Tips for looking after your health

Beeblebr0x

Yoga/pilates 
Get enough sleep 
Look after your teeth
For men, insist on an annual PSA test if you're over 50 (45 if there's a family history of prostate cancer)

Brie

moved....................

Toothsmith

+1 for brush your teeth effectively!

Also - keep yourself active!

Spoonie_Turtle

Get your hearing checked and accept hearing aids if prescribed them (free on the NHS, no need to shell out £000s).  There's a strong link between untreated hearing loss and dementia (source: RNID).  And if the hearing aids aren't comfortable and you still can't get used to them after wearing them for an hour or two each day for a couple of weeks, keep going back to the audiologist until they are right.

Also learn communication tips because HAs won solve the problem, they're useful but they don't correct lost hearing like glasses correct simple visual differences.  (It is akin to glasses not restoring lost vision but helping maximise remaining vision.)  Strategies to help communication are important for keeping connections with people, which are also linked to keeping the brain healthy and working for as long as possible.

A lot of people refuse to accept help and various daily living and mobility aids for various reasons - but they're ultimately just tools, the stigma around them doesn't change that.  We don't shame people for using kitchen appliances rather than doing everything manually and cooking over a fire, we don't shame people for using a vehicle for journeys they can't do on foot, so aids to help with daily living are not inherently any different.  It's much more dignified to use what we* need than to struggle along without and end up hurting ourselves and/or stuck unhappily trapped at home.


(*I say 'we' - I'm not elderly but I am disabled and even with aids my life is incredibly restricted, but I'd have been housebound years sooner and probably properly bedbound by now without appropriate aids!)

Murphybear

Don’t ignore any health issues, especially lumps.  I’ve lost a mother in law and a BFF to breast cancer as they ignored the symptoms ie lumps

Note to all you men:  in case you weren’t aware, men can get breast cancer as well 

SarahB16

Murphybear said:

Don’t ignore any health issues, especially lumps. I've lost a mother in law and a BFF to breast cancer as they ignored the symptoms ie lumps 

Note to all you men:  in case you weren’t aware, men can get breast cancer as well 

Absolutely and take advantage of the mammogram screening and on the subject of screening bowel cancer screening too.  

adrich

Have a well-organized daily routine. Go to bed and wake up at the same time and sleep enough. Since I started following this rule, I feel much more energetic. 

Murphybear

SarahB16 said:

Murphybear said:

Don’t ignore any health issues, especially lumps. I've lost a mother in law and a BFF to breast cancer as they ignored the symptoms ie lumps 

Note to all you men:  in case you weren’t aware, men can get breast cancer as well 

Absolutely and take advantage of the mammogram screening and on the subject of screening bowel cancer screening too.  

I kept getting anaemic and my GP said “we’ll throw everything at it” as there was no obvious cause.  I had a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy, one immediately after the other.  They aren’t much fun but not having them could be much worse.   The Dr who did them told me immediately that they were both clear 

My GP prescribed some iron tablets.  

SarahB16

Murphybear said:

My GP prescribed some iron tablets.  

Hopefully for only a very short time.  It is definitely not advisable to take iron tablets long term and far better to increase your iron levels naturally to the required level via food.  

GDB2222

SarahB16 said:

Murphybear said:

My GP prescribed some iron tablets.  

Hopefully for only a very short time.  It is definitely not advisable to take iron tablets long term and far better to increase your iron levels naturally to the required level via food.  

I’m on iron tablets, and I have been long term. If I don’t take them I become anaemic. Why is it inadvisable?  Any specific reason, or just a general idea that adjusting diet is better?