In your 30’s? Being healthy seems normal at that age. My youngest is 34 and has had the flu twice I think. He is frequently mistaken for late teens to early twenties. He is short and in incredible shape (6% BF) so that might account for that. He is an MMA fighter and has never broken a bone or been knocked out. He has had stiches many times.
I’m 62, very good health my whole life but I am going through total knee replacement now. I have all my hair and do not wear glasses.
I’m 44.
The bad:
My eyesight is getting worse, and it was never great to begin with.
I’ve been on antidepressants for well over five years.
My sex drive is shot (see: antidepressants).
I can’t always get it up or keep it up (see: antidepressants).
I could stand to lose a few dozen pounds.
I’ve dealt off and on with allergies and asthma all my life, but I’ve never been hospitalized for it or anything.
I have two bad knees and one bad ankle that act up from time to time, but I’m able to walk and work so it’s NBD.
Between me and Mrs. Homie, one (or both of us) has one or more failures in the baby-making algorithm, but we never spent the money to find out the specific problem.
The mundane:
Was hospitalized overnight at age 10 to have a cyst surgically removed from my foot (would be an outpatient procedure today).
Was hospitalized overnight at age ~30 for severe chest pains, but nothing was ever found out.
The good:
I’ve never had a broken bone (knock on wood).
Other than colds & flu & such, I’ve never had an infectious disease that required anything more than prescription antibiotics and bed rest (knock on wood).
I’m 34. In order of diagnosis:
Broken arm
Hashimoto’s disease
Removal of severely crazy wisdom teeth
Mild scoliosis
Broken kneecap
C-section
Secondary infertility
PCOS with insulin resistance
Reactive airway, after upper respiratory infections
I have had several things ail me, but nothing really bad. The worst was advanced breast disease, resulting in a partial mastectomy. A month ago I had breast reduction surgery on the other breast. Uncomfortable, but not painful. As far as other surgeries: tonsils and adenoids, wisdom teeth (4 impacted, done under general at a hospital), ruptured appendix (actually, that WAS life threatening because it gangrened), cervical conization, plantar fasciiotmy, sinus surgery, rectal surgery. No really bad diseases except constant sinus infections as a kid and young adult. Hmmm…I’ve actually had a lot of surgeries…
Went to 59 without a darn thing, then prostate cancer. I’m 61 and I’m fine. 
I’m 52. I had my tonsils out when I was about 4?
That’s all I can think of.
Well, I had a cracked knuckle from punching some guy in the head when I was about 12 maybe.
My back could be better, but it’s fine for now.
Into my mid-40’s the only health issue I had was psoriasis, and it is well controlled through medication. I still don’t get sick, but I am starting to pay for all those years of sports, general body abuse and cumulative injury. Over the last 5 years I’ve had 3 surgeries:
-repair torn labrum and rotator cuff in right shoulder
-right knee arthroscopically cleaned out, will likely have to be replaced eventually
-left hip total replacement
A hell of a lot of them died, and a hell of a lot more were miserable but functioned as best they could. A lot of illnesses and injuries will heal on their own over enough time, assuming you die from complications like secondary infections, so a lot of the time they took to the bed for a while and then either died or recovered.
I’m 38, and my list so far:
–congenital heart murmur, completely asymptomatic and of only incidental concern
–severed lip from a car wreck, with failed attempt at reattachment and subsequent reconstruction
–broken tailbone, healed over the course of a few weeks with no medical intervention
–some weird mono-like illness that nobody ever figured out what it was but got better over the course of several months
–idiopathic seizures that ultimately resolved on their own
–chronic sinusitis from allergies
–assorted weird allergic reactions to Og knows what
–a couple of incision and drainages when animal bites abscessed
–sprained ankle and foot after falling out the back door at work
–Bartholin gland excision
–two-stage repair of an anal fistula
–laparascopic removal of an IUD that migrated partially through the cervical wall and embedded in my round ligament
–next week I’m having an exploration to see if I have a retained bit of tissue or suture from my Bartholin excision that’s creating a new drainage tract
Damn, some of you made it to your 50s and 60s with few to no health problems. That is impressive. For those who did do you attribute that to genetics or lifestyle? If lifestyle, what advice would you give those of us in our 30s looking to age gracefully?
In a scale of 1-5, I’d rate my health as a 2,slightly below average for my age. My issues include mental health issues that have ranged from totally disabling to barely noticeable at various points in my life.
My 20s were great healthwise. Aside from mental health issues, and mild hypertension I was fine. When I hit my 30s I started getting pinched nerves and can’t figure out why. I’m seeing a neurologist next year and hope he has some answers. So far nobody has answers, just pet theories. If I could get that fixed I’d rate myself a 3.
Also in my 30s knee and back pain because something I have to stay on top of. If I wear a bad pair of shoes I will feel it in my knees and back. As long as I wear decent shoes and sit on a comfortable chair I am fine though. I will probably need to switch to Z coils full time in my 40s.
