A peer support community, independent and not for sale. Since February 2024.

GLP CircleA peer support community

Carers

Being a carer at 71

Started 14 March 2026 · 12 replies · 99 hearts · read 1k times

ÖzlemIzmir, TR · 14 March 2026
4 months ago

A question rather than an update: Being a carer at 71

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

I have written down what has actually happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my summary of it.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question they do not cover.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

33

SerenLlandudno, UK
#1

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

7me too 5

GwythFishguard, UK
#2

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

5

IzoldaVilnius, LT
#3

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

6

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK
#4

Gently: you have apologised three times in a post where you have done nothing that requires an apology.

16

KeeleyBlackpool, UK
#5

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

8

LinnetKendal, UK
#6

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

10me too 1

SableCape Town, ZA
#7

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

4

LandoLeeds, UK
#8

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

3

GigiNaples, IT
#9

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

8

ZoraSarajevo, BA
#10

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

7

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK
#11

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

17

FitzLimerick, IE
#12

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

8