grow older better

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  • I gave in : – )

    I am not one to push going to a physician or getting tests, and I am certainly not a good example to follow … but in the past two weeks I decided to get a physical and get some testing done …. seems peer pressure works …. some friends here and there were doing this [again] and so I figured it was time to see if I had any problems as I had not seen a physician in almost two years. Besides I had just signed on with a new primary care provider and figured I might as well meet her : – )

    Good news – I am healthy ….. or at least that how I interpret all those blood test results – as all were within normal ranges. So I told my friends I was normal – they laughed – so I added – physically… and they laughed louder!
    Other news – there are things I continue to “forget” like getting a tetanus booster … It’s only been at least 37 or 38 years since the last one and I haven’t stepped on any bad stuff in that period of time … It was a rusty nail that got me the booster the last time!
    So – I can’t preach about getting checked out with any great regularity – but I do continue to preach about food-based vitamins and supplements as I am sure that is why I feel so great and am in such good shape for such an “old” lady…

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Letting go of some dreams

    I always had the fantasy of hiking the Appalachian trial – all of it – from Georgia to Maine. I’ve been on many “pieces” of the trail but the idea of the whole through-hike was a dream I had since I was in my 20’s and in New York. I’ve read books about it and figured that “someday” I’d do the hike.

    Then I went to Graduate School, then I had a child, then I was a single parent, then it got too dangerous for women to hike the trail, then I moved west and then – I gave up that dream. Do I feel bad about it? Nope. But today I was thinking of other short term or long term dreams we have – and wondered when do we let them go?

    I always wanted to write. I still want to do this – and I know that I have some books in me – and that dream continues. I own a loom and once knew how to weave but the loom sits, in need of some repair after years of non-use. Will I ever weave again? or will this be another dream I let go? I’m not sure…But having hauled the loom cross-country, damn, I’ll keep it a while and see if I get it fixed soon : -)

    What dreams do you have that you let go? or think you might let go? Or dreams you actually realized?

    Does letting go of a dream feel bad? or does it feel good? some long held dreams can become baggage if it seems they are never going to really happen….

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • More issues around medications

    I’ve said this before and will keep repeating it – BEWARE what medications you take!

    Two new studies show that anticholinergics, a commonly prescribed group of drugs, may cause elderly people to “slow down” in their daily physical activities.

    The two reports from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine support findings released a few weeks ago that anticholinergic drugs — which treat a variety of diseases and conditions, including acid reflux, Parkinson’s disease and urinary incontinence — may cause older people to lose their thinking skills more quickly than those who don’t take the medicines.

    Common anticholinergic medicines cited in the study included the blood pressure medication nifedipine (Adalat or Procardia), the stomach antacid ranitidine (Zantac) and the incontinence medication tolterodine (Detrol).

    And if you take the above and mix it with dementia drugs you get this:

    In a separate Wake Forest study, published online in April in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Sink found that older nursing home residents who took medicines for dementia along with anticholingerics for incontinence declined in function 50 percent faster than those only treated only for dementia.

    “Over a year’s time, the decline we observed would represent a resident going from requiring only limited assistance in an activity to being completely dependent, or from requiring only supervision to requiring extensive assistance in an activity,” said Sink, an assistant professor of internal medicine-gerontology at Wake Forest.

    Full article HERE

    Just like the slogan don’t drink and drive – there should be one “don’t mix your meds”…or be very careful abut the mixing…

    And remember that your friendly physician may be prescribing “stuff” based on the drug company representations – not any research.

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Under the Weather In Many Ways : – )

    I almost never get sick but this year I had a little head cold – if there is such a medical term – and it clogged my eustachian tubes for a few days making me feel pretty yukky…

    It’s all gone now but I wonder how much the aftermath of the “head cold” was the dramatic change in the weather!

    We started April with warm balmy days and nights – then sort of normal Spring – then an 80 degree day where I was out in shorts and tank top in my kayak…that of course was followed by sleet and hail and then this past weekend – snow!

    It did not stick here on the river, but it did stick on the higher elevations – like a few hundred feet up..

    Now it’s just rainy and chilly but we are supposed to warm up by May…I should hope so.

    We here in the river worried about the new goslings and the farmers worried about the fruit crops and such…

    Here are some of April’s new babies…

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Happy Tax Day

    I gave up yesterday and filed for an extension. Extensions and I get along just famously!

    First learned of them way back when and have been an avid user ever since – although in the last few years I have actually gotten taxes done before April 15th….[once in February but that was a very rare occasion.]

    I shall finish them before the end of April but I can never see why people go crazy on the 15th when anyone can get an automatic extension. Local newspapers have lists of Post Offices open til midnight tonight so one could drop off the forms.

    I find it easier to efile using an online tax program. I fill in the info from the comfort of my own office, coffee in hand, and it does all the arithmetic for me putting the numbers on all the lines they are supposed to be on! Then it takes the Federal info I entered and puts it into the State forms….Ahhhh I love computers!

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,