Why are British elderly dying before their time.

At least they are now aware Joan. I was thinking of a friend or is there a local sort of befriending club or society, or was he in the Forces? Sometimes there are associations for ex service personnel.
Have to go to , just when you have got up (same problem trying to speak to DDs)
Full force of DGD2 arriving at 7.30am

I've emailed our 2 sons, spelling out their Dad's health problems and their effect on me, and asked them to ensure that I'm not alone in all the responsibility, and I'd like them to visit as often as possible. They knew most of the problems, but I explained to them I had to spell it out so that they were under no illusions. They have been visiting a bit more often, but not to let me go out. I haven't asked them to do that, and DH would say he's OK alone anyway.

However, it was important for me to let them share the worry and responsibility to a certain extent. After all, if I get sick they will have to step in.

The thing is, they both work hard full time and have partners - they have little time. But I think I've convinced them to make time. Eventually. I have no daughters.

Joan
Does your DH have anyone who could come and be with him so that you can get out a bit more? Not in a caring sort of capacity but more to perhaps have a game of chess, draughts, cards or just chat?

Mind you, the person I know would resist all attempts at anything like that; she is not in poor health and I think will outlive us all. Her OH did manage a holiday by being very strong and saying he was jolly well going and that another relative had offered to come and stay with her, but I think she managed on her own in the end.

Inspirational "Nellie"

Nellie

We have been told for several years now that there will be lots of problems in the future due to people living longer. I do wonder how true this is. Most of my mother's generation have gone but they were the generation who walked everywhere and ate fresh food everyday. They were also the one's who did receive better care than their parents.

I am now 72yrs old and suddenly became an old person after countless health problems due to poor post-op care. I, for 18months only, thank goodness, joined the disabled and had to travel by ambulance for countless hospital visits. So depressing at first. Guess what, they were such a cheery bunch. We and the ambulance workers used to get all the answers in the pop quiz on radio 2.

I realised the most spritely were in their own homes, had lots of hobbies and interests. Some of them had part time jobs or worked for charities. Most importantly of all, they had someone to talk to. They helped me too, I'm now back working. The government and health workers need to keep us occupied and talk to us. At times I walk like an old lady and look like one. But Mentally I don't feel like one. I love writing, reading, working and talking people's socks off. I am still classed as sick and disabled, take umpteen tablets, have days when I don't feel 100% but most of the time I am enjoying myself.

Yes, Soutra, I can identify with that. When my husband was diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia, the neurologist told him that the accident he'd had ten years earlier would have aged him an extra 20 years. So he was really physically 80 at the time instead of 60. Not something you want to be told.

Joan I can understand your getting cabin fever at times. DH rarely goes out withut me except for a 10 minute (slow) walk but is mostly happy to be reading or on the computer if I want to go out and I do! I can even stay away overnight if DD needs me for a babysit - but just one night as he can panic when he gets dizzy episodes. He too retired through ill health and I followed on a year later as I was finding it virtually impossible to "juggle" a demanding job and his illnesses and (in between) hospital appointments in London which needed me to accompany him. But there you go - he is only in his mid 60's but his body has had a battering worth a decade or two more and we reckon the transplant/ a perforated colon/lymphoma/ 2 TIAs / a scarily large aortic aneurysm and also a valve replacement have used up a few of his nine lives!!

Onwards and upwards girls!!!

Yes, margaret, he most certainly does get upset when I go out more than the one day a week, Wednesday, when I'm out 9am to 1.30pm. Sometimes I'm very naughty and it's 2.30pm. This is for my writers' group, a cuppa with friends afterwards, and a little shopping.

He keeps trying to tell me I don't need to go to the hospital to arrange physio for my back (a problem dating back to a difficult childbirth 32 years ago, that has slowly got worse) because it is my gardening that is causing it!!

Margaret Mitchell's line from her book Gone With the Wind, 1936:

"Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them."

Sorry to hear about your DH's problems, Joan? Does he get upset if you go out? We have someone with that difficulty in our family and it is hard, the OH spent a long time not going anywhere much either until his DDs took charge and made him. Now he has health problems and can't get out by himself, but his DDs take him.

Oh, that's such a good way of looking at things, Joan!

This is true, Margaret.

Sorry Jen, for getting it wrong and calling your husband your brother.

I'm always trying to do the right thing, feed my family properly etc, but it isn't easy. These days I don't really understand my life. For 40+ years I worked hard, and had a healthy husband. Then suddenly I'm retired and he gets all sorts of health problems. Actually he got them before I retired; I was the breadwinner for a while.

Life doesn't make a lot of sense. I should be achieving more - more writing, more artwork, more craftwork, more learning, more organisation. But what do I do? - I play with the dog, do a bit of gardening, daydream, waffle on this forum and a Yorkshire forum, and look after DH. His agoraphobia keeps me at home much of the time, and sometimes I go stir crazy.

