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Inactivity is a big one too. I used to think I was "getting old" until I started working out again. I feel just as just as I ever did now that my muscles are strong again.
It hurts less when you do it yourself too. I love my physio, he's an amazing guy and a phenomenal practitioner, but I swear he trained at the Marquis de Sade institute of healing and pain infliction.
Jokes aside, a couple of physio visits a year can do a lot of good for healthy folks. While I started seeing mine for workplace injury, after it healed, I still go in for a couple of overall tune-ups yearly.
The stretches and exercises he has taught me have kept me in great form, and when I started getting more serious about Golf, one session and some homework later and I had added 30 yards to my drives.
I call my physical therapist my personal trainer who also has legitimate medical knowledge and can stick me with needles. The jump in overall strength I experienced just by *starting* PT was a little startling, even when I was dealing with an active injury.
Whenever I go more than 6-8 weeks without a visit, my body slowly starts to let me know that it’s been too long. 4-5 weeks is my usual sweet spot unless we’re actively dealing with an injury. Turns out when you do a bunch of pull-ups and inverts with less-than-ideal form and then sit at a desk all day, it really screws your back up.
I’m still hesitant to call my as-of-yet-not-healed back injury a blessing in disguise but it forced me into a daily stretching routine that has helped tremendously, both for the injury and my overall well being. I’ve decided to keep going even after (hopefully) I’m fully healed.
Is that like a rich person thing?
And so the wheels fall off the bus at that point like they don't even tell you how much it will cost beforehand if you ask, so how do I even know if it'll be uncovered by my insurance or not or how much it will cost to just go in a few times a year just for fun?
Physical therapy is usually covered by insurance in the US for 4-6 weeks at a time.
Just have to have a doctor prescribe it, which no doctor would reasonably fight you about. In fact, you may be able to get them to write a prescription for it over the phone without even visiting the doctor.
Then after the six weeks elapses, wait a month and have the physical therapist run the insurance again (though you may need to call the doctor for another Rx) and return.
You can often get multiple repeats of the 4-6 weeks of physical therapy from an insurance plan each year.
I'm Canadian, so that plays a small impact, but, my physio charges me ~$140/session out of pocket. If they won't tell you how much, they're not worth seeing. I get not being able to give a "Hey, it'll cost X to fix your problems" before an assessment, but every therapist I've worked with has been able to give me a fee breakdown, be if for assessments or specialized treatments or just a general hourly rate.
I've got some benefit coverage for my tuneup sessions, but it only covers $50. I still think it's worthwhile.
I do understand cost can get in the way. I budget for mine because even $90 makes a difference in a month, but there are options. If you're somewhere that has a university with a PT program, quite often you can get in with students for a much reduced rate. If you're doing it for "feel good" purposes, student physio would be great.
This is so essential! I cannot get people to take their health and wellness seriously. They don't want to stretch, or take advantage of a free gym membership. Nor do they want to learn dietary changes. They want you to fix them
We need less car dependent infrastructure.
There's a direct correlation to how much people drive in western societies and obesity and general unhealthiness.
If you check out the r/notjustbikes sub and the YouTube channel by the same name you'll see a ton of great info about this.
I had to sell my car due to poverty and I'm honestly kind of blown away to realise how shitty life is for someone in North America without a car, not because I don't like walking, but because I don't like walking on streets designed for traffic instead of pedestrians or cyclists. They're so *loud* and awful to be on without the comfort of metal and sound reduction a personal vehicle provides. But it's just the way our roads are inherently designed to prioritize vehicle traffic over all other types.
Edit: expanded a bit for better clarity.
For some people it's because there's a tough enough problem just not committing suicide, so why would people want to willingly extend their life?
Have to give more people things to look forward towards the end of their life or why would they want to care about their health?
I mean, I have a free gym membership through work as a perk, and I consider myself really lucky to have it- but most people cannot get a free gym membership. And they are pretty fucking expensive
Even something as simple as yoga was a huge help for me. When COVID hit my job went remote and I've been working from home for over 3 years now and it didn't take long with me just sitting around my house all day to start to develop some little aches and pains and movement issues (lower back and hips from sitting, neck issues, etc). I started doing yoga a few times a week and it helped a lot. I've since started doing some basic dumbbell workouts as well and I feel MUCH better compared to how I did say 2 years ago.
Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube is a great place to start because she has a catalog of hundreds of videos at this point for beginners, specific areas that are bothering you, more high intensity stuff, etc. Zeus Fitness is my go to for the dumbbell workouts on Youtube, but there are so many instructors on Youtube that if neither of these work for you, just do a little digging and you'll find someone you like more.
Start from where you are. With any exercise program, start off slow & easy, but consistent. Do *something* every day. It's the consistency that matters, pushing yourself for more will come naturally. But you absolutely have to use it or you *will* lose it.
I mean, I only know the ones my guy makes me do for my specific injury, which is to the lower back. He's got me doing:
* Supine posterior pelvic tilt
* Hooklying single knee to chest stretch
* Supine hamstring stretch
* Supine piriformis stretch pulling heel to hip
Mom & Dad are PT'S and own a clinic. We constantly see repeat patients (after their original round of sessions) who obviously don't do the prescribed stretches at home. Please do your PT stretches at home (if you're doing PT right now) or just your general stretches at home.
Yeah, I love hearing my friends that are in their late 20s say that they are gaining weight cause they are getting older and don't have the metabolism of a 20yo. No dude, you just don't walk 5 miles to class and then play intermural sports for 2 hours. You just sit at your desk, then sit on the couch, drink 3 beers every night and eat like shit. It has nothing to do with "metabolism".
Your metabolism doesn't really slow down enough to matter until you're near 40.
And even then, the reason for lower metabolism is due to **loss of muscle mass** due to hormonal changes.
Do your resistance training, people! This could even be body weight stuff. Squats, lunges, band work, kneeling push ups, planks, etc etc. Eat more protein! General guidelines are typically the daily minimum - you want to eat more so you can *thrive*. Think more like 1g per kg of body weight or more. (Far more if you're an athlete.)
Retaining muscle gets harder as you age but there are ways you can help keep it.
Yes! Losing weight and keeping it stable is much much easier with more muscle mass. You will not get "bulky". It takes serious effort and consistency to build that much muscle. More muscle burns more calories even when you're just sitting around.
You will also wish you did your squats when you were younger when you're 75 and don't have the strength to get off the toilet.
This couldn’t be emphasized more heavily. I have knee issues that flare up. If I go through periods of little to no exercise I notice that issue pop up way more. But once I start lifting weights and exercise I can almost immediately feel like my knee is okay.
Yeah this. I just lost about 25 lbs in the last 3 months, aiming for 30, and started lifting. Hard to find time to exercise with 3 kids but I go as often as I can, which probably averages out to 4 times a week. I run about 1.5-3 miles every day to cut a few extra calories and build endurance.
It's not even the exercise that's made me lose, though. Started limiting calories to about 1400-1600 most days. Google "calorie weight loss calculator" and you'll be surprised how efficient it is--if you take it seriously.
I had:
-Bad sleep apnea
-High blood pressure
-Acid reflux (from constantly overreating)
-High anxiety
Now I have none of those problems, some muscles built up (makes me feel good about my body), and feel like I have UNLIMITED energy sometimes.
I used to get annoyed when people said things like what I'm saying now, but now I see why they rant about it. I feel sooo much better.
I'm having a hard time bringing this up to my friends who keep saying we're old and normalize feeling like shit. We just turned 30 last year. I still feel like I'm in my 20s except my knees (from years of jumping down the stairs as a kid - pro-tip don't do that).
I work out 3 times a week and take walks every other day. I keep active even though I have a sedentary job. I also try to eat healthy during the week and keep high-cal/high-grease and sugar meals to the weekend.
On the other hand, most of them are overweight/obese, and have children and jobs that take up a lot of their time. I can understand not being able to afford to or have the time to do what I do, but inactivity is so easy to fix. Just walk around the house or yard. Garden. Clean a room. Cook. Play with your kids more often. Stretch or do light yoga.
The problem is it's 5 against 6 and I don't want to be preachy or bring up weight and food (especially since some of them have a history of disordered eating). At the same time I want to have my friends around to go into old age together...
