At what age do you think infirmity really sets in?

Still fairly lucid because I'm listening to what my inner voice is telling me. @81 that voice is saying what the hell do you think you are doing, you're not in your 20's. Yep slowing down has set in because the aches & pains of doing hard physical work just ain't body friendly.
 
I'm 87 and have pain in my feet and legs all the time. However, I've become acclimated to the pain and use Tylenol and Gabapentin to control it. My main problem is arthritis of the neck and it is severe as you can see in my picture. My neck is bent over badly and gives me a lot of pain. In my opinion living longer is well worth it even with the pain. One must just accept pain and all other problems as we age.
 
Pecos said:
I was always very physically fit until about 73 when I encountered Ulcerative Colitis, then Rotator Cuff surgery, and then aggressive prostate cancer, which took most of 3 1/2 years to conquer and took most of my muscle in the process. But the cancer is gone I will soon turn 80 and I am alive and getting back into shape again. I walk about three miles a day, lift light to moderate weights and stretch.

The gym I belonged to was proud of their older members and encouraged us to take progress photos every few years, which of course the posted.

This is what I looked like at 65:
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Pecos said:
I started to add "love handles" in my late 60's.

This is what I looked like just before I turned 70:View attachment 225333
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Lookin' great, Pecos!

Believe it or not, the picture of you at 65 looks just like my dad when he was 76, before he had a sever stroke. He recovered well enough to still get around, but we couldn't let him walk alone, and he needed help showering and shaving. By 80, he needed a walker and his equilibrium was real bad so he spent most the day in his recliner.

He had a drinking problem until he totally quit at age 36, and I think that might have contributed to the stroke. But he grew up on a farm - years of hard physical work, natural food and clean air. He wasn't a big guy, but super strong, fit and fast as hell. He was his Pacific Fleet Navy unit's middleweight boxing champion during WWII and played baseball almost his whole life. After retiring from work early, he joined The Sacramento Seniors baseball league at age 55 and played every season right up until he had that stroke at 76. Obviously growing up on farm work and farm food, and staying active and engaged after 50 kept him in great shape til pretty late in life.

I inherited a lot of Dad's genes, but unfortunately I'm paying for a bad 60ft fall I took a few decades ago. I'm lucky to have survived it, really.
 
From what I have read I really doubt your dad’s drinking contributed to his stroke 40 years later. If he had never quit that would be a different story.
 
Pecos said:
I have seen men and women do some amazing things in their mid 80's.
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Guinness world records:
The oldest ever man to father a child was reportedly Les Colley (1898 - 1998, Australia), who had his ninth child a son named Oswald to his third wife at the age of 92 years 10 months. Colley met Oswald's Fijian mother in 1991 through a dating agency at the age of 90.
 
Pappy said:
At 84, I’m having some balance problems. Some days worst than others. I love to walk in the morning and some days it’s like I’m on a rocking boat trying to keep upright. I do begin some PT training sessions that are suppose to help. Personally, I blame some of the meds I take.
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Pappy,

Do you follow the ❤️ Health settings on your iPhone?

There is a steadiness tracker and several other things that help to track your walking.

I wasn't aware of any of these until I recently discovered what had always literally been right under my nose.
 
Aunt Bea said:
Pappy,

Do you follow the ❤️ Health settings on your iPhone?

There is a steadiness tracker and several other things that help to track your walking.

I wasn't aware of any of these until I recently discovered what had always literally been right under my nose.
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Yes Aunt Bea, I do. I started using it about two years ago. I recently purchased an Apple Watch 7 and that all ties in together. Love my Apple products..
 
Murrmurr said:
"I use to go, go, go. Not any more." Yeah, me too, and I'm only 66.

Try giving your hubby vitamin B12. I swear by it. A B12-B6 combo is really good, too. B12 is good for blood and heart, increases stamina and improves your mood....makes you feel more positive. Probly because you feel a bit lighter and more well.
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Forget hubby...I'm going to take it...haha...only kidding :LOL:
 
I'm edging toward 70 and am still quite active. Not too many aches and pains.

