Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

When I realized that there were four jars of Best Foods Real Mayonnaise in my cupboard, I thought to myself, well this is how IT starts.  By IT, I mean the gentle demise of your brain and all of the functions it controls, literally Brain Freeze on Downers. You see, I still cannot mention the name of the disease that does this to basically elderly people because I am terrified.  I’ll bet you thought this is a commercial for Best Foods Real mayonnaise; well it is not. It is a discussion on a disease I must continue to call IT.  My doctors would like to know if I would like to be tested to see if I have the marker for IT.  Since my mother and father both had IT, I don’t need a damn test to tell me I will get IT, someday.  In the meantime, the health care specialists say, let us explore some ways to best help older adults lead happier, healthier lives.  I say this a crock for sure, because as I see it, it is more like let us see how little we can spend on health care for the aging and how to best use them as guinea pigs for new testing to gather results on the future of aging.

The UCLA Division of Geriatrics sends out a newsletter titled: Healthy/Years stating they are helping older adults lead happier, healthier lives. I say this is nonsense because everything I read in their letter and experiences as well about seniors leads to a brick wall.

This newsletter and the articles prepare you to fear for your life and the shoddy scary treatment yet to come. First of all, it states that 45% of all new breast cancer diagnoses is in women over the age of 65. Also stated that the risk of breast cancer does not start to decline until after the age of 85. Yet, they are promoting less mammograms for older women.

Healthy /Years, says what we all know that, the cure rate is early detection and the best way to do that is to have regular mammograms. Yes, I agree, but they have suggested that providing mammograms for women over the age of 70 is something of a debate among the experts.  They also state that mammography for older women depends on life expectancy and whether you would undergo treatment if a tumor were found. Really? This is disgusting. The UCLA Division of Geriatrics is cutting you off so to speak at 70 and if you want to live longer, you should make that known.  How does anyone predict true life expectancy? Maybe a mother, father, or grandparents died younger, but the way modern medicine is contributing to longevity, I expect to be way over 100, don’t you? So, if I know I have the marker for the dreaded brain freeze on downers (IT), then I should not get mammograms, or should I or should I not try to increase my life expectancy with or without the disease? I really do not like to think of these things, but we cannot sit with blinders on our eyes as well as our conscience.

The article in the UCLA Healthy/ Years, also states that in fact being older is actually beneficial when it comes to mammography because they are more sensitive as women get older, because their breast tissue becomes less glandular and more fatty, which makes it easier to detect cancer. Plus it takes less radiation to get excellent quality mammograms in older women, and I know all mammography has not been adjusted to this stated fact. So now that in older women it takes less radiation, is easier to detect, and is important in ladies until they are 85, you, the medical profession has suggested that we actually stop giving mammograms to women over the age of 70 because they might not live very much longer and may not want to receive the cure opportunities.  I say, what a crock.

UCLA Healthy/Years further states in another article titled: Vaccination is Crucial to Ensure a Healthy Winter for seniors.  It is stated that in December 2009 the FDA licensed a high-dose influenza vaccine Fluzone High-Dose, which has four times the amount of each of the three influenza antigens that standard vaccine contains for seniors because producing an antibody response has shown to be diminished in older adults. Nothing was said about receiving four times the amount of preservatives and other particles in this vaccine. Now, seniors it is time to step up to the plate and become a human guinea pig and receive four times the amount of influenza. Gosh almighty, will it stop?  No it will not, and I have it on good authority that it will not stop for a long, long time or even ever.  Where money and expenditures are in the equation, you will get seniors chopped off first and foremost because as stated above, life expectancy. It does not take into consideration the time, money and service you have put into the system. I have always known this fact and here it is quite evident here.  It is not what you have done for me in the past; it is what you can do for the future and us now.