut flora and its relationship to general health, one of the assertions that was floating around was that your gut flora is highly adapted to whatever makes up your normal diet (which is also its normal diet) and if you deprive it of what it expects and wants, the bacteria in your gut will not just complain about the change, but can stimulate cravings for those foods.

oldest person at the bar= win

yeah i feel like our bodies get more finicky about food as we age and really punishes us for the foods it doesn't like.

― ꙮ (map), Thursday, January 19, 2023 3:04 PM (one week ago)

true. ... last summer I had this really painful stomach issue that was basically really bad bloating and gas that felt like "okay facehugger alien, you can burst out now and just put me out of my misery" ... best I can tell is it was due to undercooked beans. I had never had anything remotely like this problem before than I can remember? But I had started making a greater effort to eat more beans because they are healthier and more ethical than meat. ... After a few months I slowly phased back in eating beans, but goddamn, that pain was horrible, and all y'all who have that on the reg ... my sympathies.

yesterday when i was sitting in the biggest most comfortable chair in the house i stretched my arms up and yawned and that was enough to fuck up my neck

the moral of the story is don't stretch

don't get out of the boat.

My wife once reached up and behind her to flip a wall light switch -- not a long reach at all -- and wound up needing shoulder surgery.

I laughed knowingly about the "facehugger alien" description. For me it's raw or undercooked cabbage. Kimchi or super stewed cabbage is fine - great even - but I'll suffer for days if I have coleslaw or anything like that. My totally amateur theory is that my stomach acid or gut bacteria is just no longer up to the task of breaking down that kind of roughage.

lol - "we give up motherfucker, ur getting bloated"

Maybe my most "I'm in my forties" realization yet came when I had two falls on the ice in as many days and, unlike when such things would happen to me when I was younger, I really am feeling it now. Was up til 4AM last night with pain in my left leg, and this morning's dog-walk was less than pleasant (though mercifully didn't result in another fall).

Typed out a bunch of stuff that's been going on with my health and deleted it, basically it's been rough going and I miss pizza, beer, and cookies. Trying not to think about food as source of pleasure and focus on other things (making music, reading, Disco Elysium). And people I guess.

Sorry to hear that Jordan. All I’ve had to give up lately has been coffee and that’s been tuff enuf

Wait, why did you have to give up coffee again?
Also sorry to hear that, Jordan. Also a little sheepish and sorry to barge into y’all’s decade.

I still have coffee! Gotta appreciate that.