This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

Finally being prescribed a beta blocker after they heard my heart pounding out of my chest at docs

yep, these are my people

xp "inevitable" because the 20s and 30s threads were created a couple of days before.

I’ve recently had to change the default display setting on my iphone to zoomed. Struggling to make out small text. Officially old

I'm turning 40 in June and this is me--ditto for browsers, though it's more for comfort than strict necessity. (Even though I already have a glasses prescription so strong that my partner winced when she tried them on.) I've switched my PlayStation 5 to my gaming computer monitor, rather than the TV, since I feel like I miss out on too many small details while sitting across the room on the couch.

I used to be a night owl but my bed time is now 11 p.m.--sometimes even 10:30 on a tiring day. I don't have much interest in late nights at the bar anymore but that still felt like a small symbolic surrender. I do miss midnight movies, though, since there are so many good ones in Chicago. When is some theater going to do capitalize on folks like us with a weekend "midnight at noon" series?

Every time I get some new passing ache or fatigue, there's a bit of me going, "oh god, is this some new permanent change I'm going to have to live with from now on?"

I haven't had any aches or pains or anything like that yet. The fucking eyesight thing is literally the only thing that reminds me of how old I am. Will prob need reading glasses next year but I'll take that. Could be a lot worse.

Last night my husband had to get a knot he described as “enormous “ out of my right hip— it had been giving me grief for days, I thought I had a slipped disc or something. It took him 20 minutes and a lot of me moaning and screaming to get it to a good place.

Then we had sex, though, so I guess I am still 39 lmfao.

health update

i put off seeing my eye doctor a little too long. i was driving home from a movie at 11 at night and drove straight onto a meridian. kind of a wake-up call. not only am i the same terrible driver i've always been (one of the effects of my diplopia means that i have basically no peripheral vision, plus there's the ADHD), i've basically completely lost any night vision i had. so i'm taking a break from driving for a while. i work from home and live close to transit so i figure i can swing it. it takes longer to get places so i get out less but i can still get to places when i need to. i'm seeing my eye doctor today - i can't just see any eye doctor. there's only certain eye doctors who will treat diplopia. i have to have special glasses made too, i can't just order from warby parker or whatever. it's fine, i have good vision insurance, and it just makes me think of some artisan grinding glass in a workshop somewhere. which probably isn't how it actually happens.

i tried starting physical therapy three months ago and then stopped going because of the holidays, the ice storm, clinical depression, etc. wound up going back yesterday, my physical therapist showed me some great exercises i could do on the days i'm too depressed to get out of bed. the ankle instability did cause me some issues in december... i fell while climbing the stairs and i banged up my left leg really badly. i've mostly recovered from that. i also bought an ankle support for when i need to walk. it doesn't do a lot, but it does something.

on top of the kyphosis i've started developing scoliosis on my left side over the past couple of years. it's really been bothering me and that's mainly what i've been focusing on. honestly i think the scoliosis does bother me more than the hunchback thing. i kind of like being able to tell people i'm a hunchback. then they argue with me (which is a weird thing to do but also a _normal_ weird thing? if you know what i'm saying?) and i get all salty, like, what, because i don't look like quasimoto? then i go off on this whole rant about kyphophobia in the media. it's one of those weird things, saying stuff like that is a good way of blowing off steam from constantly feeling pressured to talk about transphobia.

anyway my physical therapist told me about something called the schroth method which is apparently really effective on scoliosis. i said i'd look into it later because, you know, she's giving me exercises i can do when i'm too depressed to get out of bed at this point.

one thing i've definitely noticed is that i get a lot of bruises and don't know where or how i got them. right now i got this _huge_ bruise on the left side of my right leg and no idea how i got it. i do think a lot of it is the duloxetine i'm taking - i think that's made me bleed a lot easier. and maybe some of it estrogen making me more thin-skinned as well, but it's gotten more prominent in the last year or so, so i think some of it is age.

the main thing that's bumming me out is that i've crossed the point where i can say i'm in my "mid-40s" and gone over to having to say that i'm in my "late 40s". for some reason that's hit me particularly hard. i'm turning 48 in a couple months. i don't know why i feel old all of a sudden but i do. the new batch of people transitioning... even the ones transitioning later in life, pretty much all of them are younger than me. i do feel like a senior citizen, and it's not a good feeling.

x-p foreplay is foreplay, i guess.

Last night my husband had to get a knot he described as “enormous “ out of my right hip— it had been giving me grief for days, I thought I had a slipped disc or something. It took him 20 minutes and a lot of me moaning and screaming to get it to a good place.

Then we had sex, though, so I guess I am still 39 lmfao.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

meanwhile here i am at 47 and getting a knot massaged out of my hip sounds way better to me than sex lol. it's not a joke - well, i mean it is a joke, but it's also true - i got a back massager and i literally just use it on my back, because that's where it feels good. also though i am asexual, which probably has something to do with it.

Every time I get some new passing ache or fatigue, there's a bit of me going, "oh god, is this some new permanent change I'm going to have to live with from now on?"

