10 Things That Don't Age Well
1. Eyes. “Can I have a light with that menu?” Presbyopia
will hit you after the age of 40. You will notice it's more difficult
to focus on objects up close because of presbyopia. This is normal and
happens due to hardening of the lens inside your eye. When you first
notice presbyopia you may be able to compensate by holding your reading
material farther away or holding a light to it. Eventually you will
need reading glasses, multifocal contact lenses, or multifocal
eyeglasses.
2. Ears. “Say what?” Age-related hearing loss,
or presbycusis, is the slow loss of hearing that occurs as people get
older. Tiny hairs inside your ear help you hear and hearing loss occurs
when the tiny hairs inside the ear are damaged or die. About half of
all people over age 75 have some amount of age-related hearing loss. We
lose high frequency hearing first so women’s voices become harder to
hear than men’s voices (how convenient.)
3. Sclera.
The whites, well the “off whites” of your eyes. The color of the
sclera changes with age from bluish (in babies) to yellowish. This is
likely because of accumulation of fat in the scleral tissue.
4. Skin, especially on the neck. Wrinkles
on the neck show your age, no matter how many creams you’ve put on it.
The neck contains thinner skin, which is more sensitive to sun damage
and other factors that wrinkle the skin. The muscles and skin tissue
supporting the neck area are also weaker than that of the face so neck
skin is more vulnerable to gravity over time.
5. Knees and hips. All those years of no pain, no gain. There is no way to completely prevent the onset of osteoarthritis.
Degenerative joint disease affects up to 80 percent of the elderly and
can be debilitating. The only good news here is that some people who
have knee and hip arthritis won’t have any symptoms. Oh, and there is
also the option of knee and hip replacement.
6. Talk to the thumb.
Arthritis of the thumb occurs at the joint found at the base of the
thumb, where the thumb meets the wrist. This joint, the carpometacarpal
(CMC) joint, is important when trying to grip or pinch. Thumb arthritis
is more common in women than men, and increases in frequency over the
age of 40 years.
Anti-inflammatories, splints and cortisone injections may help, and surgery only as a last resort.
7. Memory. “What was his name again?” Normal age-related memory loss
doesn't prevent you from living a full and productive life. You will
notice, however, you may forget a person's name, but recall it later in
the day. You might misplace your glasses or find that you need to make
lists more often than in the past in order to remember appointments or
tasks. That, my friends, is “normal” with aging.
8. The breasts. The
one time we want more fat. In your 50s and 60s, hormonal changes will
cause the amount of fat in your breasts to decline which will shrink
your breasts. As women go through menopause, fat will replace most of
the breast tissue and cause the breast to lose elasticity.
9. The valve at the end of your esophagus. “Why
can’t I eat spicy Thai food now that I’m over 50?” Reflux disease
(GERD) is more common in the elderly and causes heartburn with spicy
foods. There is a valve at the lower end of the esophagus that is
designed to keep acid in the stomach. In GERD, the valve relaxes too
frequently, which allows acid to reflux, or flow backward.
10. The pelvic floor. Ladies, do your Kegels.
The pelvic floor is the muscles and ligaments that support the
bladder, uterus, vagina and rectum, and it starts to fail as we get
older. Symptoms include problems with urinary incontinence and
prolapse of the bladder or uterus. Twenty seven percent of women ages
40 to 59 and 37 percent of women ages 60 to 79 will experience pelvic
floor dysfunction.
What did I miss?