I notice that my balance isn't what it once was, and carrying my 6 month old grandson around isn't nearly as easy as it was to tote my own babies back 35 years ago.

At my 40th HS reunion (2010), most people were in pretty good shape but a number were older than their years. Some were in wheelchairs, others used walkers. These people were only in their late 50s!
 
This from a article that describes when we enter the last stages of life...this is an excerpt....

"The vision of meaningful activity that Beauvoir offers here assumes the continuation into old age, if somewhat diminished, of the passions and vitality that fuel the projects of younger adults. This is an admirable ideal with regard to those in the ‘third age’. However, Beauvoir does not consider whether those who have become so debilitated that they can do little or nothing might still have lives of value. She gives us a truncated account of old age that excludes the ‘fourth age’, when activity such as she describes it ceases to be possible.


Rather than speculate about the reasons for her omission, we propose that we need to rethink meaningful activity in other, less demanding, terms than Beauvoir’s. Today, those in the fourth age still remain the most invisible. Their mobility is severely limited, or precluded, by their impairments, and they are the most confined and sequestered. They are often also less able to give an account of their experience than the more robust ‘young-old’ of the ‘third age’. Indeed, some of them literally cannot speak: they may be unable to communicate about their most basic needs, to those who (one hopes) look after them. This may be particularly the case for those with severe dementia, as well as for others, for example, after a major stroke. Their experiences – be they of their own bodies, of other people, of time or, indeed, of approaching death – usually remain an unknown blank for the rest of us."

https://aeon.co/essays/simone-de-beauvoir-on-facing-old-age-and-avoiding-bad-faith
 
Paco Dennis said:
They are often also less able to give an account of their experience than the more robust ‘young-old’ of the ‘third age’. Indeed, some of them literally cannot speak: they may be unable to communicate about their most basic needs, to those who (one hopes) look after them. This may be particularly the case for those with severe dementia, as well as for others, for example, after a major stroke. Their experiences – be they of their own bodies, of other people, of time or, indeed, of approaching death – usually remain an unknown blank for the rest of us."

https://aeon.co/essays/simone-de-beauvoir-on-facing-old-age-and-avoiding-bad-faith
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For those who are able to give an account of their experience, not only is the experience difficult to accurately describe, there's a definite sense that no one but their peers can accurately understand the experience or relate to it at all, and everyone else will simply dismiss it as feeble ramblings.

I'll never forget this nurse who was assisting my mom, and when mom had trouble getting up onto a CT scanning bed, the nurse said to another nurse across the room, "God, I hope I never get that old." Said it right in front of my mom like she wasn't even there. I told the nurse "There's a good possibility you will if somebody doesn't slap the life out of you first."
Really ticked me off.
 
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Murrmurr said:
For those who are able to give an account of their experience, not only is the experience difficult to accurately describe, there's a definite sense that no one but their peers can accurately understand the experience or relate to it at all, and everyone else simply dismisses it as feeble ramblings.

I'll never forget this nurse who was assisting my mom, and when mom had trouble getting up onto a CT scanning bed, the nurse said to another nurse across the room, "God, I hope I never get that old." Said it right in front of my mom like she wasn't even there. I told the nurse "There's a good possibility you will if somebody doesn't slap the life out of you first."
Really ticked me off.
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Yeah I would have said something as well, not sure I would have been as pleasant as you.
 
Murrmurr said:
When you're afraid to climb a 3-step ladder because the fall could ruin your life.
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I was up on the second story of my roof last week because I have a couple of gutter spikes that have worked themselves out and wanted to drive them back in. I couldn't do it, leaning out over the edge trying to swing the hammer made me much too unsteady (sigh)
 
C50 said:
I was up on the second story of my roof last week because I have a couple of gutter spikes that have worked themselves out and wanted to drive them back in. I couldn't do it, leaning out over the edge trying to swing the hammer made me much too unsteady (sigh)
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In 2015, I fell off a full sized ladder while trimming tree branches that were scraping against my roof. I landed well, and only had some skin shaved off my leg, but it scared the bejeezus outta me like never before. I'm pretty sure that was the last time I used a ladder.
 
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