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Late fifties here the only medication I was on was a statin but due to side effects, I am taking a hiatus to see if I can lower it without meds. I am not too optimistic though and probably will have to switch to another statin.
The jury is still out on whether high cholesterol is as bad as doctors say.
The jury is out in your mind, as the jury of pharma will never tell us cholesterol is a good thing and for our brains. Do your research J.H.
I'm 76. I have always considered myself to be in good health. Always believed I could do just about anything within reason. I don't feel a need to prove myself to anyone. A lot of my life I have felt I was in survivor mode and knew if I failed, it wouldn't be good for me.
Over the past few years I have developed some health problems (according to my doctor) and am taking several Rx meds. I know all the blood tests they run on us during our physicals are what the doctors have to decide if we need medicine or not. But are we really all the same? What is not normal for some.... is that all we have to go by? Can't some of us be different?
Some of the things that bother me the most is not enough $$ to do things I would like to do. Have always thought I would drive through our country. Life circumstances, no life partner, kids who aren't interested in having a relationship. That does get me down at times.
A year or two ago I "suddenly" realized my age. Always felt younger that what I am. But that is fading away and I anticipate life to get a bit bleaker.
Any time the lab numbers come out too high or too low or not where I like to see them, I get into Dr. Google and find an alternative(s)........ for what MIGHT be an issue, never go with meds, but again I see only integrative MD, so she would not push drugs unless absolute issue.
I just watched a slide show of aging hollywood stars and Doris Day keeps popping up with her picture when she was a sweet songbird actress and now at 100, she still works out. Good for her I say and her millions.
No medications but I need to lose more weight, keep moving, put down the fork and improve my posture.
The posture has been a life long problem and I hate it. It's just because of my vision - hard for me to see so I've bent over most of my life.
However, working on a computer is easier than the old typewriter days and studying.
I would love some suggestions on how to improve the posture. My husband and his dad have the best posture and they are both over 6 feet. (My FIL passed away last year but up until a couple of weeks before he passed, perfect posture).
I'm walking 3 miles a day; hoping to make it 4 soon. At first, it was hard and now, I need to add more to it.
I'm 62 and last year I thought I was getting dementia. I felt really old, was losing my ability to remember things, felt tired all the time -basically felt 20 years older than I should have.
I decided to change my diet and become vegan, and cold turkey quit all of the medications I was on - high blood pressure, high cholesterol (steroids), reflux, depression/anxiety medications.
I told my doctor that I couldn't tell which side-effects were what, and what was caused by medications or my age. That I was going to quit everything cold turkey (I had no heart disease), and see what life felt like without any medications.
And I became vegan to help my cholesterol and high blood pressure, to see if my diet might fix that.
And I started walking about 20 minutes every day.
After 6 months, my blood pressure was normal. My blood sugar was normal. My cholesterol is still high, but I'm not worried about it, since all of my blood tests for everything, including kidney, liver, etc., and blood pressure are normal. I no longer have any reflux issues or indigestion issues.
I honestly believe that the reason so many seniors are so sick - is because of the medications that are pushed on us. The British standards for instance, of when they prescribe high blood pressure and cholesterol medications, are much different than ours. They don't prescribe medications until they are definitely needed, because their health care system is paid for by the government. So, they are cost -conscious, which means they have figured out when people really actually need medications.
In the US, the numbers keep going down that are the determinants for when people are supposedly in need of drugs. For instance, the number for supposedly needing cholesterol medications used to be when your cholesterol was say, at 200. Then, it was decided that you needed meds at 180, then 150, etc. (just as an example).
And the reason is, because if the AMA says you need meds when your cholesterol is at 180, then the drug companies can sell more steroids for cholesterol control.
If you look at the studies for cholesterol, there is actually no real evidence that a lower cholesterol level protects anyone from heart disease. Many people who have heart attacks have low cholesterol levels.
Anyway, I really believe it's all of the medications that are pushed on people now, that makes them old before their time. The drug industry profits when we're sick. They don't really want us to get better.
So, I'm really not surprised that you are seeing people who are old before their time, and are over-medicated. The medical system in America is based on giving people drugs. The doctors are over-worked and taught in medical school to figure out what drug to give people and move on quickly to the next patient.
When was the last time your doctor asked you about your nutrition? Yeah, never.