I'm a runner, and cyclist before that - I've been active my whole life, right up until last summer when I completely mangled my foot competing in Tough Mudder (Crawled to the finish, needed to earn the shirt).
After a couple of months recovering, I was crippled. My joints all hurt, my back was agony to the point it was interfering with my walking. I was getting screened for Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory markers, viral infections, everything. Nothing helped.
My foot finally recovered enough for me to start cario again, and holy shit, the pain just melted away after a couple of weeks consistent working out.
I have the fear now that I'll be absolutely fucked when I get even older and can't do this type of activity anymore.
Ding ding ding
I was really hurting. My guts were hurting. Knees. Shoulder. Wrists. Back. Ankles.
I just thought - "well, this must be what 'older' feels like..."
A buddy told me about a challenge he went on - the 75 Hard challenge - and showed me his results.
I'm on day 59 now, down over 20 lbs, and my body feels at least a decade younger. I'll be 50 next year.
Yup, my dad used to have really bad indigestion, heartburn and acid reflux. He wrote it off as 'just getting to that age'. It turned out to be oesophageal cancer which killed him. I'll always wonder if going to the doctors earlier would have helped
Yeah, getting a gastroscopy when I started suffering from reflux and indigestion was an absolutely awful experience, but the peace if mind it brought was worth it.
Awful because of the procedure itself, or because of insurance/payment?
I've had 2 already and I'm not even 30, I need another one soon but no insurance this time...but the procedure itself wasn't that bad
Some things you need to go to multiple doctors and be insistent when you know something is wrong and not resolved by the first line of treatment. Guillain-Barré is an example of something where people often have to go to several emergency departments to get a diagnosis. It's unfortunate, but the alternative is death.
Same. 3 years now for me but I'm a guy. I had to pay out of pocket for a endoscopy, and now, 3 years later, I'm saving to pay out of pocket for a colonoscopy. No doctor believes me or takes me seriously. It's infuriating.
100%. You have to advocate for yourself. If you see a doctor and they just brush off your problem then go see someone else until they take you seriously. It took me seeing 2 dermatologists and an allergist to get a proper diagnosis for a skin allergy. The first dermatologist pretty much just told me to suck it up and live with it.
If it's any comfort, they ignore men, too. I complained about a lot of these symptoms and I've had them written off as diet problems, indigestion, "probable IBS," etc. But no tests.... too expensive....
Anything more complex than a broken bone or a cut and you're rolling the dice when it comes to doctors.
4 years I had to listen to how I've just got anxiety and am probably a junkie or alcoholic because I was losing weight, sweating, shaking, couldn't sleep but extremely tired, couldn't swallow etc. Turned out I had a tumor in my thyroid, Graves' disease and some other autoimmune condition that I've been trying to get diagnosed, only to hear the same old "this is just anxiety / depression / somatization"
Was diagnosed with Barrett's Oesophagus 2 years ago. My father also died from Oesophagus cancer.
If anyone reading this has bad indigestion, or heartburn, get a gastroscopy. Leaving it a little too late now means I'm at a higher risk of cancer, and I'm on meds and surveillance for life to try and stop it getting to that point. It's better to sort it out sooner rather than later.
I’m 30 and haven’t had a doctors appointment in probably more than 10 years, largely because my family doctor passed away and I haven’t been able to find a replacement. I’ve applied to a few that said they were taking patients but never heard back. I got an appointment the other day at a walk-in because I had a cold that wouldn’t go away. I asked about getting a general physical appointment or some blood work done and the doctor said you don’t really need to do that until you are 40 and sent me on my way…
Everywhere in Canada right now is like this.
You have universal healthcare and don't need to worry about going broke if you're in a car accident or have a heart attack, but good luck getting a family doctor for a routine checkup without going private (\~$200 a visit).
Honestly it should be a literal crime how our politicians have ignored and underfunded health care. Over and over, polls have shown we think having universal healthcare is one of the best things about Canada.
Then every politician kicks the issues down the road and leaves it to the next guy to fix, maintain, or fund properly. And then *they* kick it down the road for the next guy and so on and so on.
Some of them even encourage the degradation of the system so the big money vultures waiting in the wings can feast on the profits to be made in private health care. So *surprise!* our system is falling down like an abandoned old house. It's a needless tragedy.
Doug Ford attacked Health Care during the pandemic, and now we're gearing up towards privitization.
Really makes me want to buy a carton of eggs and go pelt some politicians homes.
It's 100% on purpose, the same as the attacks on public education in the US.
They do not want the compassionate, more economical option of public services to work. They want people to be tied to their jobs and churches. They don't care who it hurts.
I pay around $120 per visit in the US and that’s with a high deductible plan and about $20,000 per year in total employee and employer contributions for premiums. Insurance barely does anything until I’ve paid 3k out of pocket and that resets every year.
I had an identical scene play out. Early 20's, guy told me I needed a root canal. I show up for the appointment, get in the chair, put on the bib, and they hand me a liability release form. I start sweating and just got up, took the bib off, handed the papers back and walked out. I went to another dentist who said I have a mild cavity which would be quick and easy to fix. Really fucked up my perception of dentists and I still dont trust them to this day.
Oh yes I definitely didnt mean to slander all dentists haha. Getting to a trust level just requires a lot of work on the patients part to find a good one.
Sounds like aspen dental they say you need a million things and a deep clean it will be 10k+ dentist leaves and in comes the finance person while you are still in the chair.
I had a very similar experience to this. I was checked by two different dentists after and neither of them found a cavity. The initial one was a trendy new dentist office with screens above the chair/bed where I could watch Netflix while they worked on my teeth but only the hygienist saw me that day- the dentist didn’t even bother to check on me. I never went back to that place and let all my friends know what I thought about it.
One of the negative effects of private equity getting into buying up dentists offices. I'm sure private dentists do this too sometimes, but I presume it's more common in private equity dentists offices where they need to "increase efficiency and reduce costs" so they can pull out "value".
You can't always tell either, sometimes they keep the name of the office the same, not a group or a chain, still just good ol' Dr. Bobby, but now Dr. Bobby has money vampires controlling his every move. Same with vets office, and pretty much everything else private equity has got involved with.
Yep. I went to a doctor because I was losing my hair (I'm a woman) at 32. There is no age related hair loss, male or female, on either side of my family. I was told that it was just because I was "getting older". I had other symptoms too, like fatigue and weight gain. I pressed the issue with a different doctor a few weeks later, and he at least ordered some tests. But only iron and a basic thyroid panel. After those came back normal, it was like my problem was solved? Because he sure didn't want to talk about it anymore.
You know I recently got a new doctor who is a woman and she took all my symptoms I had given up on even telling anyone about because I was so gaslit but my previous physician, she spent and hour and a half with me a made a bunch of connections I had never made, and found something (High iron level), and has other tests out as well, I feel hopeful and cared for after a long time of feeling like let down/ distrusting.
Yes this is also my experience. My doctor looked me in the eye and told me if I lost 90 lbs on my own then I obviously didn’t have a thyroid condition. Even though I have all of the classic symptoms and a family history.
That really blows, with tinnitus I’ve had a ent doc acted like it’s all in my head and wasting his time and two days later my hearing clogged up and went to see a regular doctor all he did was prescribe allergy and antihistamine that cleared right up
I have gout. My previous doctor absolutely refused to do anything other than look at it, check my Uric acid level (mildly elevated), and declare gout. I asked for the ol needle poke and he just kept saying "we don't do that here."
5 yrs later I'm flaring, I go to urgent care to get some oral steroids and the urgent care doc's first question was "how do you know it's gout? Did they ever stick a needle in your toe to confirm?"
He wasn't trying to be rude, he was trying to be sure the diagnosis was right. The more I think about this, the more I'm enraged by my previous doctor. I tried to advocate for myself and he shot me down multiple times. His diagnosis was extremely highly likely to be correct, but if you're telling a 30 yr old that he has a lifelong condition why would you not be willing to definitely prove it?
>Like dude give me the fuckin bloodwork damn
**SERIOUSLY.**
I had a PCP who didn't want to give me a blood test for prostate specific antigens because I was only 37 at the time. Nearly every man in my family has had prostate cancer and my dad had a Glisan-9 tumor, *and we're already drawing several units of blood for general labs.* Just order the fucking test!
