You know...the stuff I still need each day works fine...maybe a little "creaky" (LOL), but things work.

However, I did have one of these "oh geez, this ain't no 20's or 30's anymore" days about 2 years ago, and I just turned 50 a month ago, so I was just shy of 48 at that time.

Each year my daughter and I do several good backcountry canoe trips...northern Ontario, lots of time in the water, but we do not shy from taking on a good portage, or doing a day-long climb/excursion off the beaten path, etc. Always an awesome time, and given that I have been doing this all my life I was only too happy to see my daughter take a liking to it on her own - meaning once the kids grew up and were no longer totally dependent on us for their vacations!

Well, we planned an awesome Lake Superior coastline trip, a week worth of backpacking actually, so no canoeing, all stuff on our backs. Like I said, given my experience doing this, we packed accordingly (light) and after an overnight stay at the Park campground we hit the trail. We knew this was going to be a tough walk, rocky, very un-even, uphill and downhil mix, all steep. Where things hit me like a boulder was when about 3/4 way there my knees just started to refuse to "obey the owner instructions"!!!

Umm...I say "go", but my legs don't want to, unless I am willing to put up with a [censored]-load of pain. I mean this felt serious, I could not walk, could not extend my leg in order to walk to be precise. So on the trail, we literally went from moving to me standing still in a matter of about 15-30 mins.

Luckily, a couple passed us on their way out of the park as they ran into equipment problems, they grabbed the site that was a mid-way point for us. I literally had NO choice but to crash at that location. Long story short (damn, already long as-is, sorry...), we had the Park Rangers run a patrol boat over to our location, they grabbed our packs and my daugher and I hobbled back to the Park campground. That was the longest walk OUT of the park.

My knees recovered over the next couple of weeks, but never got back to feeling "like new" ever since.

I may have hurt something, but no obvious damage that shows up. Still, I am extra careful in the garage now to make sure I don't get caught in a weird twisty stand where I put way too much pressure on my knees!

So yeah, that's my experience in "getting old".

BTW: as the Park Rangers saved my butt we came to discover that this particular trail is apparently in the Top-5 of All Canada Difficult Trails...not much consolation when you are all broken, but I'd be damned if I didn't do my research first into this and NOWHERE was there a warning anywhere to that effect. Anyways, for what it's worth, if it weren't for "old man knees" attack we would have been quite alright...everything else was moving along!

While reading the "How Many More Years Of Racing You Got In Ya?" thread, it made me think, at what age did some of you start hurting or noticing your bodies starting to tell you that you were aging or that you've worked too hard for too long?

I'm about half the age as some of you on here but, I'm starting to feel stuff already and it concerns me a little. My index finger has been hurting me the last 6 or so months and I finally had a Dr. look at it, arthritis. What, I'm in my 30's, [censored]?

I worked manual labor jobs for about 8 or so years of my working life but, I've had a desk job for the past 16-17. I tinker with stuff all the time though, I'm re-doing my kitchen right now. I really think the arthritis in my finger is related to all the siding I cut by hand for my garage a few years ago.

There are a lot of guys that don't talk about stuff like this, so: I'm surprised when people do talk about it how many have issues.

So, when did your body start to let you ......?

At your age (I’m assuming you were told you have osteoarthritis in the finger) I would do everything possible to rule out Rhumatoid arthritis. That stupid blood test they use (that was developed between the world wars) is wrong at least 50% of the time. You can be easily blood negative RA and still have it. And the longer it’s missed, the more damage it does. If you are fatigued a lot, if you get out of bed and have stiffness at all, if you get unexplained rashes, weird body temperature changes...stuff like that you can almost bet you have RA.