You have to be pro-active. My doctor was very adamant that I should absolutely NOT go off of all of my medications, and I told her I was going to do it and I wanted her to simply approve blood tests for me every 3 months to see how I was doing. She agreed to that for almost a year, then started arguing that blood tests were not needed that often, and still trying to get me back onto drugs. I changed doctors.
You have to be really assertive in our medical system environment, if you want to try to change your health problems with lifestyle and nutrition. That requires more effort for them, and they aren't trained for that.
I have found that Indian doctors are way better as far as being willing to work with me in treating my problems in a different way, with more natural ways. Indian doctors naturally look at the whole person. I highly recommend looking for an Indian primary care provider, if you want to look for non-traditional options. I have found them to be much more open and receptive to non-traditional options than most American medically-trained doctors. Even if the Indian doctors were trained here - their culture is different, and much better as far as listening and being open to other remedies than just prescribing drugs.
I'm 62 and last year I thought I was getting dementia. I felt really old, was losing my ability to remember things, felt tired all the time -basically felt 20 years older than I should have.
I decided to change my diet and become vegan, and cold turkey quit all of the medications I was on - high blood pressure, high cholesterol (steroids), reflux, depression/anxiety medications.
I told my doctor that I couldn't tell which side-effects were what, and what was caused by medications or my age. That I was going to quit everything cold turkey (I had no heart disease), and see what life felt like without any medications.
And I became vegan to help my cholesterol and high blood pressure, to see if my diet might fix that.
And I started walking about 20 minutes every day.
After 6 months, my blood pressure was normal. My blood sugar was normal. My cholesterol is still high, but I'm not worried about it, since all of my blood tests for everything, including kidney, liver, etc., and blood pressure are normal. I no longer have any reflux issues or indigestion issues.
I honestly believe that the reason so many seniors are so sick - is because of the medications that are pushed on us. The British standards for instance, of when they prescribe high blood pressure and cholesterol medications, are much different than ours. They don't prescribe medications until they are definitely needed, because their health care system is paid for by the government. So, they are cost -conscious, which means they have figured out when people really actually need medications.
In the US, the numbers keep going down that are the determinants for when people are supposedly in need of drugs. For instance, the number for supposedly needing cholesterol medications used to be when your cholesterol was say, at 200. Then, it was decided that you needed meds at 180, then 150, etc. (just as an example).
And the reason is, because if the AMA says you need meds when your cholesterol is at 180, then the drug companies can sell more steroids for cholesterol control.
If you look at the studies for cholesterol, there is actually no real evidence that a lower cholesterol level protects anyone from heart disease. Many people who have heart attacks have low cholesterol levels.
Anyway, I really believe it's all of the medications that are pushed on people now, that makes them old before their time. The drug industry profits when we're sick. They don't really want us to get better.
So, I'm really not surprised that you are seeing people who are old before their time, and are over-medicated. The medical system in America is based on giving people drugs. The doctors are over-worked and taught in medical school to figure out what drug to give people and move on quickly to the next patient.
When was the last time your doctor asked you about your nutrition? Yeah, never.
You have to be pro-active. My doctor was very adamant that I should absolutely NOT go off of all of my medications, and I told her I was going to do it and I wanted her to simply approve blood tests for me every 3 months to see how I was doing. She agreed to that for almost a year, then started arguing that blood tests were not needed that often, and still trying to get me back onto drugs. I changed doctors.
You have to be really assertive in our medical system environment, if you want to try to change your health problems with lifestyle and nutrition. That requires more effort for them, and they aren't trained for that.
I have found that Indian doctors are way better as far as being willing to work with me in treating my problems in a different way, with more natural ways. Indian doctors naturally look at the whole person. I highly recommend looking for an Indian primary care provider, if you want to look for non-traditional options. I have found them to be much more open and receptive to non-traditional options than most American medically-trained doctors. Even if the Indian doctors were trained here - their culture is different, and much better as far as listening and being open to other remedies than just prescribing drugs.
Really good point. I have pictures of my grandmothers when they were my age (or younger). They were nice ladies with ample, fluffy waists and sensible shoes. They did not swim, bicycle, snorkel or paddle a kayak.
LOL my parents were the same way. They never went to a gym or anything like that. They hated sports, and never did anything athletic. Leisure time was spent watching tv, playing a piano, and reading. They got their exercise running after four kids, walking up and down stairs in their house, and doing things like shoveling the driveway when it snowed. My mom mowed the lawn every two weeks, but it wasn't a big yard and other than that she didn't do gardening. Once or twice a month they walked around the block, but that was usually a slow stroll, because it was more about having time for a private conversation away from the kids, as opposed to getting exercise.