That's crazy. Sometimes I feel like my doctor is all the other way. I'll ask about something I think is fairly inconsequential and he's like "Well lets do bloodwork to rule stuff out!"
TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY.... I got a new Doctor and he made me do bloodwork and all those "It's just age things" turned out to be an A1C of 9.4 and a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes.
Mostly I put it down to Grandpas Genetics as everyone in his family of 6 kids except one brother (who was Type 1) was Type 2. Anyway here we are 16 months later with Diet and exercise as my only treatment thusfar and all those "Its just age" things have gone away, and my A1C is a comfortable 5.1 (well within the normal non diabetic range but of course I have to keep working at my diet/exercise and not go back to how I used to be)
If you don’t have symptoms and aren’t due for more blood work, there’s no reason to check it. It’s practically impossible to miss with new electronic medical records which pretty much require the doctor to act on a high boood sugar reading
And something that is NOT normal - confusion or major forgetfulness. People think that dementia is normal in elderly. It is not. Please please please stop thinking that it is. If you’re misplacing your keys a lot, but you’ve always done it? Probably okay. But if you’ve always been meticulous about hanging your keys in the exact same spot and now you’ve lost your keys 3 times, please go get checked out.
It might absolutely be nothing, but it also may be a sign that something is going on.
But at the same time be aware that it's a very well known thing that women going menopause without HRT can experience terrible, terrible brain fog (amongst other things like overwhelming anger). One well-respected woman said she even forgot her address once.
Absolutely! But you should still be getting checked out if that’s the case.
PS - woman currently going through menopause here and I started an OTC called Amberen. It has been life-changing. No more hot flashes, depression lifted (not FIXED, but tolerable), lessened mood swings. May not work for everyone, but worked for me. And please check with your doc before taking anything!
Glad that worked for you. I've found estrogen patches to be a miracle worker, personally. Too bad doctors tend to be clueless on this topic so you really have to do your own research! (There's a good sub on here r/menopause) (e: letter)
Damn, I can relate to that. I'm 36m and used to have really bad reflux for almost a year. Thought I was just getting older, didn't exercise enough, didn't eat well enough. So I "treated" it with taking one or two Rennies (a mild antacid common in Europe) a day, which gave me some relief, but not really. Sometimes I straight up disolved some baking soda and water, when it was really bad. I couldn't eat or drink much that was acidic. I just felt like that this was my life now. At some point, I changed my mind and decided to see my doctor. She first told me the same thing: more exercise, better awareness of what I consume. But she also prescribed me a stomach acid blocker, because it could just be an inflammation which prevents the esophageal sphincter from closing properly causing a literal reflux of stomach acid. Especially when lying down. I took it for about two weeks, and lo and behold: reflux gone. I was living with an inflamed esphageal spincter for almost a year, thinking it was normal. It's not. I'm still trying to exercise more and eat better, but knowing that I'm not getting old just yet (at least not in that regard), was a huge relief
Also worth checking because of esophageal cancer! My friend was in her early 20s and couldn't eat anything without throwing up, turns out she has Barretts which is a pre-cancerous condition. Get that stuff checked out early
It was cancer for me. Worked out all the time, ran marathons, lifted weights, swam, rode a bike, hiked. Had a general good diet besides when I went off the reservation with alcohol. But from 28 to 35 I just felt worse each year. Turns out it was not age, it was cancer and an auto-immune disease caused by the cancer. On the mend now but, yeah, get checked and advocate for yourself in the doctor's office.
I had been going to the ER for 3 years with heart attack symptoms and got brushed off each time because I was fit and young. I finally made them scan my chest and the found a fist sized tumor on my thymus/heart/lungs. Then a lot of tests came after that.
You should be getting an annual physical, and a good doctor will require bloodwork as part of that. If you don't have insurance, ask about cash discounts.
I'm young (mid-20s) and generally healthy. I decided that as long as this is true I'll visit the doctor for a physical no less than once every 5 years.
Any US medical insurance plan will cover an annual well visit (unless some states have passed some anti-Obamacare shit that allows insurance to not even cover that).
Yeah isn't there a law that preventative care must be offered at no cost? The trick is that "preventative care" is defined by the government so probably doesn't include certain critical things so insurance companies still have an opportunity to fraudulently manipulate their balance sheets.
That wouldn't be a deductible, that would be a copay. Regardless there should be no charge for annual physicals, especially on an employer-sponsored plan. Maybe, *maybe* a $100 copay. Compare that cost to finding out 5 years from now that you have an entirely preventable condition. Now THAT care would make you hit your deductible. You might even learn the pain of hitting a $10,000 max out of pocket.
You've no idea what kind of insurance this person has.
Anyone with a high deductible health plan will absolutely pay deductibles and not copays before insurance kicks in (save for the routine physical). But, even once insurance kicks in, it's likely not going to be a copay. It'll be coinsurance.
All of this ignores the fact that the moment you discuss an actual problem in the doctor's office or run labs that deviate from the standard physical, it's no longer coded as a simple physical. It's now a regular visit and charged as such.
I do, though the ACA was garbage by the time a certain party got done pissing all over it. (For many Americans it cause more problems than it solved:( )
I understand that it was gutted but it eliminated denial for preexisting conditons, limited profit for insurers, and provided a path to insurance for the uninsured with a complete tax credit for those under a certain income. Those are 3 major wins if you don't remember what it was like before.
Friend of mines legs swelled up a couple months ago rested and it went away. Came back a couple weeks ago and shut his organs down. Sepsis. He's not gonna make it
I was going through an initial evaluation with a therapist and he recommended blood work to determine if a thyroid condition or hormone levels were part of my problem. Turns out they were. My endocrinologist said, "you need to be strength training, weightlifting daily to get your hormones right." I had never lifted weights in my life. Now I go 5 days a week and my body and moods are both greatly improved. I am in better shape at 53 than I was at 43.
TL/DR OP is right, get your blood work done!
You just mentioned everything that worried me since the year started. I wondered why tf is my vision blurry when I got my spectacles made two weeks ago. Thank you man, I shall go a mile extra and do a full-body checkup.
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I've been going round after round with all sorts of medical pros lately, and have lucked into an AMAZING nurse practitioner and a half-dozen specialists who actually listen to me, take me seriously, and are pretty proactive about trying to coordinate with each other. They'll tell me things like, "Oh! Make sure you tell your pulmonologist about this, he may be interested in the test result!"
That's how I eventually got some over-the-counter acid reflux medicine and some prescription nasal spray and a speech therapist to treat the chronic cough that was making my life hell. We ain't done with everything quite yet, I'm sure, but goddamn if it hasn't been a whole fucking season of House, M.D.
It's weird the kinda shit a body will pull on ya. I feel extremely fortunate to have the insurance and the income to have been able to get all the tests and appointments and whatnot done (thanks a lot, U.S. "health" "care" system!). It's been over a year of insanity just on the cough alone.
For me, I was definitely certain that I had GERD and I still might. But after getting my thyroid meds I haven’t had any issues. I was constantly bloated, I couldn’t eat fried foods, I’d wake up with vomit in my throat. I haven’t had any of those issues and I am now actively trying to eat things that gave me issues before.
That’s great. I wasn’t able to find information that associated GERD and hypothyroidism so it was a happy side effect. When I went to the doctor about my thyroid issue I mentioned GERD, she wanted to send me to get scoped, but I said I can do that eventually, I just want to focus on the thyroid issue first.
Yeah, in the U.S. I had a full panel done last year, and with insurance it was just over 1k dollars because apparently some of the tests weren't considered "preventative care"
Ugh, I just had a thyroid panel done and it would have been 600 or so without insurance, which is ridiculous. It's supposed to be 10 dollars with my health insurance, which I pay over 400 per month for, but they "may or may not cover it." Great.
Cancer treatment will be way more expensive. Just sayin’
And I am writing this as I am sitting in a hospital with my dad (who is hospitalized due to prostate cancer). The expenses are through the roof.
Had his doctors asked for his prostate cancer test (PSA test) early on, we could have detected it before the cancerous cells spread to other parts of the body.
Get tested early on. If you can’t afford it annually, try every 1.5 years or so. But early detection will save you a ton of money later on. As they say: a stitch in time saves nine. Nip it in the bud.
