I wake up every morning with pain in the fingers of my left hand. Looming arthritis. It goes off during the day but I can see a time coming when it doesn't. There goes guitar playing then.

for 'a nice cup of tea' about five minutes into starting something, and at similar intervals thereafter.

And then finding the tea bags in the fridge.

Unwanted hair

chap, you have my deepest sympathies on the back thing. I have the same and suffer from the odd spasm in the morning that leaves me feeling bloody helpless, in a lot of sodding pain until I manage to right myself. A few words of advice - always tends to happen first thing in the morning (when the spinal column is at its most vulnerable) so when getting out of bed, try and rotate yourself on the small of your back before putting feet down (in other words, jumping out of bed is a no-no), don't use heat treatment unless you do heat - cold treatment alternately. The latter is the best and I use a cold pad (you can get them from chemist and they can either be placed in freezer or microwave). My problem is the ligaments are inflamed or they inflame occasionally hence heat is not the best cure. Go and see a good osteopath, mine has worked minor miracles on me not least of which is I now have the ability to talk reasonably intelligently whilst creased up in the most awkward foetus like position whilst being pummelled gently. Avoid painkillers, I took 4 very strong ones in a day when I was in bloody agony and I only recovered the power of speech about a week later. People tell me pilates would be good but never tried it.

Other signs of aging - farting loudly in the open hoping nobody catches you and if they do, not really caring too much. Mind you, some friends have suggested this the most definable trait in me.

Good luck with the back.

Gout,Diabetes,Blind in one eye, lactose intolerence, dicky shoulder ...moan groan moan etc etc!

Yet I can't sit down or get up without making a groaning noise of some sort.

My close up vision has gone bonkers over the past few years.

I am constantly whacking my hands off things that my eyes and brain tell me are quite... far... away... but turn out to be RIGHT THERE. Reading now requires me to remove my specs and slowly draw the words towards my face until they come into focus. Both of these afflictions collide when I take something out of the fridge - batter my poor fingers off the handle and then squint at a jar of olives for a minute or two.

On the plus side, I find myself constantly looking over the tops of my glasses, thus effecting the transformation into the fusty old academician I always wanted to be.

I will be 40 in February.

I honestly always thought it was 'How's your bird's lumbago'. I never questioned why a budgerigar would be so afflicted.

Back on topic, apart from my now wounded pride, I think my pointing finger on my right hand has arthritis or something around the knuckle. I am quite an angry man as it goes, and therefore do a fair amount of pointing. This is unfortunate.

Takes a good day to recover. Never used to be this way.

More the way it's going grey.

Well, couldn't do that any more even if I wanted to.

As for the back thing (he says, putting one arm in coat), I find that never making any physical movement suddenly and without thinking pays dividends.

... to do what you used to do all night. I have a friend who says this happens to him.

is getting bigger. Does that happen?

Earlobes still seem the same, thankfully.

5C, muchos sympathicos, I did my back in 4 years ago, took a good 9 months to get better again. Most such cases go away after a day or two, but if it don't then here's some useful serving suggestions.

Go see the doc if it ain't better after 3 days or so, let him or her make their mind up how bad it is, and expect to be put on a course of NSAIDs - non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. These will bring down a certain amount of any inflammation, could sort you out within a few days.

The doc will probably also give you a series of exercises to do - mine did; despite the discomfort, they apparently speed up the recovery process. Also get a lumber roll - basically a cylindrical pillow - that supports your back but only as long as you are adopting the correct sitting posture.

I gave it about 5 months, at which point the pain had gone but there was a general stiffness (simmer!), until I went to a chiropracter (I asked what the difference was to him between a chiropracter and an osteopath - his 'umble opinion was that 'you'll probably only need to see me once', read into that what you will). And he was right, one visit, and a day later I was backflipping with the rest of the ninjas! Well, the stiffness had receded and with a new regime of exercises called the Alexander Technique (got a decent book by the Kiwi instigator of this methodology on Amazon), a week later and I was almost back to full movement. Hope this helps.

As for the symptons of aging, I'm 42 and yet every morning both Achilles give me a right load of grief, have to stretch 'em and everything. And then there's the ol' hairy back, on the Hardwicke hirsute scale, I'm somewhere between 'Turkish bodyguard' and 'Greek granny' - its one step removed from having a actual pelt!

BR
FT

...when your mind makes a promise,
that your body can't fill...

