All these tests these days

With you, CariadAgain, and would add the thought 'Who profits from all these tests?' IMO they are a marketing exercise for the drug companies

My own take is that what the person themselves wants also has an influence on how long they live.

I have a theory that there is a sorta "cut-off point" beyond which at least some people can think "I've had enough" and just "decide and that's it". I was very very surprised - having always thought I was born into a short-lived family (ie middle age = heart attack = gone) to find that both parents actually lived to 93. I suspect a large part of the reason/maybe most of it as to why they went then eventually was it was 2020.

Yep "that" year. My father got shoved out of what they called "bed blocking" into a nursing home just before they called that Lockdown on us and he was gone within weeks (I had chosen THE most expensive nursing home I could see there - on the grounds they looked the best one) and I still haven't dared ring them and say "Did you use any of THOSE drugs that got used on some OAPS in some British nursing homes - because if you did I'm on my way to SEE you for a "few words"!" I'm just crossing my fingers they didn't do that and he hadn't realised his wife/my mother was refusing to accept him home anyway - which would have upset him a lot if he'd been as mentally okay as he used to be.

My mother wasn't that capable - and that was before she got Alzheimers (though no official diagnosis was ever made). But she was aware enough to know that "some woman" was going to come in and see her several times daily/check to see she had food in and cause my mother to say "I don't know why the woman just sits and talks to me sometimes - they don't seem to be doing anything other than chatting to me sometimes when they come" (that's basically what they'd been instructed to do - that's why....). So basically I'm pretty certain they'd both decided their illness + it being 2020 = they'd had enough.

Now sitting here trying to calculate how old I think my mothers "mother" (yep her grandmother - as I eventually realised) would have been when she went - and I think she would have been early/mid 70's in age). She'd threatened my mother that she mustn't go abroad with the armed forces husband she'd just married and informed her she would die before my parents came back to England if she did - in a bid to stop them doing so. It didnt work - my mother had deliberately married an armed forces man and duly did go abroad with him on his postings - as per her plan. So great-grandma did exactly what she'd said she would do - and died of a heart attack (presumably in her sleep) - in her 70's - as far as I can work out.

MOnica and NotSpaghetti.

No, I realise there are many 90+ people who lead active and fulfilling lives.

And many below that age who don’t.

If you fit into the former category, that is good. But sadly, there are many who don’t, whose final years are spent existing, not living.

That is the point I was making in my earlier post.

So right M0nica my Mother-in-law, now 101, was entirely independent and enjoying her book club, shopping, walking, U3A etc until very recently.

Being 90 is not an illness in and of itself.

*Calendar Girl reaching 90 does not necessarily mean being in care and unable to cope. Mary Berry was 90 last week. Joan Collins is 90.

Those are famous people but I have known many people in their 90s, fit and well, and playing a part in the community, including several members of my own family.

My husband is in his 80s and undoubtedly still with us because of the miracles of modern science and while he cannot walk far and is quite frail, we have just downsized to a project house and while most of the work is being done for us. He is happiy dealing with much of the electrical work and preparing planning applications and sourcing materials and generally enjoying life.

A healthy lifestyle does not guarantee a long healthy old age and everyone seems to know someone who drank like a fish, smoked 20 a a day and lived to 100, but the facts are that you are more likely to have a long healthy old age if you have a healthy lifestyle when you were younger. The majority of heavy drinking, heavy smoking people die relatively young.

Skydancer

Calendargirl

We are all going to die eventually.

Do I want to end up in my 90’s in a nursing home, unable to do anything much, and taking a plethora of pills to ward off potential heart attacks, strokes etc?

Reading here on GN about care of elderly parents, in their home or in care, I really don’t know if prolonging life to great age is how it should be, and the medication all that keeps them going.

I agree with this. Modern medicine is keeping many people alive longer than nature intended. I include myself in this so of course am pleased it is happening.
But when is the government going to introduce how to lead a healthy lifestyle to the school curriculum. If children were taught the benefits of exercise and healthy eating this would save the NHS millions further down the line.

Quite!

One can still get hit by illness even with a healthy lifestyle.