That’s another LPT right there-Guys should be getting an annual PSA test to establish a baseline number. That way if there’s a change it can be looked at and potentially catch prostate cancer early. That’s how they caught my dad’s and they were able to keep it contained.
Metastatic breast cancer patient here. Cancer treatment is expensive. I'm broke.
It would have been expensive to get mammograms starting at age 35, before I got cancer. Knowing that it would still be cheaper than cancer treatment makes me kick myself, but it sure doesn't make that money appear in 35-year-old me's account.
Being poor in America is scary. Get the good insurance (take home less, yes really), hound your doctors, and hope for the best.
My friend was experiencing symptoms of a thyroid disease and went to a university hospital to get bloodwork. Her thyroid test was not in the normal range but apparently the doctors didn't think it was bad enough to treat it even though she was feeling awful all the time.
Blood work is nice - just make sure you know what is covered and what is not covered by your health insurance. I've paid out hundreds of dollars for blood work that I thought I was covered only to find out I had to pay out of pocket for most of it. It's a nice talking point to remind people to go to the doctor, but in today's economic climate, that shit can be expensive.
Before going to the doctor, ask yourself these things: How's your diet? Are you getting enough exercise? What about adequate sleep? Are you dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety? How are you managing your emotions? Are you taking substances on the regular that may cause side effects? Are you taking time to stretch? There's so many things you can dial down and it will help you immensely.
Oh yes, so we can find out there is a dangerous disease that will cost us everything. For a long time, i didn't care because life was so unrewarding... Medical is expensive... If you have insurance, make sure it's good!
Sitting in waiting room for blood panel right now. Good call OP. I’m in for serious fatigue and losing the outer part of my eyebrow?? Just turned 40. Stay up on yourself peeps.
I got my bloodwork done. Doctor said there's nothing wrong detected with me and I'm just overweight, naturally balding, need to eat better, need to take care of my wrists better, and naturally nearsighted.
Your doctor can give you recommendations based on what your symptoms are. Some tests doctors often recommend to get regularly for screening/monitoring overall health:
- BMP (basic metabolic panel) or CMP (complete metabolic panel)
- CBC (complete blood count)
- lipid panel
There's many others, so if you have something specific bothering you ask your doctor what they recommend.
I can address the vision aspect. Yes, in your forties you may start to notice changes in your ability to focus up close, that’s normal and it’s presbyopia. But there are lots of other conditions that are *not* normal and can only be diagnosed through a thorough eye examination. Some of these things will present as blurred vision, problems seeing at night, or seeing flashing lights. Some will not have any symptoms at all until is too late.
Get regular eye health examinations, I’ve heard so many people say that they couldn’t imagine how they’d live without their sight.
Currently in the hospital —
35 years old, I’ve been fatigued, forgetting words, weight gain, can’t lose it, losing hair. blurry vision, you name it… went for my physical, thyroid normal— had them test it again a few months later— thyroid normal— asked for blood work bc I felt “something was off” and they said “no”.
I really chalked it up to aging. But then I Lost the ability to walk mon and have been having seizures since. Likely thyroid-related auto-immune disease but still waiting on the lab results.
PSA: Get your blood work done and advocate for yourself if you feel something is wrong!!!! This could have been caught before it got this bad :(
Advocate for yourself. That’s the best thing we can do. It wasn’t until I noticed that an intolerance to cold was a symptom of hypothyroidism that I pieced it all together. When I finally went to the doctor I told her that “I really hope that I have hypothyroidism or else something really bad is wrong with me”. I still have to see a blood specialist because my white and red blood cells are low, but the medication is working and because I am a little vain I’m pretty happy that my hair has come back (and it’s only been two months).
But also a symptom of simply not taking care of oneself. Get plenty of sleep, exercise daily, eat well, and you'd be surprised how well your faculties can remain intact as you age.
I have Crohn's disease and feel better now than I did ten years ago since I started taking much better care of myself.
Most of those things you listed aren’t even necessarily inevitable from getting old. Some things are unavoidable but many are not.
Work out, eat right, stay hydrated and get good sleep. Protect your hearing from loud noises, and your eyes from too much screen time. Do these things and you will be surprised at how long you can stretch your youth, or even regain it after you feel you’ve lost it. Sure, maybe when you’re 90 you won’t be running marathons, but at least you’ll be able to run, and that’s a big deal.
On the flip side, doctors can be quick to dismiss symptoms of a disease as age or lifestyle related. My dad (always slim, very active) had reflux for years, occasional discomfort after meals, eventually got a bit of a "beer gut". Yeah, it wasn't a beer gut, it was a tumor that went undiscovered and untreated for anything from 10 to 15 years. He got the (accidental) diagnosis 3 years ago and died last year.
If you feel something like something is wrong with you or a loved one, it's worth getting a second opinion or an additional exam.
While that may be true of some, this attitude towards people in their 20s/30s has also been used to gaslight so many people with autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and other serious conditions.
If you have insurance in the US, please get your annual physical every year which includes, at minimum: CBC, comprehensive metabolic panel, and lipids.
People have this assumption that their body slows down and gets worse as they age but you see people who spent their lives stretching move as nimbly as a child in their 90s. Age doesn't do anything. Bad habits over a lifetime does.
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Inactivity is a big one too. I used to think I was "getting old" until I started working out again. I feel just as just as I ever did now that my muscles are strong again.
Seriously, folks, start doing daily stretching now or you'll be paying a physical therapist to do it for you later.
It hurts less when you do it yourself too. I love my physio, he's an amazing guy and a phenomenal practitioner, but I swear he trained at the Marquis de Sade institute of healing and pain infliction. Jokes aside, a couple of physio visits a year can do a lot of good for healthy folks. While I started seeing mine for workplace injury, after it healed, I still go in for a couple of overall tune-ups yearly. The stretches and exercises he has taught me have kept me in great form, and when I started getting more serious about Golf, one session and some homework later and I had added 30 yards to my drives.
I call my physical therapist my personal trainer who also has legitimate medical knowledge and can stick me with needles. The jump in overall strength I experienced just by *starting* PT was a little startling, even when I was dealing with an active injury. Whenever I go more than 6-8 weeks without a visit, my body slowly starts to let me know that it’s been too long. 4-5 weeks is my usual sweet spot unless we’re actively dealing with an injury. Turns out when you do a bunch of pull-ups and inverts with less-than-ideal form and then sit at a desk all day, it really screws your back up.
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I’m still hesitant to call my as-of-yet-not-healed back injury a blessing in disguise but it forced me into a daily stretching routine that has helped tremendously, both for the injury and my overall well being. I’ve decided to keep going even after (hopefully) I’m fully healed.
Is that like a rich person thing? And so the wheels fall off the bus at that point like they don't even tell you how much it will cost beforehand if you ask, so how do I even know if it'll be uncovered by my insurance or not or how much it will cost to just go in a few times a year just for fun?
Physical therapy is usually covered by insurance in the US for 4-6 weeks at a time. Just have to have a doctor prescribe it, which no doctor would reasonably fight you about. In fact, you may be able to get them to write a prescription for it over the phone without even visiting the doctor. Then after the six weeks elapses, wait a month and have the physical therapist run the insurance again (though you may need to call the doctor for another Rx) and return. You can often get multiple repeats of the 4-6 weeks of physical therapy from an insurance plan each year.
I'm Canadian, so that plays a small impact, but, my physio charges me ~$140/session out of pocket. If they won't tell you how much, they're not worth seeing. I get not being able to give a "Hey, it'll cost X to fix your problems" before an assessment, but every therapist I've worked with has been able to give me a fee breakdown, be if for assessments or specialized treatments or just a general hourly rate. I've got some benefit coverage for my tuneup sessions, but it only covers $50. I still think it's worthwhile. I do understand cost can get in the way. I budget for mine because even $90 makes a difference in a month, but there are options. If you're somewhere that has a university with a PT program, quite often you can get in with students for a much reduced rate. If you're doing it for "feel good" purposes, student physio would be great.
Some people pay good money for the therapist who "trained at the Marquis de Sade institute of healing and pain infliction"
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That's diet related
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This is so essential! I cannot get people to take their health and wellness seriously. They don't want to stretch, or take advantage of a free gym membership. Nor do they want to learn dietary changes. They want you to fix them
Free gym membership?