But I refuse to be an early death statistic; not 'cos my life is so wonderful, but because I want to know what happens next, in science, in politics, in the world, in my family. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it is keeping me alive.

You just never know.

Exactly, Margaret. Particularly with grade 4 gliomas, which is what my husband had. He was having seizures, too Joan. It depends on which part of the brain, too. We had discussions afterwards with neurosurgeons and all sorts of doctors, who all said it sometimes is just bad luck.
My husabnd was type 1 diabetic from when he was 11 years old. Whenever he went to the diabetic clinic, he was held up as an example of how to control diabetes.
My father smoked 40 a day from when he was 12 years old, so he told us. He gave up when he had a stroke at 75, but he lived to 87. He was a tours driver until he retired, so for 15-20 weeks every year, he would live off hotel food, etc. When the season finished, he would have enough free bottles of whisky to last him til the next season started.

I think we all know of people, friends or family, who have died unexpectedly and I am sorry to hear about your DH Jen.

Sometimes I think you can do 'everything right' and things still go wrong. I do believe that stress can bring on another seemingly unrelated disease.

And we all hear about very old people who have smoked for years but reached their 90s or lived on biscuits and reached a ripe old age (two I know of personally).

Sometimes it's genetic or sometimes it's just pot luck.

Also it's not about catching a brain tumour in time. There are different types of brain tumours some of which cannot be treated. Others in impossible locations.

I think Jen was talking about her husband not a brother.

AAAARGH Joan you're not serious about raw milk being good for you. Raw milk can carry all kinds of pathogens and that is why it is illegal in some places. Pasteurisation is an essential public health measure and drinking raw milk is dangerous.
Dairy cattle carry all kinds of diseases that can be transmitted to humans. They also get dung all over their udders, and don't tell me that you can sterilise udders before milking - clean them maybe, but sterilise them no, so faecal bacteria are bound to get into the milk to some extent.
The evidence is still tipped in favour of the hypothesis that a diet high in saturates leads to an increase in cardio vascular disease. There is still much to learn about the way different fats behave in the human body. Of course there are different types of "hard" or saturated fats - transfats (as in hard margarine) meat fat, dairy fat and hard vegetable fats. On balance I think the best advice is to eliminate the transfats and treat other hard fats with a degree of caution.

Luckily my brother lives in Scotland and is reasonably well off, so with a bit of luck he 's buying decent fish. But you never know, do you? It is the same with meat: grass fed beef is really good for us, but so much is grain fed and you never know what they've added to the grain. As for milk - raw milk is best for us, but all we can get or afford is the standard homogenised stuff. In fact raw milk can be illegal in some places. At least I know my eggs are OK as I have my own chickens!

We can just do the best we can.

Nothing about diet is ever straightforward. You might think eating plenty of oily fish with its essential fatty acids is a great idea – and, in theory, it probably is – but that is without taking account of the intake of mercury from many oily fish, such as salmon and tuna, caused by human pollution of the seas.

I'm so sorry your brother died so young, durhamjen. They mustn't have caught it in time.

My brother got a brain tumour too - at age 70. It was called a glyoma. It was terrifying for all of us, but in his case they caught it on time, as it manifested itself early through seizures. He had a year of chemo, spaced out every so many days.

As soon as he got it he discussed it with the family: his son is a respected medical researcher who runs a Mayo clinic lab in San Diego, our BiL a physicist, our sister has done extensive research on nutrition, and he decided on the ketogenic diet: lots of oily fish and fatty food, lots of greens, dairy, eggs, but no grain, no sugar and few carbs.

Anyway, it is now two years later and he's in remission. His Doc is surprised and pleased, and is considering the benefits of his diet for his other patients.

So much that goes wrong can be blamed on the food we eat. I'm not saying I've got it right - people have been eating grain for thousands of years, but for my family, giving up grain, giving up sugar and sugary foods, and eating as much natural fat as we want, is working.

My husband thinks I'm insane, and eats lots of wholegrain bread, loves his mashed spuds, and eats as much baked stuff as he can get away with in view of his diabetes. He has type 2 diabetes, diagnosed at age 70, painful hands and feet, insomnia, depression, panic attacks and other conditions.

But I'm wrong and he's right.

Joan, we ate healthy food, usually organic so no nasty additives, my husband never smoked after the age of 20, and he never weighed more than 9.5 stone. He died at 65 from a brain tumour. So bang goes your theory. Assuming, of course, that you think 65 is early.

I do all the no active ones of those ( except sex! [ what's that? I can't remember ?] and I don't smoke,)
Should I want to live another year?
I'm not sure it's worth the expense?

Aka