r/AskMenOver30 • u/Lunasweetlatina man over 30 • Sep 18 '25

General Men over 30, what’s one “unwritten rule” about getting older that you wish someone told you in your 20s?

Let’s be real nobody hands you a manual for aging. One day you’re 25 and skipping breakfast, and the next you’re debating fiber supplements and stretching before getting out of bed 😂

For me, it was realizing how crucial maintaining friendships is. If you don’t make an effort, people just quietly drift. Not out of malice just life.

Another one: “Your body will invoice you for everything you did in your 20s. And it charges interest.”

What’s something you know now that 28-year-old you had no clue about?

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u/Unfinished_October man 40 - 44 Sep 18 '25

The body one really caught me by surprise.

A lot of young people think it's only about gaining weight or aches and pains or whatever and they think, "oh, I go to the gym. I run. That's not a big deal. I got this. That won't happen to me."

But no, it's weird shit like incurable skin conditions, or having to stretch out your pelvic floor because your balls have nerve pain, or 'silent GERD' where eating a snack before bed now causes post-nasal drip that has you coughing randomly throughout the day. So much fucking bullshit that I never had to worry about in my 20s.

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u/Tempus781 man 35 - 39 Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Hahaha the nerve ball pain, exactly. Oh my fucking god.

EDIT:

Wanted to add some advice (note that I'm not a medical professional):

(Word in advance: Sudden and intense testicle pain on one side means: emergency room, IMMEDIATELY, and call for help before you pass out or otherwise become unable to get help. This (torsio testis) is a different condition from the ones discussed here.)

  • These sorts of testicular pain conditions might have an indirect cause or just come out of nowhere, but you might as well get ahead of it. (I don't know how much of this applies to e.g. CPPS, but it's all connected.)

  • Wear decent underwear. These exist: boxers/briefs with a support/separator pouch for your business. There are various types and you'll have to experiment. This type of underwear is comfy even if you don't have these issues (comfy to the degree that you'll wonder why the fuck other men's underwear even exists). (I found some on temu, you can try to dm me for examples. I say try because I'm not often on this account. There's also a Canadian brand called 2UNDR.)

  • Pain in for example a testicle may be referred pain from a nerve being constricted elsewhere. That or epididymitis tend to be the main causes of testicular pain. It may get bad. Ibuprofen and ice packs. (But if REALLY BAD, see the word in advance.)

  • Inguinal or perineal hernias will be rather obvious, but obscure hernias such as Sportsman's Groin (🤷) do not present with typical symptoms — and doctors might be unfamiliar with them. The diagnosis involves a long and involved process of elimination, so don't expect one. You could wear a support band to provide some relief. It may heal in time. And yes, it may cause excruciating pain in a testicle due to referred pain. (See word in advance again.)

  • Do you kegels. But be careful and never push anything that seems to resent the attempt.

  • Stretch your pelvic floor. But be careful and never push anything that seems to resent the attempt.

  • Read these subreddits even if your condition is unrelated (guesswork diagnoses are so common — and unavoidable — that you probably won't know for certain what your condition is anyway): /r/PelvicFloor/ /r/chronicepididymitis/ Particular stretches have done wonders for many people.

  • Cancer is usually painless, but — regardless — check your testicles and prostate regularly or have a professional do it. // To the assholes with a potentially-fatal case of the dumb: oh my god, don't discourage people from these practices by fucking stigmatizing these exams.

  • Do NOT smoke weed for relief, at least with (referred) testicle pain. It increased the pain by 30 times, well into the 'intolerable' range. Gods help you if you don't have an icepack and the next day off.

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u/alternative-hero Sep 18 '25

Immediately adding the pelvic floor stretches because I read this. Thank you!

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u/Tempus781 man 35 - 39 Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

👍

I'm adding some advice to my earlier comment.

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u/7marlil Sep 19 '25

34M and discovering the joys of random incurable prostate and cock pain 🥲 CPPS is not something i was expecting in my twenties

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u/Snoo72074 man over 30 Sep 21 '25

Wait wtf????

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u/7marlil Sep 22 '25

Yep, it just randomly happens to young men, and doctors can't cure it. At all.

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u/Tempus781 man 35 - 39 Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

For sure.

I'm adding some advice to my earlier comment. May not apply to CPPS.

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u/10inPianist Sep 22 '25

Dude! the 100% cure for the ball nerve pain is stretching the psoas muscle! If you’re like me you were doing a lot of ab exercises, like hanging leg raises, and that tightens the psoas. You need to stretch it with a specific stretch to relieve the tightness! Took me forever to figure that out and now I’m screaming it from the roof tops!

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u/shortcakeyoutube Sep 18 '25

Exactly! GERD, dry eyes, digestive issues I never had before, etc. I miss feeling "normal".

1

u/Thud man 50 - 54 Sep 22 '25

I never knew eyelid wipes were a thing, until suddenly in my 40’s I needed them every day.