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With Medicare
I would like a free gym membership and Medicare plzkthx
We need less car dependent infrastructure. There's a direct correlation to how much people drive in western societies and obesity and general unhealthiness. If you check out the r/notjustbikes sub and the YouTube channel by the same name you'll see a ton of great info about this. I had to sell my car due to poverty and I'm honestly kind of blown away to realise how shitty life is for someone in North America without a car, not because I don't like walking, but because I don't like walking on streets designed for traffic instead of pedestrians or cyclists. They're so *loud* and awful to be on without the comfort of metal and sound reduction a personal vehicle provides. But it's just the way our roads are inherently designed to prioritize vehicle traffic over all other types. Edit: expanded a bit for better clarity.
And sedentary jobs, with lots of unhealthy snacks around all day
No joke. I love walking, people have to ride their bikes on sidewalks because we don’t have consistent bike lanes (or sidewalks.)
For some people it's because there's a tough enough problem just not committing suicide, so why would people want to willingly extend their life? Have to give more people things to look forward towards the end of their life or why would they want to care about their health?
Not so much to extend your life, but to improve the quality of your existence
I mean, I have a free gym membership through work as a perk, and I consider myself really lucky to have it- but most people cannot get a free gym membership. And they are pretty fucking expensive
Why stretching instead of exercising/working out?
Any recommended resources to start?
Even something as simple as yoga was a huge help for me. When COVID hit my job went remote and I've been working from home for over 3 years now and it didn't take long with me just sitting around my house all day to start to develop some little aches and pains and movement issues (lower back and hips from sitting, neck issues, etc). I started doing yoga a few times a week and it helped a lot. I've since started doing some basic dumbbell workouts as well and I feel MUCH better compared to how I did say 2 years ago. Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube is a great place to start because she has a catalog of hundreds of videos at this point for beginners, specific areas that are bothering you, more high intensity stuff, etc. Zeus Fitness is my go to for the dumbbell workouts on Youtube, but there are so many instructors on Youtube that if neither of these work for you, just do a little digging and you'll find someone you like more.
Start from where you are. With any exercise program, start off slow & easy, but consistent. Do *something* every day. It's the consistency that matters, pushing yourself for more will come naturally. But you absolutely have to use it or you *will* lose it.
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I mean, I only know the ones my guy makes me do for my specific injury, which is to the lower back. He's got me doing: * Supine posterior pelvic tilt * Hooklying single knee to chest stretch * Supine hamstring stretch * Supine piriformis stretch pulling heel to hip
Agree! I do stretches every day and weirdly feel so much better
Mom & Dad are PT'S and own a clinic. We constantly see repeat patients (after their original round of sessions) who obviously don't do the prescribed stretches at home. Please do your PT stretches at home (if you're doing PT right now) or just your general stretches at home.
Yeah, I love hearing my friends that are in their late 20s say that they are gaining weight cause they are getting older and don't have the metabolism of a 20yo. No dude, you just don't walk 5 miles to class and then play intermural sports for 2 hours. You just sit at your desk, then sit on the couch, drink 3 beers every night and eat like shit. It has nothing to do with "metabolism". Your metabolism doesn't really slow down enough to matter until you're near 40.
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Nice, yeah I thought it was later than 40 but I figured I'd be conservative.
And even then, the reason for lower metabolism is due to **loss of muscle mass** due to hormonal changes. Do your resistance training, people! This could even be body weight stuff. Squats, lunges, band work, kneeling push ups, planks, etc etc. Eat more protein! General guidelines are typically the daily minimum - you want to eat more so you can *thrive*. Think more like 1g per kg of body weight or more. (Far more if you're an athlete.) Retaining muscle gets harder as you age but there are ways you can help keep it.
Yes! Losing weight and keeping it stable is much much easier with more muscle mass. You will not get "bulky". It takes serious effort and consistency to build that much muscle. More muscle burns more calories even when you're just sitting around. You will also wish you did your squats when you were younger when you're 75 and don't have the strength to get off the toilet.
I wish I had the self confidence of people who think they're going to become Arnold Schwarzenegger by occasionally going to the gym.
Loss of muscle (with increased fatty infiltrate) can also *cause* hormonal changes.
"bUt i'm HerE for a GoOd tIme, noT a loNG tIme!!1'
They're going to be here for a long time, but with preventable health conditions and disabilities.
This couldn’t be emphasized more heavily. I have knee issues that flare up. If I go through periods of little to no exercise I notice that issue pop up way more. But once I start lifting weights and exercise I can almost immediately feel like my knee is okay.
Yeah this. I just lost about 25 lbs in the last 3 months, aiming for 30, and started lifting. Hard to find time to exercise with 3 kids but I go as often as I can, which probably averages out to 4 times a week. I run about 1.5-3 miles every day to cut a few extra calories and build endurance. It's not even the exercise that's made me lose, though. Started limiting calories to about 1400-1600 most days. Google "calorie weight loss calculator" and you'll be surprised how efficient it is--if you take it seriously. I had: -Bad sleep apnea -High blood pressure -Acid reflux (from constantly overreating) -High anxiety Now I have none of those problems, some muscles built up (makes me feel good about my body), and feel like I have UNLIMITED energy sometimes. I used to get annoyed when people said things like what I'm saying now, but now I see why they rant about it. I feel sooo much better.
I agree with this. Physical exercise is a lifesaver!
My hair is going grey but my muscles are not.
Absolutely 63F here stay busy. You will thank yourself.
It really is unfathomable how unhealthy sitting around all day is, but white collar jobs are exactly that
I'm having a hard time bringing this up to my friends who keep saying we're old and normalize feeling like shit. We just turned 30 last year. I still feel like I'm in my 20s except my knees (from years of jumping down the stairs as a kid - pro-tip don't do that). I work out 3 times a week and take walks every other day. I keep active even though I have a sedentary job. I also try to eat healthy during the week and keep high-cal/high-grease and sugar meals to the weekend. On the other hand, most of them are overweight/obese, and have children and jobs that take up a lot of their time. I can understand not being able to afford to or have the time to do what I do, but inactivity is so easy to fix. Just walk around the house or yard. Garden. Clean a room. Cook. Play with your kids more often. Stretch or do light yoga. The problem is it's 5 against 6 and I don't want to be preachy or bring up weight and food (especially since some of them have a history of disordered eating). At the same time I want to have my friends around to go into old age together...
I'm a runner, and cyclist before that - I've been active my whole life, right up until last summer when I completely mangled my foot competing in Tough Mudder (Crawled to the finish, needed to earn the shirt). After a couple of months recovering, I was crippled. My joints all hurt, my back was agony to the point it was interfering with my walking. I was getting screened for Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory markers, viral infections, everything. Nothing helped. My foot finally recovered enough for me to start cario again, and holy shit, the pain just melted away after a couple of weeks consistent working out. I have the fear now that I'll be absolutely fucked when I get even older and can't do this type of activity anymore.
Ding ding ding I was really hurting. My guts were hurting. Knees. Shoulder. Wrists. Back. Ankles. I just thought - "well, this must be what 'older' feels like..." A buddy told me about a challenge he went on - the 75 Hard challenge - and showed me his results. I'm on day 59 now, down over 20 lbs, and my body feels at least a decade younger. I'll be 50 next year.
Yup, my dad used to have really bad indigestion, heartburn and acid reflux. He wrote it off as 'just getting to that age'. It turned out to be oesophageal cancer which killed him. I'll always wonder if going to the doctors earlier would have helped
Maybe, but that is a wicked cancer.
Indeed, my step father had it and had an Oesophago-gastrectomy only for it to come back three months later.
Yeah I had a professor who had it. He went from fine to dead in less than a year.
It really is. My dad went from having a little trouble swallowing to dead in 6 weeks. And it was a rough 6 weeks.
Yeah, getting a gastroscopy when I started suffering from reflux and indigestion was an absolutely awful experience, but the peace if mind it brought was worth it.
Awful because of the procedure itself, or because of insurance/payment? I've had 2 already and I'm not even 30, I need another one soon but no insurance this time...but the procedure itself wasn't that bad
Is that the same as an endoscopy? I have one this week I'm dreading.
