That would be me, and no I don't have my own pool I use the local one..

Floydy, you are active, fit, and in your early fifties, and you should be frustrated that you are not feeling better. You should be healthy and able to do most of the things you enjoy - just not quite to the levels of your twenty-year-old self. When I was your age (three years ago), aside from having lower running speeds and occasional stiffness, I felt great. You are too young to be "falling apart" as you describe. I hope this doesn't sound bossy, but I am going to lay it out there for you because I care about how you are doing out there:

I suspect you have a few things triggering your reduced health and vigor, some of which you can control, and others you can mitigate. The first two things to consider are the long term stress caused by your wife's illness and your sleeping patterns. I am not talking about the kind of stress you feel, but accumulation of physical and neurological stress that comes from the extra responsibilities and concerns that come with being a caretaker. This kind of stress in the long run can affect your immune system and trigger inflammation and muscle pain, and cause other problems too. As someone who has been in your shoes, you sound classic. Read up on this. You need some dedicated time every day to offset some of the pressure - and not feel guilty about it. A major part of being a good husband, father, and grandfather is taking care of yourself. Are you eating as well? How is your nutrition right now? As your wife gets better, I suspect you will begin to feel better. Taking care of someone is hard work and can take a toll.

Another factor to consider is your sleep. You have a career as a night worker, that can definitely be a culprit in affecting your health. I know there is nothing you can probably do about the time of day in which you work, but you can probably improve your "sleep hygiene". You wouldn't say, you were going to skip drinking water because you have extra responsilities. You can't do that with sleep either . Sleep is not to be messed with, Floydy. Get what you need and get quality sleep. Period.

The next is your cough. This is not normal and it's affecting your quality of life. Like the very bad movie goes, "See a doctor and get rid of it"..

After that is your back. If your knees are arthritic, you are bending them slightly more than normal when you stand and walk which will cause you to be a bit sway-backed (bottom higher, lower back more arched) which will trigger back pain. Even a little change in your posture can wreak havoc with your back muscles. Then seriously take a beat and really consider each of these: exercise (possibly too much heavy weight?), exercise form, abdominals (I doubt this is your problem), stretching, flexibility, shoes (work and exercise), and even mattress. Are you really stretching before and after exercise? Are you doing flexibility training at least three times per week? Both fall into my "Major Sins in Fitness" category and I am paying for it . Anyway, I digressed. Be sure to be diagnosed on whether this is muscle or nerve related issue.

The next thing to consider are triggers that could be exacerbating the arthritis. OGF is right that this is an inflammatory process that, even if is is genetic, it can be mitigated. Do you have flexibility and stretching - a lot of it - built into your regimen? The research is hit and miss about what works for different individuals but the moderate diet OGF suggests is a good one. You might research inflammation diets and try to reduce a few of the things on the list. I am not suggesting a vegetarian diet (OGF would have a cow if I did - good pun there ) but, for the sake of comparison, I have been a vegetarian for over 25 years and have no arthritis outside of some rare stiffness.

Write all your complaints, even the small ones, for a doctor and don't let him/her dismiss you as these as being age or wear related. For as healthy of a lifestyle as you are living, you should be....healthy!

All good things to you!

Hi,
Try a good chiropractic for your back (most will give a free scan/assessment). It may be that your back needs to be realigned (messages to all organs of the body flow from your brain via the spine and if these nerves are nipped/constrained the organs don't function as they should). All my family, incl kids from 2mths old have benefitted from this.
Get the cough checked by the doctor and don't be fobbed off.
The modern diet (sugars, preservatives, etc) can create alot of inflammation in your body. Google this subject and look at what you should reduce which cause acid/inflammation and what are good alkaline foods.
Don't give up the exercise, incl resistance training, this is known to improve bone density and your muscles support the joints (after my knee op the big emphasis was on building the support muscles to take pressure off the joints. Just don't overload, go for tone and not just (think of body weight exercises that are more natural for your body shape/size).
Hope this helps, & good luck

Just be careful of your Doctors advice Floydy, they treat everyone the same, he won't appreciate fully that your life has been spent keeping fit, so his advice will always be to slow down and be sensible (from a layman's point of view)... I visited the doctor with an aching back when I was forty years old, he suggested that I didn't run as far or as fast and accept the deterioration that age produces. Since then, I broke all of my personal bests on Marathons and long fell runs, including running 110 miles in two days on the Cleveland Way.

If I'd listened to him I wouldn't be half the runner I turned out to be.....I did find one doctor who himself was a marathon runner and offered me very good advice, so shop around and find a sympathetic doctor Floydy, there are some out there....

Just be careful of your Doctors advice Floydy, they treat everyone the same, he won't appreciate fully that your life has been spent keeping fit, so his advice will always be to slow down and be sensible (from a layman's point of view)... I visited the doctor with an aching back when I was forty years old, he suggested that I didn't run as far or as fast and accept the deterioration that age produces. Since then, I broke all of my personal bests on Marathons and long fell runs, including running 110 miles in two days on the Cleveland Way.

If I'd listened to him I wouldn't be half the runner I turned out to be.....I did find one doctor who himself was a marathon runner and offered me very good advice, so shop around and find a sympathetic doctor Floydy, there are some out there....