But my erstwhile younger brother started getting seriously ill in his 20's and has gone downhill from there - with all sorts. He had to have a heart operation before middle age even/youngest in the ward at the time. But he eats unhealthily, certainly used to smoke, spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun (despite our father having all sorts of skin cancer all over - so yep...he got that skin cancer problem too).
Basically - absolutely terrible ill health problems and every bit of it his fault as far as I can see. Okay I had the advantage of being much more questioning and intelligent than him - but my health is better in my 70's than his was 50 years ago. So a lot IS under our control.

Calendargirl

We are all going to die eventually.

Do I want to end up in my 90’s in a nursing home, unable to do anything much, and taking a plethora of pills to ward off potential heart attacks, strokes etc?

Reading here on GN about care of elderly parents, in their home or in care, I really don’t know if prolonging life to great age is how it should be, and the medication all that keeps them going.

Quite!

I'm with you on that one - after all the trouble I had to go to to manage to buy a house (courtesy of being low-paid and single) and the starter house was 10 years late because of that = no-one but no-one is going to grab at any of my money tied-up in my house (ie by stealing it chunk by chunk to pay for a carehome for me).

Add in my own temperament as well and there's zero chance of anyone else making my decisions for me ever. If it's my decision = I'll make it. If it's a communal decision = I expect absolutely everyone involved to make it and not go "They're management = they will make our decisions for us". Not a hope in hell of that happening ever....

I can just see a row 3 times per day every day for a start-off - ie at mealtime - when I said "I eat in a healthy varied interesting way....trying new dishes out regularly and I don't eat meat". Followed by them saying "What we've done for everyone is x dish and maybe a choice of y dish as well" - at which point there would be a row.

Or if they thought I'd follow their routine - rather than living my life as I decided and I wouldnt expect to even tell anyone if I'd decided I was going to go out (other than to the extent of "I won't be here for dinner tonight"). If they tried to restrict me - there would be another row.

...and so it would go on....

Well, I was feeling much more positive about needing a knee replacement until I asked the GP for a b/t, not having had one for many years. And am now ( as a worrier) feeling really deflated having been told I have very high cholesterol and am anaemic. I know it’s silly of me but I wish I hadn’t had the b/t as I’ve lost all the motivation I’d had from doing the exercises for my knee and being able to walk better. I can remember my mum being sent for a colonoscopy and how upset I was waiting to speak to the hospital ( they thankfully found nothing but she did die soon afterwards ) so I don’t tell my kids of any health concerns I have. I have read that most cardiologists take statins so wonder if I should take up my doctors advice and start taking them .

This is interesting to me because I've been thinking the same thing.

I also have had kidney disease diagnosed from a blood test, no treatment required. AFAIK kidney function declined with age, so ...

Then it was decided I needed a 24 hour BP monitor. Next thing, my BP is fine, but there was one incidence of irregular heartbeat (unnoticed by me) so ...

I've now been referred for an ECG - and I keep checking my pulse!! 😂

Before all this there was "nothing wrong with me"!

I had a doctor friend who used to say "If you test enough people enough times you'll find something wrong with most of them" 😂

Calendargirl

We are all going to die eventually.

Do I want to end up in my 90’s in a nursing home, unable to do anything much, and taking a plethora of pills to ward off potential heart attacks, strokes etc?

Reading here on GN about care of elderly parents, in their home or in care, I really don’t know if prolonging life to great age is how it should be, and the medication all that keeps them going.

I agree with this. Modern medicine is keeping many people alive longer than nature intended. I include myself in this so of course am pleased it is happening.
But when is the government going to introduce how to lead a healthy lifestyle to the school curriculum. If children were taught the benefits of exercise and healthy eating this would save the NHS millions further down the line.

It’s preventive intervention. I’m one of many with stage 3 ckd, diagnosed over thirty years ago. Providing I drink plenty of water it doesn’t increase.
I have bloods every eight weeks because of the meds I take to control RA. I feel fortunate

I have had chronic kidney disease for over twenty years and am still here! One can live well with very limited kidney function. I always cook from scratch, avoid salt and that means no take aways or ready prepared foods as they always have lots of salt.

