Our Changing Bodies

There are a host of books for pre-teens with titles like the above, meant to instruct them in the wonders of puberty and how it's all part of your body's great plans, etc. When handed one of these books as a young person my immediate response (sotto voce--I wasn't suicidal) was "wonders, my ass."

I'm curious if anyone produces similarly exhortatory books for people slouching through middle age toward aged age? Because, really: "wonders, my ass."

A few months back I had a bone density test, a quite reasonable thing for a woman of my years. The good news: I don't have osteoporosis. The bad news: I do have osteopenia, which is like osteoporosis with training wheels.  So I have taken steps to keep things from getting any more so: lavish amounts of calcium added to a fairly calcium-rich diet, more weight bearing exercise, and stopping Prilosec, which is known to cause calcium absorbsion problems.  See how grownup I am being?

However, the reason I had been on a Prilosec regimen for some years is because I have inherited my father's tendency to reflux.  I was well into my fifties before this happened, for which I am grateful. I so rarely had digestive issues that when I started to I was startled: what is this? Without Prilosec I have been trying to find a new non-calcium-sapping regimen. And changing my diet alone is not sufficient: I now appear able to get heartburn by drinking water.  So I'm taking Zantac, with Tums or Gaviscon for break-through reflux as needed. But also, yes, I am trying to change my diet. Very reluctantly, because pretty much everything that is worth living seems to be on the No list: high-fat foods, spicy dishes, tomatoes and tomato products, citrus, garlic, onions, milk, coffee, tea, chocolate, mints, alcohol.

It appears that if I want to live comfortably, I must survive on a diet of apples, Saltines, and chicken chests, with maybe a little salt. All because my body is not aging as gracefully as I might hope.

Wonders, my ass.