Turning 28 in a month and in the past year everything has gotten drastically worse.
Is this just a normal part of aging or am I unlucky? I mean I am almost 30 but it just seemed kind of sudden idk.
Like for example my varicose veins have gotten exponentially worse this year, I feel like my skin is sagging a lot over my whole body, and I feel like I’ve lost muscle mass, like significantly. To be fair I wasn’t as active as usual but in other similar situations I was never looking this way.
Doctors said I’m fine btw. I’m just so exhausted and it’s depressing seeing this shit.
The varicose veins and skin sagging reminds me a lot of the condition I have, Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome (EDS). I was diagnosed at your age and am 30 now. I need things like to use a cane or a walking frame, and other supports at times. Not saying this is for sure what you have but it might be worth bringing up to your doctor because I spent several years wondering the fluff was going on until I found a good doctor that helped me figure it out.
Other signs can be:
- Bruising easily
- Getting dizzy when you stand up
- Having stretchy joints, especially elbows, fingers, lower back (touching toes) and knees
- Stretch marks that seem to get bigger, even without weight gain
- Scars that get worse over time, or keloid scars
Doctors said I’m fine btw. I’m just so exhausted and it’s depressing seeing this shit.
They don’t like saying “well I don’t know”.
Have you ever tried an exclusion diet?
I was honestly desperate and fucking dying, doctors dismissed me, but then I figured out I had Non-celiac gluten insensitivity.
Feels like I got my life back.
It might not be that for you, but diet is a huge thing, and by “exclusion diet” I mean eating basically only rice, potatoes, fish or chicken for a week or two. Those are basically devoid of allergens, gluten, dairy, nuts, everything.
Because some allergies can do you harm without being obvious like “closes your throat youre gonna die” obvious.
Idk prolly not that but who knows and would it hurt to try?
Before 27 I was invincible, I could party and abuse my body as much as I liked and it would just take it like a champ.
After that it dropped sharply off a cliff, and since then I need to take care of nutrition, sleep, exercise etc.
Welcome to the club, you’re no longer invincible and need to worry about maintenance. It’s normal.
Exercise dude
We met this guy who has Parkinson’s at the track. Cool dude. They called him “Shaky.” He was struggling pretty bad.
He ended up cleaning up his diet and exercising regularly and looks a million times better. He says his symptoms lessened and he was able to do things he couldn’t even ten years before.
Living like a couch potato eating nothing but processed plastic foods has a marked impact.
It’s less that “everything goes to shit at 28” and more that “as you age your body becomes worse and worse at recovering from shit it used to shake off like it was nothing”
Allergic reactions, pains from being sedentary or from doing exercise wrong or from overwork, drinking and hangovers, obesity, genetic conditions you were always prone to – Stuff that as a younger person wasn’t so much of a problem even if it was there, start being more and more of a problem. And more and more of a danger.
Breaking a leg as an 18 year old and breaking a leg as a 30 year old are radically different experiences.
The better you take care of your body, the less bad it is. But well. You’re aging.
The trick is taking care of your body more like how you take care of your car than how you take care of the ant hills in the cracks of your sidewalk.
Wait for the service light to turn on then ignore it for months until you hear a grinding sound?
That’s the way I’ve been doing it since the second kid. But YMMV.
Doesn’t work on me, my car is all banged up and I don’t give two shits about it as long as it remains road-legal.
Keep doing exercise, don’t. Ever. Stop.
I’ve stopped multiple times over the years and it gets progressively harder to get back in shape. Just stay in shape and even then, yes, your body will deteriorate over time, just a lot less
Only if you’re a carpenter
Are you sedentary a lot? If so, that’s the issue. Start by just getting on the floor and stretching. Get a feel for your body, what makes you uncomfortable, learn about what you can and can’t do. Then start working on addressing stuff by stretching and simple things like planking. Then move into outdoor walks and go from there. But don’t get straight into exercise mode without preparing your body and mind first. Then everything else will fall into place.
I had to learn that nutrition and sports (cardio) are essential to health
Roughly the same age here. Sure, some minor issues start to accumulate. I broke some stuff that will probably haunt me forever. My teeth had some issues earlier. But everything else? I finally started doing enough sport, and the effects are visible in just weeks. No, you should not fall apart, and if you do, it is high time you fix it.
You broke some stuff?
I did some stupid things, broke a few bones. It is mostly fine, but mostly fine is not 100% fine, and some days I notice. Things accumulate. But that is not an excuse. I had a boss once that looked like he’d be able to bench-press half the office and complained about too many women hitting on him. I had a teacher who was at least approaching 50 and whose ideal holiday was spending more time on a bike than off. It’s never too late for that.
Short answer, no, it is not normal unless you have some kind of illness.