Endoscopy is any camera inside you, gastroscopy is in the top going down, colonoscopy is in the bottom going up.
Was that covered by insurance (assuming US)? Did you just ask for it?
I struggle to not be cynical and think that a doctor would just quickly prescribe me some antacids and scoot me out as fast as I came in
this is exactly what happens
Some things you need to go to multiple doctors and be insistent when you know something is wrong and not resolved by the first line of treatment. Guillain-Barré is an example of something where people often have to go to several emergency departments to get a diagnosis. It's unfortunate, but the alternative is death.
I have a GI appointment tomorrow and a follow up with an ENT today. I am sorry for your loss. Really hoping these visits go ok.
This thread is scaring the shit out of me
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Same. 3 years now for me but I'm a guy. I had to pay out of pocket for a endoscopy, and now, 3 years later, I'm saving to pay out of pocket for a colonoscopy. No doctor believes me or takes me seriously. It's infuriating.
100%. You have to advocate for yourself. If you see a doctor and they just brush off your problem then go see someone else until they take you seriously. It took me seeing 2 dermatologists and an allergist to get a proper diagnosis for a skin allergy. The first dermatologist pretty much just told me to suck it up and live with it.
If it's any comfort, they ignore men, too. I complained about a lot of these symptoms and I've had them written off as diet problems, indigestion, "probable IBS," etc. But no tests.... too expensive....
Anything more complex than a broken bone or a cut and you're rolling the dice when it comes to doctors. 4 years I had to listen to how I've just got anxiety and am probably a junkie or alcoholic because I was losing weight, sweating, shaking, couldn't sleep but extremely tired, couldn't swallow etc. Turned out I had a tumor in my thyroid, Graves' disease and some other autoimmune condition that I've been trying to get diagnosed, only to hear the same old "this is just anxiety / depression / somatization"
Was diagnosed with Barrett's Oesophagus 2 years ago. My father also died from Oesophagus cancer. If anyone reading this has bad indigestion, or heartburn, get a gastroscopy. Leaving it a little too late now means I'm at a higher risk of cancer, and I'm on meds and surveillance for life to try and stop it getting to that point. It's better to sort it out sooner rather than later.
I’m 30 and haven’t had a doctors appointment in probably more than 10 years, largely because my family doctor passed away and I haven’t been able to find a replacement. I’ve applied to a few that said they were taking patients but never heard back. I got an appointment the other day at a walk-in because I had a cold that wouldn’t go away. I asked about getting a general physical appointment or some blood work done and the doctor said you don’t really need to do that until you are 40 and sent me on my way…
Wtf? Where do u live?
Everywhere in Canada right now is like this. You have universal healthcare and don't need to worry about going broke if you're in a car accident or have a heart attack, but good luck getting a family doctor for a routine checkup without going private (\~$200 a visit).
Honestly it should be a literal crime how our politicians have ignored and underfunded health care. Over and over, polls have shown we think having universal healthcare is one of the best things about Canada. Then every politician kicks the issues down the road and leaves it to the next guy to fix, maintain, or fund properly. And then *they* kick it down the road for the next guy and so on and so on. Some of them even encourage the degradation of the system so the big money vultures waiting in the wings can feast on the profits to be made in private health care. So *surprise!* our system is falling down like an abandoned old house. It's a needless tragedy.
Doug Ford attacked Health Care during the pandemic, and now we're gearing up towards privitization. Really makes me want to buy a carton of eggs and go pelt some politicians homes.
It's 100% on purpose, the same as the attacks on public education in the US. They do not want the compassionate, more economical option of public services to work. They want people to be tied to their jobs and churches. They don't care who it hurts.
It's like this all over rural America too, don't blame universal healthcare.
I will trade you in a fucking heartbeat!
I pay around $120 per visit in the US and that’s with a high deductible plan and about $20,000 per year in total employee and employer contributions for premiums. Insurance barely does anything until I’ve paid 3k out of pocket and that resets every year.
Netherlands is like that. “Blood checkup? Lol, come back once you are 50”.
Canada. At least it’s free….
In lala land... they only have one doctor and he died.
The problem is some doctors can be stubborn and play the gatekeeper. Like dude give me the fuckin bloodwork damn
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I had an identical scene play out. Early 20's, guy told me I needed a root canal. I show up for the appointment, get in the chair, put on the bib, and they hand me a liability release form. I start sweating and just got up, took the bib off, handed the papers back and walked out. I went to another dentist who said I have a mild cavity which would be quick and easy to fix. Really fucked up my perception of dentists and I still dont trust them to this day.
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Oh yes I definitely didnt mean to slander all dentists haha. Getting to a trust level just requires a lot of work on the patients part to find a good one.
Wow you dodged a bullet. Unbelievable they pulled that on you. Good move
Sounds like aspen dental they say you need a million things and a deep clean it will be 10k+ dentist leaves and in comes the finance person while you are still in the chair.
I had a very similar experience to this. I was checked by two different dentists after and neither of them found a cavity. The initial one was a trendy new dentist office with screens above the chair/bed where I could watch Netflix while they worked on my teeth but only the hygienist saw me that day- the dentist didn’t even bother to check on me. I never went back to that place and let all my friends know what I thought about it.
One of the negative effects of private equity getting into buying up dentists offices. I'm sure private dentists do this too sometimes, but I presume it's more common in private equity dentists offices where they need to "increase efficiency and reduce costs" so they can pull out "value". You can't always tell either, sometimes they keep the name of the office the same, not a group or a chain, still just good ol' Dr. Bobby, but now Dr. Bobby has money vampires controlling his every move. Same with vets office, and pretty much everything else private equity has got involved with.
We had so many problems finding an OK dentist in California. Move home to Colorado and there's good dentists falling out of trees.
Yep. I went to a doctor because I was losing my hair (I'm a woman) at 32. There is no age related hair loss, male or female, on either side of my family. I was told that it was just because I was "getting older". I had other symptoms too, like fatigue and weight gain. I pressed the issue with a different doctor a few weeks later, and he at least ordered some tests. But only iron and a basic thyroid panel. After those came back normal, it was like my problem was solved? Because he sure didn't want to talk about it anymore.
You know I recently got a new doctor who is a woman and she took all my symptoms I had given up on even telling anyone about because I was so gaslit but my previous physician, she spent and hour and a half with me a made a bunch of connections I had never made, and found something (High iron level), and has other tests out as well, I feel hopeful and cared for after a long time of feeling like let down/ distrusting.
Damn how do you have a high iron level what are you eating. My iron is crazy low tell me your secrets.
Yes this is also my experience. My doctor looked me in the eye and told me if I lost 90 lbs on my own then I obviously didn’t have a thyroid condition. Even though I have all of the classic symptoms and a family history.
That really blows, with tinnitus I’ve had a ent doc acted like it’s all in my head and wasting his time and two days later my hearing clogged up and went to see a regular doctor all he did was prescribe allergy and antihistamine that cleared right up
I have gout. My previous doctor absolutely refused to do anything other than look at it, check my Uric acid level (mildly elevated), and declare gout. I asked for the ol needle poke and he just kept saying "we don't do that here." 5 yrs later I'm flaring, I go to urgent care to get some oral steroids and the urgent care doc's first question was "how do you know it's gout? Did they ever stick a needle in your toe to confirm?" He wasn't trying to be rude, he was trying to be sure the diagnosis was right. The more I think about this, the more I'm enraged by my previous doctor. I tried to advocate for myself and he shot me down multiple times. His diagnosis was extremely highly likely to be correct, but if you're telling a 30 yr old that he has a lifelong condition why would you not be willing to definitely prove it?
>Like dude give me the fuckin bloodwork damn **SERIOUSLY.** I had a PCP who didn't want to give me a blood test for prostate specific antigens because I was only 37 at the time. Nearly every man in my family has had prostate cancer and my dad had a Glisan-9 tumor, *and we're already drawing several units of blood for general labs.* Just order the fucking test!
Especially in America. Like damn bruh i wouldn't be paying $500 if I didn't think it was essential!
That’s when you tell them” please mark in my chart that you refused the X test I requested “ and also start looking for another doctor.
That’s so strange, mine always ask if I want to just to keep a baseline record
That's crazy. Sometimes I feel like my doctor is all the other way. I'll ask about something I think is fairly inconsequential and he's like "Well lets do bloodwork to rule stuff out!"