I know this because in 1982 I went into the Army and I had some fatigue and joint pain issues. And they just missed it. The funny thing is you can go for months or even years and you won’t have any symptoms and then out of nowhere you just have a bunch of bad days and you’re like [censored]?? Then one day, you just feel like crap and it doesn’t go away. I wasn’t actually diagnosed with RA until 2006. It never occurred to me until several years after the diagnosis that I had symptoms in the Army, so my doctor suggested I get a copy of all my medical records from them. Sure enough, when I looked at the, I said yep, sure did hit every indicator that I had RA, but like everyone else, they relied solely on that blood test and didn’t bother to stop and clinically diagnose it. All it takes is a short time on prednisone. If you get better you know it’s RA. If you don’t it’s something else. There are other ways to clinically diagnose it, but that’s a simple one.

By 2006 I couldn’t walk, drive or much anything else. Damn sure couldn’t hardly work. A 3 day week was good for me. And in that time I was doing about 40% of what I would regularly do. I had a buddy come pick me up and take me to the ER. That was the ONLY time I’ve ever been blood positive for RA.

If you do have it, you are much better off knowing it now and getting after it. It won’t go away and it won’t get better. And pray like hell you don’t have it.

Just my thoughts.

Haven’t skated or snow boarded in 12 years….. adulting sucks! My dad hung up the car thing back in 2012 at 68. Was just getting too hard for him to crawl around the car. I’ve been an auto tech like forever and my biggest downfall the last 3 years has been my addiction to laziness. I REALLY need to get back on an exercise regiment, and scale back my all natural diet of craft beer and hot wings . I just flipped the 55 card so I gotta take care of the best tool I’ve got for making $$$, my well being. Easier said than done… happy new year!

I just bought an I beam with a trolley and winch to put in my shop. My joke (kinda) is that it is there to help me pull my [censored] up off the shop floor when needed.

61 year old industrial mechanic. I can still do a hard days work but I don't want to do anything when I get home. Moving from 12 hour shifts to 8's soon, that should help.

While reading the "How Many More Years Of Racing You Got In Ya?" thread, it made me think, at what age did some of you start hurting or noticing your bodies starting to tell you that you were aging or that you've worked too hard for too long?

I'm about half the age as some of you on here but, I'm starting to feel stuff already and it concerns me a little. My index finger has been hurting me the last 6 or so months and I finally had a Dr. look at it, arthritis. What, I'm in my 30's, [censored]?

I worked manual labor jobs for about 8 or so years of my working life but, I've had a desk job for the past 16-17. I tinker with stuff all the time though, I'm re-doing my kitchen right now. I really think the arthritis in my finger is related to all the siding I cut by hand for my garage a few years ago.

There are a lot of guys that don't talk about stuff like this, so: I'm surprised when people do talk about it how many have issues.

So, when did your body start to let you ......?

I'm 63 and did the 12 hour days 6 days a week for 15 years, the last 10 as an industrial mechanic. Dec. 1 I started a 40 hour a week job working on little robots. I never realized how bad that 12 hour stuff was killing me. 40 hours is like being retired.

Hope it works for you too.

I’m thinking you hit the nail on the head for me, all those symptoms I have for maybe 6-8 years now. I’ve burned up the internet looking for a cause always thinking vascular problems but with tests they all cleared.(did have a stent put in the lower aorta 4 years ago). Some days I feel like a tuck run over me, my legs are the worst can’t pick my feet up and stumble over lent and I’ve fell 3-4 times this year alone. First of the week I’ll call to get checked with my primary doc. Thanks in a way, btw I’m 72 and still working but getting slower
Where did you get the prednisone?
Update, found some in my cabinet stash (2004 but looks good)

Be careful with prednisone. Since you already have some you probably already know the side affects of it but for anyone else reading this I’ll outline a few. Number ONE for me is it made me a cranky [censored]. Everything set me off. Another one was eating. It made me eat anything that I could find. And with that comes weight gain. The pounds went on so fast I couldn’t believe it. I was 210 when I started on it and 242 six weeks later. That’s how long I was on it. Then my doctor said ok, let’s start some other treatments and by the way, that weight HAS to come off and I want you to get to 200. I can tell you that that was 2006 and I’m still not to 200 yet. I hover at 208-215. Going from 242 back down to 220 was a real PITA. It took 16 months to lose that weight. Went on quick, came off slow. And I worked at it.

