Is Your Senior Body Paying the Price of Youth?

katlupe said:
Working in nursing homes, lifting heavy people is what I think ruined my knees (even though doctors say it is osteoarthritis). I exercised a lot and even race walked even when doing that type of work. So maybe the doctor is right and nothing actually caused it.
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As people (or should I say "we") age, cartilage naturally starts to "go."
 

I don't think so. Injured my knee in the service back in '54, which required surgery, and that same knee now causes me to rely on a cane. Oher than that little blip, I think that during the last two or three years I've just started "wearing out", like an old car with too many miles on it.

I'll be 89 in a coup[e of months so I consider myself lucky to get around as well as I do.
 
Mostly what I'm paying for is a really bad fall with serious injuries.

But the rest of it?...I had a great time! I worked really hard, too, but I loved every job I ever had. I absolutely loved playing baseball, loved working in the yard, playing with my kids, camping and hiking. I even loved dancing, especially when I looked ridiculous hopping around, flapping my arms and legs in all directions.

I hate the pain I have now, mostly because it stops me from playing and working as hard as I used to.
 
Only the marriages. Left me penniless.

The hard manual labor provided me with a locomotive that still appears to be in good shape. Back to the gym today after a 1 year layoff. Took it a bit easy. One hour walk. One hour on the stairs machine, at slowest speed. And one hour with weights. Will exercise whatever doesn't hurt tomorrow. Hope for 4-6 hours. I do endurance workouts.
 
Knees. Too much baseball and softball. Baseball through high school, softball for probably a few years longer than I should have. When you are young, you can play hard in ball game on Friday and be fully recovered the next day. As time goes on, it takes two days, then three, until finally you play on Friday and you're still not recovered when the next Friday rolls around. I should have stopped there - but I didn't...
 
The year of electronics school at a military base, I played endless pinball games in base cafes where one jolts the machine forward with hand shoves as the metal ball bounces off rubber bands so it will fly more powerfully. My wrists have always been a weak part of me because of that. I could be a national poster boy as an octogenarian elite skier that has fine knees despite the forces. But then have carried heavy backpacks with camera gear up mountain trails that has built strong legs despite being a small thin guy.
 
One of the BEST things to happen was diagnosed with diabetes at 18 years - a "wake up call" to get on a healthty regime (ie proper diet, proper weight and daily exercise.) At 78 years, both my weight and b.p. are in the lower range for my height. Flash (border collie) is another incentive to walk daily.
 
I'm doing pretty well except for my bum knee with a torn lateral meniscus. I found that standing on a concrete floor in my shop was aggravating it, so I'm laying down 3/4" plywood sheets to provide a bit of cushion. It's working. My knee doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did before. It's much more tolerable now.
 
Indeed at the begining, but at the end given a lifetime of experience through our body's process of neuroplasticity, we become a product through that genetics of what we have done and experienced. We are what we do. With limitations, we can understand and see as goals of what we can become. Neuroscience now understands the vast majority of our neocortex structure is repeating units that are empty when we are born that fill up as we age through time with experience.

Fill it up with a lifetime of value and the human result can be amazing, incredible performance, art, and understanding. Fill it up with the banal and the result may be ho hum. Fill it up with garbage and the result may be too.
 
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