Are you likely to live to 100 or more?

Esmay - I think Lockdown had a huge negative impact on many of us and this may be why you've felt so much worse since 70.

As the physiotherapist said to me that other week "Covid has a lot to answer for".

Usedtobeblonde

This is me in July on my 88th birthday.
Still enjoying a cocktail and an evening out.
I don’t think I look ready for giving in and I am not.
I do enjoy good health though which is 90% of the battle.

Great photo UTTB. You look very glamorous.

Actually, you don't look a bit as I imagined you to be. 😁
(Much more glam!)

Esmay - I think Lockdown had a huge negative impact on many of us and this may be why you've felt so much worse since 70.

It was a huge huge way of getting to feel way more cynical about society than one had before. The mere fact of a Lockdown and many of us lost people we thought were friends...but they disapproved us out of their lives. Even spouses and families sometimes broke up - because one was "observing" and the other wasnt. The added difficulties of living then and the higher prices afterwards etc.

So if you/if any of us feel more tired etc = there's a good chance part of that traces back to Lockdown and the impact of it even afterwards.

I think a lot of whatever level of trust we had in Society prior to it got reduced a lot or even lost altogether.

At our age at least the vast majority of us were in a position we couldnt be unfairly dismissed from a job for refusing to get That Jab and I told myself that every day, ie "At least they can't take my income off me for refusing it. Thank goodness I'm not still working age - just in case I was in a job that did that to people".

I think - whatever did/didnt happen to us = we lost a lot of hope. That last thing in Pandora's Box - that helped us cope with whatever life threw at us = we kept hoping things would improve for us.

Many women in my family lived well into their nineties and were very strong.
I was feeling fine until aged 70 now I feel old and tired.
I was never in rude health like my parents .
They seemed to last out all day in the garden .
By lunchtime , I'd long for lunch and a break ,but I've always been bookish and if not doing my art work then writing so sitting down more than they did .

Those cremation ads on TV really depress me .
They are constant sometimes more than one during the break . I shout at them
During the lockdown - they were reducing my poor father to tears . I used to distract him .

I don't want to live like this into my seventies .....

On Sunday ,I went to church and I had some chest pain .I have scarring on my right lung and it sometimes means that I'm getting pleurisy sometimes pneumonia .
Usually if I rest it goes away.,but if I'm not careful it's antibiotics and steroids and weeks of feeling weak .

Then , someone asked me to do some volunteering and I thought , isn't it obvious that I don't feel a 100% and people are asking me if I'm OK?
He only speaks to me when he wants me to do something it's never just to make conversation .
And it made me irritated.

I now understand why older people get in a bad temper.
They don't always have much to look forward to and they feel exasperated.

Usedtobeblonde - that’s the way ! How positive ! Would love to see that picture - try again ..

I hope photo uploads soon.

This is me in July on my 88th birthday.
Still enjoying a cocktail and an evening out.
I don’t think I look ready for giving in and I am not.
I do enjoy good health though which is 90% of the battle.

God, I hope not! I’d be happy with around 85, which is less than 10 years away now. I absolutely dread becoming unable to look after myself, never mind the dreaded dementia, and being a worry/burden to dds.

My mum's father died at 52, her mother at 50 and her brother at 49 - all from heart/blood pressure related issues. Her yougest brother died at 8 from diptheria. With her family history she was sure that she would not live much past her 60s. She died peacefully at 87 in her sleep after successfully beating Non-Hogkins Lymphoma a year previously with a course of half-strength chemotherapy. I truly believe your time is up when it's up.

Wouldn't want too.

Casdon

I don’t think I want to. My parents are 95 and 96, and both healthy by the standards of most people their age. However, their bodies have just worn out, and their world has got smaller so life is now hard for them.