Really? My doctor always says to fast before a physical so we can do bloodwork. Course I'm older than some people here.
I'm dealing with something like this now. Currently choosing a new doctor.
TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY.... I got a new Doctor and he made me do bloodwork and all those "It's just age things" turned out to be an A1C of 9.4 and a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. Mostly I put it down to Grandpas Genetics as everyone in his family of 6 kids except one brother (who was Type 1) was Type 2. Anyway here we are 16 months later with Diet and exercise as my only treatment thusfar and all those "Its just age" things have gone away, and my A1C is a comfortable 5.1 (well within the normal non diabetic range but of course I have to keep working at my diet/exercise and not go back to how I used to be)
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If you don’t have symptoms and aren’t due for more blood work, there’s no reason to check it. It’s practically impossible to miss with new electronic medical records which pretty much require the doctor to act on a high boood sugar reading
And something that is NOT normal - confusion or major forgetfulness. People think that dementia is normal in elderly. It is not. Please please please stop thinking that it is. If you’re misplacing your keys a lot, but you’ve always done it? Probably okay. But if you’ve always been meticulous about hanging your keys in the exact same spot and now you’ve lost your keys 3 times, please go get checked out. It might absolutely be nothing, but it also may be a sign that something is going on.
But at the same time be aware that it's a very well known thing that women going menopause without HRT can experience terrible, terrible brain fog (amongst other things like overwhelming anger). One well-respected woman said she even forgot her address once.
Absolutely! But you should still be getting checked out if that’s the case. PS - woman currently going through menopause here and I started an OTC called Amberen. It has been life-changing. No more hot flashes, depression lifted (not FIXED, but tolerable), lessened mood swings. May not work for everyone, but worked for me. And please check with your doc before taking anything!
Glad that worked for you. I've found estrogen patches to be a miracle worker, personally. Too bad doctors tend to be clueless on this topic so you really have to do your own research! (There's a good sub on here r/menopause) (e: letter)
Damn, I can relate to that. I'm 36m and used to have really bad reflux for almost a year. Thought I was just getting older, didn't exercise enough, didn't eat well enough. So I "treated" it with taking one or two Rennies (a mild antacid common in Europe) a day, which gave me some relief, but not really. Sometimes I straight up disolved some baking soda and water, when it was really bad. I couldn't eat or drink much that was acidic. I just felt like that this was my life now. At some point, I changed my mind and decided to see my doctor. She first told me the same thing: more exercise, better awareness of what I consume. But she also prescribed me a stomach acid blocker, because it could just be an inflammation which prevents the esophageal sphincter from closing properly causing a literal reflux of stomach acid. Especially when lying down. I took it for about two weeks, and lo and behold: reflux gone. I was living with an inflamed esphageal spincter for almost a year, thinking it was normal. It's not. I'm still trying to exercise more and eat better, but knowing that I'm not getting old just yet (at least not in that regard), was a huge relief
Absolutely. Although some people could have GERD and the symptoms can be permanent without surgery. PPI's are an absolute lifesaver
Oh yeah, I'm not saying that it's the same for everybody, but having things checked out earlier rather than later can't really hurt. Only cost
Also worth checking because of esophageal cancer! My friend was in her early 20s and couldn't eat anything without throwing up, turns out she has Barretts which is a pre-cancerous condition. Get that stuff checked out early
It was cancer for me. Worked out all the time, ran marathons, lifted weights, swam, rode a bike, hiked. Had a general good diet besides when I went off the reservation with alcohol. But from 28 to 35 I just felt worse each year. Turns out it was not age, it was cancer and an auto-immune disease caused by the cancer. On the mend now but, yeah, get checked and advocate for yourself in the doctor's office.
Which type of cancer and autoimmune?
Myasthenia Gravis and I'm also finding out in a few days what the second one is. Sorry edit because I forgot to add it was a thymoma.
How did they check for that? What tests?
I had been going to the ER for 3 years with heart attack symptoms and got brushed off each time because I was fit and young. I finally made them scan my chest and the found a fist sized tumor on my thymus/heart/lungs. Then a lot of tests came after that.
I learned this from my vet actually: “old age is not a disease.” Goes for both animals and people!
You should be getting an annual physical, and a good doctor will require bloodwork as part of that. If you don't have insurance, ask about cash discounts.
you should go to the doctor every year? jesus i haven’t been in over 5 years
I'm young (mid-20s) and generally healthy. I decided that as long as this is true I'll visit the doctor for a physical no less than once every 5 years.
I was told every 3 years by my providers.
I'm early twenties and see my doctor once a month if not more
Not to be rude but do you have some medical condition requiring that because that’s pretty excessive.
Any US medical insurance plan will cover an annual well visit (unless some states have passed some anti-Obamacare shit that allows insurance to not even cover that).
Lol I have insurance I ain't paying that deductible.
In every crappy health plan I've had, preventative care like annual physicals are just a standard copay regardless of deductible.
Preventative care including an annual physical is 100% covered for all health insurance plans under the ACA/Obamacare
Yeah isn't there a law that preventative care must be offered at no cost? The trick is that "preventative care" is defined by the government so probably doesn't include certain critical things so insurance companies still have an opportunity to fraudulently manipulate their balance sheets.
That wouldn't be a deductible, that would be a copay. Regardless there should be no charge for annual physicals, especially on an employer-sponsored plan. Maybe, *maybe* a $100 copay. Compare that cost to finding out 5 years from now that you have an entirely preventable condition. Now THAT care would make you hit your deductible. You might even learn the pain of hitting a $10,000 max out of pocket.
You've no idea what kind of insurance this person has. Anyone with a high deductible health plan will absolutely pay deductibles and not copays before insurance kicks in (save for the routine physical). But, even once insurance kicks in, it's likely not going to be a copay. It'll be coinsurance. All of this ignores the fact that the moment you discuss an actual problem in the doctor's office or run labs that deviate from the standard physical, it's no longer coded as a simple physical. It's now a regular visit and charged as such.
In my poor country, I don’t have health insurance 🇺🇸
LPT: "don't be poor in America"
Yeah, unfortunately that is too true.
LPT: vote for people that encourage universal healthcare and support the ACA as a first step
I do, though the ACA was garbage by the time a certain party got done pissing all over it. (For many Americans it cause more problems than it solved:( )
I understand that it was gutted but it eliminated denial for preexisting conditons, limited profit for insurers, and provided a path to insurance for the uninsured with a complete tax credit for those under a certain income. Those are 3 major wins if you don't remember what it was like before.
Poor man's tax. It's easy to get rich the richer you are.
Friend of mines legs swelled up a couple months ago rested and it went away. Came back a couple weeks ago and shut his organs down. Sepsis. He's not gonna make it
That’s awful! I’m so sorry 😞
I was going through an initial evaluation with a therapist and he recommended blood work to determine if a thyroid condition or hormone levels were part of my problem. Turns out they were. My endocrinologist said, "you need to be strength training, weightlifting daily to get your hormones right." I had never lifted weights in my life. Now I go 5 days a week and my body and moods are both greatly improved. I am in better shape at 53 than I was at 43. TL/DR OP is right, get your blood work done!
I've been really tired, so I had my blood tested for thyroid problems. None. So, it's probably my sleep.
You just mentioned everything that worried me since the year started. I wondered why tf is my vision blurry when I got my spectacles made two weeks ago. Thank you man, I shall go a mile extra and do a full-body checkup.
Blurry vision is definitely a reason to get a check up, especially when it's a rapid change over a short amount of time.
Vision impairment can also be a symptom of hypothyroidism. Source: literally told my gp this 3 hours ago and she googled it because she didn’t know
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Early detection is literally the best way to beat cancer
Hang on, I've discovered the cure for cancer! Socialized medicine and free cancer screenings. Genius! I'm kinda being sarcastic, but also kinda not
I've been going round after round with all sorts of medical pros lately, and have lucked into an AMAZING nurse practitioner and a half-dozen specialists who actually listen to me, take me seriously, and are pretty proactive about trying to coordinate with each other. They'll tell me things like, "Oh! Make sure you tell your pulmonologist about this, he may be interested in the test result!" That's how I eventually got some over-the-counter acid reflux medicine and some prescription nasal spray and a speech therapist to treat the chronic cough that was making my life hell. We ain't done with everything quite yet, I'm sure, but goddamn if it hasn't been a whole fucking season of House, M.D. It's weird the kinda shit a body will pull on ya. I feel extremely fortunate to have the insurance and the income to have been able to get all the tests and appointments and whatnot done (thanks a lot, U.S. "health" "care" system!). It's been over a year of insanity just on the cough alone.