I don't remember them dieting, although I also don't remember them eating huge amounts either. They ate plenty of junk food. In the 50's and 60's we ate all sorts of food loaded up with preservatives (and cyclamates) because the idea was "better living through chemistry". We always ate dessert, and they always had candy in the evening as a night time treat. They drank wine every once in awhile, but no alcohol other than that. Mostly they drank a lot of soda.
I remember my parents as being in fairly good shape, although my mom was chubby. They both lived to their mid nineties and died from "wearing out" as opposed to having any particular disease.
Having said that, when I look at photos from when they were in their 40s, they already looked older than I do now, even though I'm in my 60s.
Last edited by Piney Creek; 11-11-2018 at 07:01 AM..
I remember that my grandma always looked so old. She was quite pudgy for her height. SHe had long thin grey hair she wore braided and coiled around her head like an old traditional German or Scandinavian hairdo. She walked slow, wore support hose rolled down to the knee, housedresses, and aprons. She was the quintessential stereotypical grandma-baking-cookies type look. Very much a hardworking, salt of the earth, Missouri-bred farm woman born in 1905-ish. She actually didn't know her true age, as she never had a birth certificate and was born at home. She claimed to be 63 as far as I can remember. I don't know anyone under 75 that looks as old as my grandma did at 63.
Anyway...back to the original post. The people coming off those buses in Branson are folks from the senior centers, the IL facility tours, and the AL facility tours. They aren't the active seniors that exist everywhere. They go to Branson for a trip because the activities in Branson, i.e. sitting while watching performers, are something they are capable of doing in their present condition. I'm sure if you went to Table Rock Lake and looked for seniors who visit or live there, you'd see them fishing, boating, kayaking, golfing, walking/hiking, maybe riding bikes, or even jet skis.
I haven't seen this mentioned, so I'm going to throw it out.
One of the biggest impediments to good health is our sedentary lifestyles. I work a desk job in IT, 8-5. Unless I make a specific point to walk during lunch, it's very rare that I have more than 2,000 steps in by the time I leave work. I've kind of figured out that if I don't have around 5,000 in by the end of work, it's unlikely I'll hit 10,000 in a day. I really have to exercise on lunch and after work to hit it.
I am 63 and in absurdly good health. Oh, I have my days (usually after a brutally hard work day) when things ache, but overall I can out work and out play kids half my age.
I want to ask the folks on this forum a question about their health in general because I don't personally know anyone my age to compare myself to.
I live in Branson, Missouri and this time of year we get lots of retired folks, mainly on bus tours. I work at a hotel in the breakfast room and I see, literally HUNDREDS of folks between the ages of 60 and 90 every single day.
What gets me is the physical and mental condition. A good 80 percent of them are hunched over, using walkers, deaf, shaking like a leaf and very obviously over-medicated. Over-medicated to the point that I seriously doubt that they could function without someone there to guide them.
Now I understand that bus trips will greatly appeal to elders who are infirm and not capable of driving off to a vacation independently. And I understand that many of them may be in their 80s, which typically is close to the finish line and results in a body that has been worn and torn for many decades, including participation in wars and being from Iowa, occupations (farming) that are extraordinary physically demanding and damaging.
That being said, why is everybody in such bad shape? Thinking back to my parents, when they were that age, and other order people I've known in my life, everyone was fairly active and certainly in decent physical shape well into their 80s. Mentally, I don't recall any relative that became "dody" or mentally clouded at all. Even thinking back through my youth, aside from a few acquaintances who were raging alcoholics, i don't recall a single encounter where the order person was not 100% totally on the ball.
So I guess my question is, since many of you live in communities and hang out with folks your own age (and older), how common and consistent do you find feeble (mentally and physically) old people? How often do you encounter people who are so over-medicated that they cannot function normally? Are my experiences simply a result of circumstances whereby these folks don't feel confident going somepace alone and so they join with others and are managed by a keeper (tour guide)?
Since I have no other frame of reference I really want to know.
I am 63 and take no meds except an antibiotic if needed and a rare OTC cold or pain med. I am active on a daily basis and walk with my dog a lot. I want to be even more active than I am with extended hiking and biking.
My opinion is that a sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, dehydration, and way too many medications and toxic ones at that accelerate the downhill slide to debilitation.
I plan to avoid as many meds as possible, strive to eat healthily and stay hydrated, and keep moving!
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OK but ....