I was snowed in from last Wednesday until this Monday. I never normally get to watch The Ashes because I have to get up for work fairly early.

So, imagine my disappointment when, on Thursday night as I prepared to watch a whole day's play live from Adelaide, I managed to fall asleep before a ball was bowled before waking up at 6.40am, cold and uncomfortable. I was so irritated, I didn't even bother watching what little remained.

As a youth, I stayed awake for a couple of days on several occasions. I didn't reach Keef's dizzy heights, but I didn't have many problems then.

Now I am a total lightweight.

Musn't grumble

On waking up or after I'd been sitting for a while (Aching Men's Feet, wasn't that a Genesis track?). It got progressively worse so that some mornings I could barely walk. I'd put it down to ageing or even gout. Fortunately, the GP despatched me to a podiatrist who prescribed corrective insoles and, after a few weeks, the problem has virtually disappeared.

I only mention this because it illustrates that health problems do not always just have to be put up with. Oh, and because everybody likes to talk about their ailments.

My right knee began seizing up every few weeks a couple of years ago. I would like to have put that down to my intensive Triathlon training but I can't really because I don't know which activities make up the Triathlon. I know there's a lot of running, grimacing and denial involved but they must be more specific than that.

Anyway, bored of periodic episodes of painful stiffness I finally had a touch of arthritis in the joint diagnosed last year. This upset me rather; it meant that I may over time become much worse (you can't predict just how much) and it meant that if anyone asked what was wrong if they saw me limping I would have to admit to 'having a touch of arthritis'. Which would make me sound like Private Godfrey out of Dad's Army.

Also, again like Private Godfrey, I'm a heavy toilet user. Nocturnal widdling is the latest addition to the canon of my bodily failures. Often accompanied by an unbidden fart of seismic proportions which not only wakes me up but has car alarms going off all along the Close.

Nose and Ear hair. It's become almost miraculously virulent since I hit my 40's. My wife watches it grow in real time if the telly's crap. 'Look at the hair in your ears!' she will shout. Pointlessly.

"I wish I had a sister called Dolly', I reply. 'She'd make me cakes for tea' That confuses her.

There should, strictly speaking, be a "Gor Blimey" affixed prior to the "Hello..." for you to earn maximum points

(retreats to karsey etc...)

I can't stand immobile for long at gigs any more. I'm okay if I move around a bit but if I stand still for long my lower back/upper thighs ache like hell. Long journeys on crowded trains are unpleasant.Also affects me when doing the washing-up if there's a lot of it. Really long-distance driving is painful unless I make frequent leg-stretching stops.

I used to wake up in the morning, have my wash/shower etc. put on my specs and they'd be on for the rest of the day. Since about 15 years ago I have to take them off to read and put on a different pair to use my laptop. My eyes take about half an hour to get properly into focus after I wake up in the morning these days, which is a PITA reading emails etc. I'm an electrician in the building trade and these days a lot of sites require you to wear safety glasses at all times. I have a prescription pair but can't focus well enough at screwdriver-using distance without taking my specs off to see the slots in small terminal screws.

Manual dexterity not as good as it used to be (family history of Arthritis).

On the up side, I used to get sometimes-severe neck and lower back pain due to an early-'80s car crash I was a passenger in, but it seems to have cured itself (or I've got used to it).

Grumble, grumble, grumble etc.

Pele is no bloody help at all.

A mate of mine, also a dentist, had onanistic habits which would make a hormonal fifteen-year-old lean on the sideboard and breathe heavily. He would always end the day with a leisurely hand-shandy in his chair after his wife had gone up to bed. He used to refer to it as "having his cocoa". He realised that his better days were probably behind him when, for the third night in a row, he awoke with a start at about 4am, still in his chair, his flaccid member clasped in his hand and with both socks still on his feet.

and having to peer over reading glasses which would be much easier to use if they were on a chain around my neck. Not to mention the Male Pattern baldness.

...properly for the first time the other week. Jesus. First serious premonition of what being old must be like. I was just crippled. Hobbling about, more bent than Sepp Blatter's accountant, whimpering with every smallest movement. The only thing that helped was lying on my back with my knees bent, and I'm a front-sleeper, so I couldn't get a fucking wink.

Even though I've lost a bit of weight lately, I'm more gung-ho than ever about getting fitter and stronger, if only to stave off the aches and pains for as long as possible.

Having said that, I'll probably hospitalise myself on a gym machine now.

The cruellest is the fact that I *still* can't stop fancying girls in their twenties.