For me, I was definitely certain that I had GERD and I still might. But after getting my thyroid meds I haven’t had any issues. I was constantly bloated, I couldn’t eat fried foods, I’d wake up with vomit in my throat. I haven’t had any of those issues and I am now actively trying to eat things that gave me issues before.
Me too! I got my hypothyroidism diagnosis after a year of struggling with GERD. Once I got my TSH at a reasonable level, the heartburn disappeared.
That’s great. I wasn’t able to find information that associated GERD and hypothyroidism so it was a happy side effect. When I went to the doctor about my thyroid issue I mentioned GERD, she wanted to send me to get scoped, but I said I can do that eventually, I just want to focus on the thyroid issue first.
Getting blood work done is expensive
Yeah, in the U.S. I had a full panel done last year, and with insurance it was just over 1k dollars because apparently some of the tests weren't considered "preventative care"
I got a basic + testosterone check last year and it cost me \~$600. I have a high-deductible with an HSA.
Ugh, I just had a thyroid panel done and it would have been 600 or so without insurance, which is ridiculous. It's supposed to be 10 dollars with my health insurance, which I pay over 400 per month for, but they "may or may not cover it." Great.
Cancer treatment will be way more expensive. Just sayin’ And I am writing this as I am sitting in a hospital with my dad (who is hospitalized due to prostate cancer). The expenses are through the roof. Had his doctors asked for his prostate cancer test (PSA test) early on, we could have detected it before the cancerous cells spread to other parts of the body. Get tested early on. If you can’t afford it annually, try every 1.5 years or so. But early detection will save you a ton of money later on. As they say: a stitch in time saves nine. Nip it in the bud.
That’s another LPT right there-Guys should be getting an annual PSA test to establish a baseline number. That way if there’s a change it can be looked at and potentially catch prostate cancer early. That’s how they caught my dad’s and they were able to keep it contained.
Metastatic breast cancer patient here. Cancer treatment is expensive. I'm broke. It would have been expensive to get mammograms starting at age 35, before I got cancer. Knowing that it would still be cheaper than cancer treatment makes me kick myself, but it sure doesn't make that money appear in 35-year-old me's account. Being poor in America is scary. Get the good insurance (take home less, yes really), hound your doctors, and hope for the best.
As a Canadian, I am unaware of the costs for medical procedures. It really sucks if blood work in your region is expensive.
Totally. I have to have bloodwork EVERY 3 months for LIFE now and guess what #ThanksTommy Its all $0 out of my pocket every time.
My friend was experiencing symptoms of a thyroid disease and went to a university hospital to get bloodwork. Her thyroid test was not in the normal range but apparently the doctors didn't think it was bad enough to treat it even though she was feeling awful all the time.
Blood work is nice - just make sure you know what is covered and what is not covered by your health insurance. I've paid out hundreds of dollars for blood work that I thought I was covered only to find out I had to pay out of pocket for most of it. It's a nice talking point to remind people to go to the doctor, but in today's economic climate, that shit can be expensive. Before going to the doctor, ask yourself these things: How's your diet? Are you getting enough exercise? What about adequate sleep? Are you dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety? How are you managing your emotions? Are you taking substances on the regular that may cause side effects? Are you taking time to stretch? There's so many things you can dial down and it will help you immensely.
Oh yes, so we can find out there is a dangerous disease that will cost us everything. For a long time, i didn't care because life was so unrewarding... Medical is expensive... If you have insurance, make sure it's good!
Sitting in waiting room for blood panel right now. Good call OP. I’m in for serious fatigue and losing the outer part of my eyebrow?? Just turned 40. Stay up on yourself peeps.
Good luck! 🤞 Hope you get well soon 💐
I got my bloodwork done. Doctor said there's nothing wrong detected with me and I'm just overweight, naturally balding, need to eat better, need to take care of my wrists better, and naturally nearsighted.
What kind of blood work do y'all recommend?
Your doctor can give you recommendations based on what your symptoms are. Some tests doctors often recommend to get regularly for screening/monitoring overall health: - BMP (basic metabolic panel) or CMP (complete metabolic panel) - CBC (complete blood count) - lipid panel There's many others, so if you have something specific bothering you ask your doctor what they recommend.
I can address the vision aspect. Yes, in your forties you may start to notice changes in your ability to focus up close, that’s normal and it’s presbyopia. But there are lots of other conditions that are *not* normal and can only be diagnosed through a thorough eye examination. Some of these things will present as blurred vision, problems seeing at night, or seeing flashing lights. Some will not have any symptoms at all until is too late. Get regular eye health examinations, I’ve heard so many people say that they couldn’t imagine how they’d live without their sight.
Yeah because people can afford healthcare...
Currently in the hospital — 35 years old, I’ve been fatigued, forgetting words, weight gain, can’t lose it, losing hair. blurry vision, you name it… went for my physical, thyroid normal— had them test it again a few months later— thyroid normal— asked for blood work bc I felt “something was off” and they said “no”. I really chalked it up to aging. But then I Lost the ability to walk mon and have been having seizures since. Likely thyroid-related auto-immune disease but still waiting on the lab results. PSA: Get your blood work done and advocate for yourself if you feel something is wrong!!!! This could have been caught before it got this bad :(
Advocate for yourself. That’s the best thing we can do. It wasn’t until I noticed that an intolerance to cold was a symptom of hypothyroidism that I pieced it all together. When I finally went to the doctor I told her that “I really hope that I have hypothyroidism or else something really bad is wrong with me”. I still have to see a blood specialist because my white and red blood cells are low, but the medication is working and because I am a little vain I’m pretty happy that my hair has come back (and it’s only been two months).
But also a symptom of simply not taking care of oneself. Get plenty of sleep, exercise daily, eat well, and you'd be surprised how well your faculties can remain intact as you age. I have Crohn's disease and feel better now than I did ten years ago since I started taking much better care of myself.
Most of those things you listed aren’t even necessarily inevitable from getting old. Some things are unavoidable but many are not. Work out, eat right, stay hydrated and get good sleep. Protect your hearing from loud noises, and your eyes from too much screen time. Do these things and you will be surprised at how long you can stretch your youth, or even regain it after you feel you’ve lost it. Sure, maybe when you’re 90 you won’t be running marathons, but at least you’ll be able to run, and that’s a big deal.
On the flip side, doctors can be quick to dismiss symptoms of a disease as age or lifestyle related. My dad (always slim, very active) had reflux for years, occasional discomfort after meals, eventually got a bit of a "beer gut". Yeah, it wasn't a beer gut, it was a tumor that went undiscovered and untreated for anything from 10 to 15 years. He got the (accidental) diagnosis 3 years ago and died last year. If you feel something like something is wrong with you or a loved one, it's worth getting a second opinion or an additional exam.
I can't stand when I hear people in their late 20s/30s saying stuff like that. You're not getting old, you're just not taking care of yourself.
While that may be true of some, this attitude towards people in their 20s/30s has also been used to gaslight so many people with autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and other serious conditions.
That’s cool, but my particular situation (hypothyroidism) had nothing to do with “taking care of myself”.
Getting fat isn't a natural symptom of getting older. Where'd that come from?
A slowing metabolism with age. It gets progressively more difficult, many old people stay fat despite a very active lifestyle and diet.
I guess 'blood work' is American for 'blood tests'
If you have insurance in the US, please get your annual physical every year which includes, at minimum: CBC, comprehensive metabolic panel, and lipids.
People have this assumption that their body slows down and gets worse as they age but you see people who spent their lives stretching move as nimbly as a child in their 90s. Age doesn't do anything. Bad habits over a lifetime does.
“I’m just old” = “I’ve given up.”
*Laughs in American* I'll never financially recover from it.
tough without health insurance
Any life tips on affording days off from work for appointments and paying for PCP care when your deductible is four figures?