There have been some improvements in my health as I entered my 30s. I have more energy. I attribute most of that to my diet and exercise changes. I do interval training and eat a micronutrient rich diet, neither of which I did in my 20s. My macronutrients aren’t too good but ah well. In my 20s a bad night sleep would take a day or two to recover from. In my 30s I need 2-3 bad nights in a row before I start feeling it. I can hike longer without fatigue than I could a decade ago.
Mental health is better due to various therapy modalities I have used. Less depression and neuroticism.
I fear getting old. Chronic pain disability scare me to death.
50 years old and nothing to report. Working out is not as easy as it used to be. I get sorer for longer but, as they say, no pain, no gain. Poorer and poorer eyesight is my biggest complaint.
I’m 47. I guess I’m a freak, too. I rarely get sick; I get the 24 hour flu every couple of years, and that’s it. I’ve never had an operation. The only procedure I’ve undergone is the removal of my wisdom teeth when I was 28. I’ve never taken prescription medication, including pain meds.
I rarely go to the doctor. In fact, I don’t even “have” a doctor. The last time I went to a doctor was five years ago for a quick physical & prostate check. I just looked him up on our insurance policy and visited him. I don’t even recall his name, or where it was.
My wife keeps bugging me that I need to go to a doctor at least once a year for “blood work.” I’m not sure why. Other than allergies and clogged up sinuses, I feel O.K.
One thing for certain, my health insurance company is making a killing off of me…
Genetics, mainly.
Staying active and skinny seems pretty huge. Everyone fat I know (which is everyone I know) is facing significant health issues. The couple - OK one, or two counting myself of thin people do not have health problems. At all. None.
Well, getting old beats the alternative. 
I cope with chronic pain. Not like chronic cancer pain, but still chronic pain (for several years I had daily migraine; it was like heated knives being stuck into my eyeball and other areas of my head). Good treatment has most of my days at the level of “unpleasant sensation that I can ignore because I’m busy with other stuff in my life”. One learns to focus on what you can do, and when you feel good you push yourself a bit, and when you feel bad you remember there is always someone worse off than you.
So, you know. Don’t worry about it much. If something happens, you deal. If it doesn’t, be thankful. You know?
As I get older I get more wary of visiting the doctor. With advances in medical imaging they are finding abnormalities that would never cause disease or symptoms, but they insist on treating anyway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/opinion/an-epidemic-of-thyroid-cancer.html
In South Korea, thyroid cancer used to be one of the most rare cancers people get. Then newer/better imaging technology came about. Now it is the most common cancer people get., it has gone up 1500%. The problem isn’t that more people are getting thyroid cancer, it is that people who have benign nodules (which is over 1/3 of the population) which would likely never cause symptoms or issues are being told they have cancer and need treatment due to better diagnostics.
Mortality for thyroid cancer hasn’t changed a bit in South Korea. Tons of people are being treated, but mortality isn’t going down. The same issue is coming up with PSA tests, breast cancer screening, osteoperosis treatment, CVD risk factor treatment, etc.
Point being, I don’t know anymore. I am wary of visiting the doctor because they will want to treat every abnormality no matter how minor and that puts me at risk of side effects and debt. Medical errors, drug interactions, hospital acquired infections, etc kill hundreds of thousands of Americans a year and injure millions. Negative consequences from medical care is technically the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer.
I’ve had doctors act like my mild/moderate hypertension as a life/death issue that could kill me tomorrow. I believed them, but when I researched it I found hypertension treatment adds less than a year to life expectancy (some studies found as little as 2 months of QALY added, others found about 2 year delay in cardiovascular events). Instead of dying at 82 I might die at 81 and a few months. Or instead of having my first heart attack at 62 I may have it at 64 instead. Worth dealing with, but not as scary as I once thought.
Even with surgery, according to thismeta analysis of actual surgeries compared to sham surgeries, of the 53 studied about half of the surgeries were no better than placebo surgeries, and of the remaining 26 many were only marginally better than placebo.
It is hard to know what to think or who to trust.
very few, thankfully. a tonsillectomy when I was a kid, 4 stitches in my hand when I was 16, and that’s about it. I might have cracked a rib a couple of years ago but didn’t need treatment.
I’m 63, and I never spent a night in the hospital until I was over 40, and then only one night - which has been it. I had half my thyroid removed, and about five years ago I found a had Afib, but that didn’t require a hospital stay, just some drugs.
Never broken anything. Never had my tonsils out. I have spent some other nights in the hospital, but that was staying with my father after his operation and when my oldest was born.
My HDL, btw, is amazingly low - amazing to my doctor - despite absolutely no dietary effort on my part. So I think it is genetics.
And I seldom get colds.
Do you mean LDL? HDL is supposed to be high.
My health issues don’t affect me that much, other than to take medications. For most, one a scale of 1-10, they’re a 1. But a list would make me sound like I’m in bad shape.
I’m 47, and have no real complaints so far.
Only one. I was diagnosed with it, a chronic disease with no known causes, 23 months ago and it’s put a halt on my life. Stuck at my freshman year of college, as I like to say.