Mine both got to 93. But my father had acquired lots of health problems over decades before his death - some his own, some from having been in the armed forces. My mother got adult onset asthma latterly and then went on to have heart problems. There was a point (after I'd moved across country) where I rang up to ask my father why mother hadnt rung re a bunch of flowers I'd sent her. Cue for his mind had gone too far to click I might not have been told/hadnt been told she was in hospital with severe pneumonia. I rang the hospital, got a nurse who obviously accepted I was daughter and said "We're trying to give your mother tablets for it and she took them the first day and has been refusing ever since" and basically said she might die if she didnt have them. I said to her "You are to do what she wants. If she wants them she has them. If she doesnt want them then she doesnt have them" but she still pulled through (much to her disgust - as she didnt want to). So - for decades at the end my fathers life wasnt worth living. For years come the end - nor was my mothers.

That's before we counted the fact they both had dementia.

Yep...indeed life had clearly got very much smaller for them. Bang went the weekends away several times a year, bang went the pub lunches, bang went my mothers regular churchgoing.

I'm in the "life isnt worth living unless it is" camp personally. At early 70's I'm there thinking "It's a bit of a collection of ailments that I've got" and trying to keep firm about getting rid of them all (I've got rid of a few to date). But it does take it out of you fighting to get rid of this and then fighting to get rid of that etc and generally trying to gee yourself up to getting your energy, figure, etc, back to normal. I can barely believe it took over a year just to get my feet sorted alone and had to work my way through 3 podiatrists in a row (2 of whom I wouldnt touch with a bargepole again) until I found one who is a man/with as perfect English as I have and he sorted them for me finally. So much fighting just to get 3 ingrown toenails in a row sorted out! All that fighting and waiting to resolve various things is very wearing. One does wonder how long you can keep up fighting to get rid of this and then move onto the next item on list and fight to get rid of that, etc.

My mum had what would now be considered a high cholesterol level She lived to 90 and apart from Alzheimer’s rarely got anything wrong with her
My cousin will be 100 after Christmas and looks late 70 s early 80 s
I don’t get tested as whatever it is I have no intention of taking statins
You are absolutely right Primrose when I worked in the NHS what had been considered normal cholesterol suddenly became high and then after a year or two that number became high

I hope not, but I will keep going while I enjoy life, maybe another 10 yrs I don’t intend to hang around being a burden.

CocoPops

I liked the conclusion that stated "those with higher levels of total cholesterol" lived to be 100!

I should make it, then. Mine hasn’t been below 9 since it was first tested 25 years ago despite numerous Drs trying very hard trying to make me.
I’m 80 and the only medication I’m on is thyroid and B12 injections.

Not sure where that leaves me as my cholesterol is high (hurrah) but I’m anaemic ( not good)….

My mother lived to 101 and 8 months.
She had” all her marbles” until a bad fall just about a month before she died when she started rambling but only occasionally.
She still had a decent conversation with me when we sat in the sun days before she died.
If I could still have all my wits about me I wouldn’t mind celebrating my centenary as she did but not much longer than that.
I am currently 88 and most days feel it!!

CocoPops

I liked the conclusion that stated "those with higher levels of total cholesterol" lived to be 100!

I can’t open the link but am interested in the high cholesterol comment.

I think there’s a lot in this actually. A nurse at our surgery was due to retire after working for decades there. She told me since they started inviting patients in to have their cholesterol checked she had met countless people she had never met in her working life. They had not been to the surgery as they were so fit and healthy in their 80s and 90s!

However, their cholesterol readings were then classified as “high”. She said that this happened over and over again. They were nearly all put on statins. She also told me that over the years the goalposts kept moving and the figure for HC came down and down so more people were being classed as Having HC.

CocoPops

I liked the conclusion that stated "those with higher levels of total cholesterol" lived to be 100!

😂 There’s hope for us all.

No. Am from a family that never live into their 80s, my own parents both died before their time. Have been an orphan since my late thirties.

I hope not.

I liked the conclusion that stated "those with higher levels of total cholesterol" lived to be 100!

I don’t think I want to. My parents are 95 and 96, and both healthy by the standards of most people their age. However, their bodies have just worn out, and their world has got smaller so life is now hard for them.

While your body might make it to 100........will your mind? It does seem that it's tricky to get your physical and mental health to work in tandem with each other.