― blatherskite, Thursday, 1 February 2024 18:25 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this kind of thing, yes

i missed a couple of games of footy before christmas, my only exercise that ive ever persistently been able to keep up over the years, and after a month of missing it every week i started to ask myself "have i played my last game of football?" which is not a stage I was ready for just yet tbh

tabes theres a "rubbing it in" joke there somewhere

moshed last night and sat down to catch my breath and the security guy (a 20-something) came up to me to ask if I was ok and I said "yes, just old"

what a nice young man he was tho

yeah he's cool, we know each other so I knew he'd find that amusing

this kind of thing, yes

i missed a couple of games of footy before christmas, my only exercise that ive ever persistently been able to keep up over the years, and after a month of missing it every week i started to ask myself "have i played my last game of football?" which is not a stage I was ready for just yet tbh

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Friday, February 2, 2024 4:24 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm 51 so I encourage you to keep going, but I made the decision last year to walk away from ultimate frisbee after 18 years, so I get it.

things fell into place as it happens, i got a game (possibly two) a week with the right level of players ten mins up the road in mid january

put me in coach i got one last decade in me

I played every week, all through my 30s but gave up due to fucked knees on pretty much my 40th birthday. I miss it terribly. Hang in there!

shoulder regularly popping...this is a thing?

my shoulder is one of the few joints that doesn’t regularly pop and I see that as a shortcoming

note, through, that I have been able to crack nearly every joint on demand if I’ve been idle for more than an hour for most of my life. just popped both elbows by stretching my arms

popping contest

pop and lock dancing where we pop all the joints we can and cringe on the locked ones

pop my meds and try to remember if i locked my front door amirite

I've gotten three times the charlie horses waking up than I ever used to

poplockin’ beats from Korea

My bad 40s development is that I seem to only be able to crack my neck on one side now, compared to the both sides I could do for decades prior

Not my only bad 40s development, of course

How many pills do you take every day?

Being in your forties is rising early to be at the car dealership for an oil change at 7:20.

I've gotten three times the charlie horses waking up than I ever used to

― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal)

god, i used to wake up with charley horses all the time and haven't gotten them at all for a while now. it's nice to be reminded of things like that.

reached a milestone today, as i enter the twilight of my firties: slipped & fell in the shower
luckily no serious injury except wounded pride and a sore tailbone

but still

IT BEGINS

I've been getting terrible foot cramps, usually at night, and almost always while lying in bed

Of course Dr Google's diagnosis ranges from dehydration to diabetes. It's probably just bad circulation, which I've suspected I've had for a while, given that I can't feel my fingertips these days if the apartment dips below 70 degrees

Also, since it was mentioned already here, I regret not getting progressive lenses last time I had an eye exam. My doctor was pushing for it but I was worried I wouldn't like them (or that they would exacerbate my migraines) and its not like you can sample them and then decide. Still, almost immediately I began noticing how often I have been taking my glasses on and off. Like when needing to see the tv remote in the dark but also needing to see the tv screen

sorry man thats cancer for sure

nb self diagnoser via google speaking

I get cramps in my foot all the time, especially when I'm lying on an acupuncture bed, which is every other day.

Huh, I'd never come across the term Charley Horse before. So that's what it's called. Absolutely terrifying to get one in your sleep

A reckoning: Always figured I had great eyesight until the other day I was in the pub with my dad and apropos of nothing he got me to try on his specs and suddenly it was like seeing in 8K

we should do a service to ilxors of age and send them an alert when they’re commented about the text being too small on something multiple times over the course of a year

Not long after a friend of mine turned 50 he went to the eye doctor, and his eye doctor told him he needed reading glasses. "Really?" said my friend. Apparently the eye doctor put his hand on my friend's shoulder and said "You've had a good run."

I vaguely recall being in my '20s and people saying, man, enjoy it while it lasts, because things change in your '30s. Then in my '30s, it was "look out for your '40s." A few weeks ago I turned 49, and now I hear 55 is the magic inflection point, but I've been doing OK. Don't need readers yet, healthy, happy enough. It's quite amazing how the age scale keeps shifting, it's surreal. I used to think 40 was old, then 50 was old, then 60 was old. Sometimes I wonder if all it took was society realizing that smoking and drinking and red meat were really bad for you and to try and keep that shit in check.

you need readers

you need readers

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh)

god damn right i do, i've been writing for 20 years now and i've got, like, three. THREE!

I don't need readers yet (although I will soon, am on the cusp) but my neck is fucking killing me

Neck pain is frequently the result of years of bad posture. Holding your phone down on your chest/abdomen and craning your neck down to look at it can be a contributing factor. Try holding the phone away from you and closer to head height. Hard to remember but it actually makes a difference if you are on your phone a lot.

it instantly makes you look like an old person however

So does having chronic neck pain.

it instantly makes you look like an old person however

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac)

deems i _am_ an old person

learning how to optimally move my body through physical therapy has been a fucking life-changer, i can't recommend it enough

Charlie horses are leg cramps huh. I had them ALL THE TIME when I was pregnant. and also after when I used to go to gigs.

I guess this is the general body complaint thread now so I’ll share that I have a rash on two of my fingers

So I called your mom and told her I couldn’t make it tonight

Guilty lol

To read books, I don't need glasses.

To read this screen, I need this pair (blue)

To drive, the black pair.

Drinking pickle juice instantly cures leg cramps for me. Learned it from my dad who gets brutal cramps.