There are a couple of other side effects with any steroid like that that I can’t think of, but those were the two worst for me. So I’d see your doctor before you went back on it. And don’t let any doctor tell you that you are blood negative for RA so you don’t have it. That test is pretty much junk.

One last thing. If you do have RA and you start getting treated for it you’ll very quickly learn how many people actually have every RA symptom but don’t know they have it. I have correctly diagnosed 5 different people I know with RA just by looking at them and hearing their symptoms. Also, many doctors who believe the blood test when it comes up negative will call what is really RA fibromyalgia. And it’s not. In my opinion, very few people have fibromyalgia. There is a form of RA (I forget what it’s called because there are many types of RA including ankylosing spondylitis, psoriasis and many others) where the immune system attacks the thin lining between the muscle and the bone. And that gets called fibromyalgia when it’s not. People think the pain is in the muscle but it’s in that thin lining.

To wrap up this long post, it’s borderline criminal how far behind medicine is on RA and it’s related diseases. It’s almost borderline criminal how often it’s misdiagnosed. So if you have joints that hum (I can tell you there are times when my joints hurt so bad it feels like my joints are tuning forks that vibrate), hot joints, swollen joints or when you hurt everywhere but you know it’s not muscle pain because you know what that feels like it’s almost always some form of RA. The sooner it gets treated the less joint damage you’ll have, plus you get ahead of all the ancillary stuff you get with RA like heart disease, rapid eye sight changes (I literally got up one day, went to work and couldn’t read my micrometers and it was over night...I had to run to the Dollar Store and buy a pair of readers and that pissed me off because I hadn’t been diagnosed yet and had no idea why that happened) and organ damage.

RA is a horrible disease and I’m pretty passionate about getting the word out there any chance I get because of how long I went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed.

Was employed in the auto repair business from 1974 until this past Spring. What is pain? To me, it’s my body lying to me. I ignore it. Treat it like an itchy mosquito bite. It bugs you but forget about it. Fortunately at 67 I can still go out to my home shop and work on cars nearly everyday. Why? Because I like to.
Doug

i started to have pain in my 20's, and after MANY years and many doctor visits later, with nothing concrete diagnosed, mr. "tough guy" [me ] just gave up and learned to live with it.
after i got married, my wife talked me into doctor visits to figure out what was REALLY wrong with me [don't start..... ].
after many years, i was finally diagnosed with MS, and apparently, it had started WAY earlier in my life, but i just ignored it.
so being old now, pain is just something i look forward to every day. no big deal anymore.
it has also been noted by someone else's response, my motto for years has been : "no matter how bad i have it, there is someone out there that has it worse !"
i just play the cards that were dealt, and hope i can get my junk to at least run around the block before i croak !
someone stopped by this past summer and asked what i was doing. i told him : "i'm getting ready for the estate sale !"

Before Medicare I had one doc, 7 years later, 9 and looking at more, they pass you around like a party ‘lady’

Diet is a huge part of how you feel and American diets are among the worst in the world. If your body is aching I would suggest doing some research to learn how to eat healthier for a week or a month and see how you feel. My wife and I both got health coaches thru a program at work and we both learned so much. She was on the verge of knee surgery and my shoulder was wrecked. Adjusting your diet to fight inflammation can have amazing results. Stay away from ibuprofen unless its absolutely needed. Long term it just makes pain worse.

Lots of green veggies, avoid starches (taters &rice), avoid sugars, avoid DIET drinks and most of all avoid PROCESSED FOOD. Its amazing what small changes like this can do.

I have a sweet tooth so its hard for me to cut out sugars but I just try to better today than yesterday.

Bottom line, we are wearing out.

WORN out LOL