Nanna8, I have had that kidney result before but managed to move myself out of the range by watching salt and potassium, eating well and making sure I drank a lot of water.
However, at the moment, they are keeping an eye on my kidneys as I have had a couple of increases of my BP medicine which is hard on the kidneys. Again, they are stressing I must drink lots of water.

We are all going to die eventually.

Do I want to end up in my 90’s in a nursing home, unable to do anything much, and taking a plethora of pills to ward off potential heart attacks, strokes etc?

Reading here on GN about care of elderly parents, in their home or in care, I really don’t know if prolonging life to great age is how it should be, and the medication all that keeps them going.

Sorry nanna8 - I forgot you are in Australia so Kidney Care UK wont apply.
Hopefully there is something similar there that can help you.

nanna8 interesting to read your post as I have also been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease.
Mine is caused through high blood pressure and I've also been told it doesn't warrant any further treatment.
I am now on medication to treat the blood pressure.
Do look at Kidney Care UK.
They have informative leaflets they can sent you and also some one at the end of the phone to ease any worries you may have.

I'm in favour of tests, generally. Having said that, I only have one blood test each year, at my annual 'heart clinic' check up.

Some really interesting reading here 😃
I did read that most men die with an enlarged prostate and often cancer, but that’s with not of and there are many men with serious side effects where they’ve been treated, sometimes wrongly.
It’s a minefield isn’t it?

I don’t know about worried well - I think we have a very high number of worried very sick people waiting ! It isn’t free, we have to pay unless we are on a pension. Pensions are means tested and not that many get them. Completely different to the uk.

My cardiologist also takes a daily statin - his cholesterol is apparently in the "normal" range too.

A downside of more tests is an increase in unrelated incidental findings. For example, Australia has invested heavily in scanners whereas our NHS sits toward the bottom of the table. Australia now has cohorts of the worried well waiting for further investigations.

High BP and cholesterol are known silent killers. As medical knowledge improves then it is hardly surprising that advice on statins and BP drugs change. Many clinicians are in favour of a poly pill for all 50 year olds + comprising a low dose statin; a BP medication and aspirin. They believe that these drugs would act as a safety belt for the heart. A family member's cardiologist takes a daily statin even though his cholesterol is normal.

It’s got to be a good thing surely?
Preventative medicine is just as important, if not more so, as treating a condition once it has arisen.

If then a condition is picked up which doesn’t require treatment, we have the opportunity to try to ensure the situation doesn’t get worse.

I do think it's worth bearing in mind that "modern medicine" (ie drugs, etc) has only been around for less than 100 years I believe - which is peanuts in comparison with the human race having been around for at least tens of thousands of years.

Why chuck out everything we've learnt over all those centuries for something that is an absolute "baby" at only decades old- and that makes the drug companies lots of money? Even the most modern stuff we have is so very very primitive imo.

Admitted our recorded part of history only goes back about 10,000 years - and it's still currently difficult or impossible to find out what we did in the tens of thousands of years before that. But even recorded history is a pretty long period of time.

I know those "modern" tests found high blood pressure (but the 1970s basically thought blood pressure was fine at one's age plus 100 (in other words it's fine for vast majority of us) - but that doesnt keep the profits up for statins does it?

Another point from all this is that "modern medicine" and what I can see myself comes to about 10 ailments to get rid of!!!! That is a LOT. So commonsense also says "Deal with what I know I have myself - and then figure out if I've got any of the stuff they tell me I also have". Dealing with that many ailments at once would mean a lot of my time and money going on that - rather than actually getting on and "having a life". There's got to be a point to "having a life" imo (ie pursuing relationships and/or hobbies and interests = as otherwise why bother?).

So I'm dealing with what I know I have myself and that's putting me out with being there and then I'll think on after I've got rid of those things - ie as to whether there's owt else wrong to be got rid of.

Surely with all screenings we have to balance personal risk (of a false positive for example) against what we would tolerate by way of treatment.

I always ask lots of questions before any screening. Some things you know you wouldn't bother addressing - other things are easily remedied.

Yes on the last lot of tests my cholesterol was borderline. Clinician advised statins. I thought about it and decided to leave it until the next lot of tests. I am also at an age 80 where statins are not considered so beneficial.

But if the reading is higher I will give it further thought as well as talking through with the clinician.