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For most men, entering your fourth decade of life should be some of the best years of your life. By this time, you should have achieved most of your personal and professional goals, settled down with a beautiful family, got a mortgage, learnt to drive, and much more. If this is the case, you should feel invincible, yet just because you may feel like this outwardly doesn’t mean that your insides do.
Leading up to your forties, you may have been fortunate enough to avoid major medical events, perhaps only needing to visit the hospital when your partner gave birth or when you took a drunken stumble and broke your ankle. But once you hit your forties, your luck may change, and you could find yourself susceptible to some of the health concerns that male menopause brings.
Whether it’s a problem with your mental health like depression or anxiety, mood swings, loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, irritability, reduced ability to exercise or otherwise, ageing can cause various ailments you need to be aware of. Therefore, we’ve created this article outlining some of the most common problems men face once they reach their forties and onwards below.
5 Common Problems Men Face as They Experience the Male Menopause
1. Alopecia
Overwhelmingly, some of the most common complaints from men in their forties are regarding their hair, whether this is following the appearance of it, its thickness, the amount of it, or anything else. As our bodies age, we all experience what is called ‘natural’ thinning of the hair, which is sadly more prevalent in men as opposed to women.
This is because as men get older, their testosterone levels decrease, and as a result, many bodily functions are impacted, which may affect the hair on their heads. One physical function that could impact the hair is decreased blood flow to the follicles and the scalp, which over time, can cause the existing hair to be deprived of nutrients, resulting in breakage, less shine, and much more.
If it’s not because of ageing, it could be down to hereditary conditions like male androgenetic alopecia, which typically affects 80% of men throughout their lifetime. The most likely period for male androgenetic alopecia is between their forties and sixties. While it’s not harmful as a standalone condition, it can cause the onslaught of other harmful conditions like depression.
2. Erectile Dysfunction
So long as you’re in a healthy, committed relationship with your partner, there is no reason why you cannot have an enjoyable sex life in your forties. A healthy sex life can cause several benefits, from better heart health, preventing skin problems, low blood pressure, increased sleep, natural pain relief, and many more benefits that can make your forties more enjoyable.
However, not being able to have a fulfilling sex life can have the opposite effect, mainly when it’s caused by something beyond your control, like erectile dysfunction. As you get older, you are more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction, but it’s also not unheard of to suffer from it in your forties since it can be caused by various factors, not just old age.
Fortunately, there are various ways to treat ED so that you can continue having a healthy sex life well into your forties, from taking medicines like tadalafil, sildenafil, vardenafil or avanafil to using a vacuum pump if medication fails to produce results. Yet, due to the sensitive nature of ED, many men might feel embarrassed talking to a pharmacist about obtaining tadalafil.
If this is the case, consider looking at these impotence treatments by Oxford Online Pharmacy. From retailing a variety of medicines and providing information on them to producing informative guides on a range of health concerns and helpful blog posts, their website eliminates the middleman, making collecting your medicine a more effortless and more intimate experience. Consider visiting their website for more information and see how they could help you treat ED today.
3. Mood Swings
You might have always considered yourself a very level-headed person, but as you’ve entered your forties, you might have noticed that it takes a lot less than it used to for you to fly off the handle. Others around you might be keen to stick the ‘grumpy old man’ label on you. Still, like female menopause, ageing can cause physical and emotional changes that can cause fluctuating hormone levels, making you more irritable.
You might feel testier because of the hormonal changes in your body. Or it could be because of another ageing-related condition like a slow sex drive or erectile dysfunction. Either way, these symptoms can strain your personal and professional relationships, which is not beneficial for you or your friends/family members.
Therefore, it is essential that you learn how to identify the symptoms of mood swings before they start to happen so that you can address them when they do become a problem. Some of the most prominent signs of mood swings are restlessness, difficulty concentrating, rapid heart rate, aggression, moodiness and frustration, which can be managed with various coping mechanisms.
4. Mental Health Issues
Another common problem in men in their forties is the emergence of mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, which in times past, they might have never suffered from before. Loads of different factors can cause the beginning of depression and or anxiety in men and women, from life events to work events, but men have a reputation for handling it worse than women.
In the UK alone, around one in eight men suffer from a common mental health problem, be it anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, and many more. Yet despite it being a common problem amongst the male population, very few men go out and find treatment for it.
Since men are often not encouraged to talk about their feelings, they often shy away from any situation where they might have to. Some men are even discouraged from talking about their true thoughts and feelings for fear of being perceived as less manly, which is why many common mental health issues in men go undiagnosed or un-talked about.
5. Stroke
Unbeknownst to many, you can have a stroke in your younger years due to certain health conditions or simply by being unlucky. We tend to think of strokes being something that just older adults are susceptible to, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Each decade that passes after you reach the age of forty-five doubles your chances of falling victim to a stroke, which means there is no better time to be proactive about minimising your risk.
Many factors can increase your chances of a stroke. It could be from smoking cigarettes and using alcohol high blood pressure, lack of exercise, heart or blood vessel diseases, diabetes, high LDL cholesterol levels, gender, genetic history, race, and much more.
Unfortunately, the majority of these variables are beyond your control. Still, several risk factors are within your control, such as the health of your mind, living/working in highly polluted areas, taking medications that increase the risk of stroke, e.g., blood thinners, unhealthy lifestyle habits, obesity and much more. Therefore, if any of the above applies to you, it is essential to start improving them now so that you can feel the benefits way past your forties.