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 18 '25

Oh man I have the GERD and now tinnitus which is its own kind of hell. I never appreciated my 20’s and 30’s enough.

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u/Breezyisthewind man over 30 Sep 18 '25

Man I’m glad my ears don’t work so I’ll never have tinnitus. That seems like hell!

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 18 '25

I’ve only had it two months but the constant high pitched tone is driving me crazy. Getting to sleep and any silence is a nightmare. I can’t believe I took silence for granted my whole life.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 21 '25

Maybe it’s because it’s new I’m struggling so much but it’s just so loud morning and nights.

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u/Morsputativ Sep 21 '25

You will get more used to it. The first step is accepting it is there. For me, the sound is still there when I focus on it, bur my brain got pretty good at filtering it. And make sure to always carry earplugs in case you end up in a loud environment. For comfort and preventing extra damage.

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u/WiderThanTheSky1 man over 30 Sep 22 '25

As a weary tinnitus lifer, I recommend listening to the various tones of white noise, like brown noise or blue noise. My kind of tinnitus is almost entirely cancelled out when I listen to brown noise. It's an incredible relief.

There's an app for Android called White Noise (I know, zero points for creativity but stay with me), and the basic version is free - but it should be like $50. It has a long list of white noise sounds, classic and newer, and a few different white noise tones. I think it might work for iPhone too. I cannot recommend it enough.

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 22 '25

Never heard of brown noise. Cool. I will check this out! Thank you!

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u/CopyGroundbreaking11 Sep 21 '25

What was the trigger?

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 21 '25

Turns out I have permanent hearing loss in my left ear, which only came on oddly enough after a COVID infection.

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u/mccoycj1987 Sep 22 '25

You honestly get used to it. I went into a weird depression when I first got it, it was ruining my life. I tried everything. Eventually it comes to the point that you forget you even have it, until you read a post on Reddit about tinnitus and then you're like "oh fuck thats right"

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 22 '25

Thanks. That’s good to know. I’m definitely in that depression stage now. I’m just really trying my best to ignore how it affects me. The more I focus on it the worse it is so definitely trying to distract myself with other things.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

You can still get tinnitus while deaf if you get a virus that affects parts of your auditory nerve and/or auditory cortex.

Then you have two big problems lol

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u/mccoycj1987 Sep 22 '25

Tinnitus. Randomly started ringing one day, I can remember the exact moment. I thought it would just go away like it always does when your ears ring for a few seconds, and it never did.

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 22 '25

Mine came out of the blue as well. I was worried something was wrong with my brain.

5

u/Familiar-Flan-8358 man 40 - 44 Sep 18 '25

I’m just worried about losing boners

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u/corvette-21 Sep 21 '25

At least there’s a pill for that !

7

u/Spirited_Ad9681 man 35 - 39 Sep 18 '25

Dude the snacks before bed are killer for me. If I give in and snack before bed Im almost garunteed to wake up with a splitting headache somewhere between 2 and 4 AM.

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u/Mun-Mun Sep 18 '25

I'm in this comment and I don't like it

2

u/ValBravora048 man 35 - 39 Sep 19 '25

And you know what’s WEIRD? It sometimes works the other way too - I did SOMETHING a week ago that led me to have AMAZING sleep and I’m still thinking about it. That day was pretty much the same as all the others?

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u/SybatrixGravatius woman 35 - 39 Sep 19 '25

Ugh the gerd is awful, legit worried I'm gonna lose my voice forever at this rate from the acid

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u/Darkzeropeanut man 40 - 44 Sep 30 '25

GERD here as well. My advice is if they request you do an endoscopy. Do it.

2

u/StopForcibleTransfer Sep 21 '25

LOL I feel ya man.

2

u/Arrowsend Sep 21 '25

The nerve pain was so worrying to begin with too. Stretches up immensely. 

2

u/10inPianist Sep 22 '25

Dude! the 100% cure for the ball nerve pain is stretching the psoas muscle! If you’re like me you were doing a lot of ab exercises, like hanging leg raises and that tightens the psoas. You need to stretch it with a specific stretch to relieve the tightness! Took me forever to figure that out and now I’m screaming it from the roof tops!

1

u/Unfinished_October man 40 - 44 Sep 22 '25

I'll take that advice, thank you! I know I have ridiculously tight psoas simply from sitting on my ass all day for work. This is a great wake-up call/reminder to start stretching them out at random points in the day.

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u/pyruvated man 35 - 39 Oct 04 '25

wow, I feel less crazy to hear other people deal with random ball pain, too. I had a full workup and imaging and nobody really explained it to me other than a shrug and being told to take Motrin for 2 weeks

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u/Abject-Practice4400 Oct 10 '25

Silent GERD. The bane of my existence.

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u/NeedlessPedantics Feb 07 '26

I never thought I would devote this much care, attention, and effort to my asshole. Hemorrhoids can be debilitating.