Bladder on the blink: 5 signs my body is ageing

Ah, the ageing paradox: as we age, our body starts to decline, but our mental health and well-being improve. Strange.

I’ve noticed a few changes since my twenties that are definitely for the better. 

I’m less anxious about stuff. Or should I say, I’m anxious about the right kind of stuff. I overthink things less, worry less about what people think and don’t let my anxiety paralyse me as much. It gives me focus.

I have a lot less FOMO these days. Back in the day, I’d be distraught if I missed a football match or a social event of any kind. Now I’m happy doing my own thing (most of the time). 

But while my maturity, self-esteem and well-being have improved since hitting the big Three-O, I’m also acutely aware of my body’s response to the relentless march of time. (By the way, a TMI warning here. If bodily functions make you uncomfortable, you might want to skip over a sub-heading or two, or read one of my more sanitary posts.)

Bladder bother

I’ve always been a prodigious pee-er due to a combination of a small bladder, a fast metabolism and excessive amounts of tea. When I’m drinking cider, it’s literally a 1:1 pints-to-pisses ratio. A good source of laughter for whoever I’m out with.

But I’ve always been pretty comfortable holding it for a while. Until recently. 

There’s been a couple of occasions where I’ve had to make a speedy exit. Cutting short a shopping trip to rush home to the loo. Nipping into the bushes during a half-marathon. Sneaking out of class midway through a lesson. 

Before a recent school trip, the leader asked the class the standard, “Now, who needs to go to the toilet before we set off?” I think she was only expecting the children to put up their hands. Embarrassing. 

Perhaps the most irritating feature of my bladder bother is the fact it wakes me up after 5½ to 6 hours of sleep without fail. Often, this gets me up at that awkward time when you just can’t get back to sleep. So I regularly find myself ever-so-slightly sleep-deprived. 

The good news is that as my bladder continues to weaken, it’ll get to the point where it wakes me up after 4 hours, at which point I should be able to nod back off and get a decent night’s kip.  

Dawn of the dad-bod

I’ve always been quite lucky that my weedy physique and fast metabolism meant I didn’t put on weight easily. Up until recently, I could eat and drink whatever I wanted, do minimal exercise and still keep pretty trim. 

However, following a particularly indulgent Christmas, I looked into the mirror to be confronted with my new reality…

A magnificent, bulbous pot belly staring back at me. 

I’d already mastered the art of dad dancing long before becoming a dad, and my repertoire of shit dad jokes was steadily growing. Now I had graduated to the dad-bod.

While the dad-bod is fantastic and most men carry it off wonderfully, it isn’t for me.

The fact that my limbs and frame are so skinny means that excess weight around my midriff gives me the appearance of Humpty-Dumpty – the egg-on-legs. 

It won’t do, which is one of the main reasons why I’m now a pretty keen runner. 

Greys and wrinkles

This is one unavoidable effect of ageing I’m not particularly bothered about. I’ve always had a very youthful appearance. I was still sometimes getting ID-ed at 28.

While some might consider this a good thing, even enviable, I haven’t always felt that way about it.

At school, I was the youngest, smallest and pretty much the last person in my year to hit puberty, so I always had a bit of a complex about my child-like look. I wanted to look more like an adult, basically. 

And now that’s finally happening. 

My forehead sports a couple of characterful creases and each time my closely cropped back and sides grow out a little bit, I notice one or two more greys.

Probably the stress of teaching for a few years has contributed to this. Whilst I don’t mind my more mature appearance, I also don’t want to look middle-aged before my time. 

It’s a reminder to look after myself a bit better. 

Pains and stiffness

I didn’t look after my body well at all as a young adult. 

As a competitive footballer, I’d put myself through intense weekends playing Saturdays and Sundays and training several times a week. I didn’t bother strengthening my muscles and my post-match recovery usually involved a night on the tiles followed by a 4 a.m curry. 

I’d get injured pretty often but I’d always try and come back before it was properly sorted. 

The fact is, my slender frame isn’t particularly robust and I put it under too much strain. While I didn’t really suffer many after-effects in my twenties, it’s certainly catching up with me now. 

At any given time, some part of my body is in pain. Most often it’s my right knee, which has sustained a few injuries. My ankle ligaments, also weakened by repeated injuries, often click and twang painfully. 

Because of these aches and pains, my gait is sometimes affected as my body automatically compensates. This causes grief for my back. Occasionally, my left wrist, which I once broke pretty badly, will seize up. 

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes stuff hurts after I’ve been exercising pretty hard. Sometimes it starts hurting when I’ve been doing nothing at all.

Hopefully, I’ll find a way to manage it and it won’t become a massive problem. I’m worried that by 40 I could be a cripple, or some kind of bionic man with half a dozen joint replacements.  

Peepers going to pot

I’ve always had tip-top vision. I often thought that if I lived in the Stone Age, I’d be the one perched on a rock, high above a sprawling valley on the lookout for distant herds of bison for our tribe to hunt.

I didn’t really, that’d just be weird. But I prided myself on my eyesight. 

That was until around a year ago when I started getting headaches when I was driving or on my computer. 

I put it down to stress and tiredness. But then one day when our nieces were visiting, I tried on a pair of their glasses as a joke and looked out of the window. Lo and behold, the houses in the distance suddenly materialised. My long-distance vision had been gradually deteriorating, I just hadn’t noticed. 

While my near-vision is still fine, anything beyond a few feet is like watching TV on an old set that doesn’t have HD. 

It’s only gonna get worse, so here’s hoping I can afford laser eye surgery before it gets too bad.

I wonder what other delights are in store for me as I hobble and squint my way through my thirties.

When did you first notice your body starting to shed its youthful invincibility? Let me know.