28 years of age is usually too young for your body to fall apart. It is enough time that your bad habits begin to show results, such as muscle loss, muscle imbalances, etc. This is usually caused by your life style. As you get older, its more important for you to do maintenance on your body and watch what you are consuming.
If your life is too stationary, then you will start to see yourself falling apart. The old saying of “If you don’t use it, you lose it” starts to hold true with time. How “aged” your body feels really depends on how active you are with it, to an extent. There are people twice your age that are in fantastic shape, that is because they put in work to maintain their bodies.
It is time to introduce some good habits to your routine. Eat a bit better, move around more, more active activities, etc. You will start to feel better again before you know it. Good luck.
Seconding. Early 30s, went to the doc with a set of strange new pains. Turns out I’ve been too sedentary and much of it started to improve with just a couple hours of walking every day
Im 45 and im fine, i do hard physical labour without much stress. No (big) health issues. The trick is to not be overweight, and have a decent lifestyle. And it’s not like im some kind of health guru, i smoked until i was 36, i never played any sport, sat around gaming… It honestly doesn’t take that much to be healthier. So really all the people complaining that things go downhill after you’re thirty are full of shit. There is no reason why you can’t grow muscle, endurance, and generally condition yourself way into your 50s. If your body is breaking down after 30 you either have physical problems or you aren’t actually living healthy in earnest.
Genetics play a role as well. Not to brag, but my siblings and I still look young for our age even though we are in our thirty’s. One of my friends also still looks good.
What you say overall though is correct that lifestyle plays a massive role. In my friend group, only me and my said friend still look great for our age, and perhaps because our jobs are more physically demanding. The rest of my friends have office jobs or working from home, so they do not get more physical exercise and gained weight severely. But having office jobs is not really even much of an excuse not to exercise. I work on shifts but I exercise when I get days off. To be honest, I find that too many people can be hedonistic and gets turned off by slight feeling of discomfort, which is why they don’t exercise.
No it’s not normal.
How are you eating habits affected? Is your skin more pale or yellow? Are you overworking consistently? You ever take a vacation, maybe recently? Do you drink or smoke regularly? Have you been hiking or exposed to a lot of insects lately? Do you eat a lot of sugar and have a family history of diabetes?
It could be a lot of things, but I’m betting you’re doing something wrong habit wise and it’s just starting to catch up with, or a nasty tic bit you.
Idk it’s not like I’m working that much either I just feel like I’m dying. I did take a vacation and felt better for like a week after lol. But I was also tired during the vacation cause I had to walk all day everyday and my legs were in crippling pain due to my varicose veins. I feel like that vacation might’ve been what made them significantly worse ngl. Didn’t help that my abusive ex wouldn’t help me or let me sit
Abusive ex didn’t let you fucking sit? That’s a lot to unravel and the likely source of your trouble. Like if you have anxiety or trouble relaxing physically or mentally you should talk to a therapist about it and do some research. I also recommend doing light and soft exercise like yoga and stretching to help with you blood flow and legs. Improving that seems tricky but very doable with some time, focus, and kindness.
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That’s no good.
Stress can have a severe impact on your health
Your young enough that everything should be working fine
Change your diet to not be hostile to your health
- remove sugars
- remove alcohol
- keep your blood glucose as low as possible all the time
Get some sunlight exposure everyday, on your bare skin
Do some level of daily exercise, walking, stairs… anything to get your body moving and the blood flowing
If you want more guidance you can see a functional medicine doctor and get checked out, or explore more extensive eating pattern improvements like a ketogenic diet.
I am assuming as low as possible means not eating huge amounts of sugar, not going into hypoglycemia regularly ;)
s/huge/any/
Unless your diabetic, you don’t really have to worry about hypoglycemia, not eating sugar/carbs is the single biggest thing people can do for their health.
I started to develop a gut for the first time around the same age (after being so skinny people would comment about it). I think you’re probably noticing regular aging, but you can probably slow the trend via a healthier lifestyle. Get active, improve your diet, maybe check with a different doc just to be sure.
This is what I was going to say.
Falling apart at 28 isn’t normal, but what is normal at 28 is having your body suddenly stop giving you a hall pass. That’s very relatable.
Get 8 hours of sleep a night, walk and bike when you can, eat your greens, etc. and you might notice a difference.
having your body suddenly stop giving you a hall pass.
Great way to put it. I’m close to OPs age, and while I won’t say I’m “falling apart” to the extent they are, things definitely are starting to have consequences. Sleep deprivation was the most shocking; used to be able to get 4-6 hours of sleep for several consecutive days of activity, then sleep on over the weekend and be completely fine. Now, if I get less than 7, chances are pretty good that I’m not gonna have a great day tomorrow.
