the menopausal years

Leissa is newly retired, just sixty, and considering the tremendous changes that her body has already been through in the menopausal years, starting from her mid 30s, she is amazed that she is still standing, just, and wants every woman to know that 60 is not the new 40 and that menopause is a continuing process of degeneration – not something that starts and ends around 50 when your periods stop.

"Whoever said that 60 is the new 40 obviously hasn't reached that milestone yet or is hiding their real selves behind HRT, Prozac, a glossy wig, barrels of botox, multiple plastic surgeries, dental implants and a whole lot of joint pain they defiantly refuse to acknowledge," says Leissa. “The hormonal changes pre and post the date your periods cease govern a whole lot of body functions, not just your fertility.”

"Looking back, I was definitely on the downhill slide by my mid 30s but when you’re that age you don’t even think of old age," sighs Leissa. "Menopause was the first time when I really faced up to my ageing self and stopped all the nonsense I was doing to fool myself - hair dyes, miracle skin creams, vitamin therapy, etc."

"I started getting grey hairs, wrinkles and hearing loss in my 30s," says Leissa, "and by my 40s I lost the ability to read fine print; developed joint pains that made exercise difficult; developed a diminution in my ability to taste things; and suffered the lot of every ageing mom - partial incontinence due to weakening of the pelvic muscles after childbirth."

"At menopause in my early 50s my periods ceased but I also lost my libido,” says Leissa. “As well, I also dried up in the salivary gland department which caused gum problems and a few teeth to fall out; and another dry department was my eyes, which had become red and sore. It was really scary to face my ageing menopausal body – everything was going south."

"By my mid to late 50s, all of these problems magnified as menopause continued to change my body," says Leissa. "My hair thinned to wisps; my skin became much drier, age spots occurred, I bruised easily and really started to suffer in hot and cold weather; I developed black floaters in my eyes that scared the life out of me and I could no longer see in the dark."

"My hearing deteriorated so much that I could no longer hold a conversation without asking people to repeat themselves; I had several spontaneous wrist fractures; and finally my back teeth became such a problem that I decided to get them extracted and replaced with a plate."

"Apart from the teeth, eye floaters and the wrist fractures, none of these problems were bad enough for me to actually seek medical attention and intervention," says Leissa. "I just philosophically put everything down to the inevitability of old age, and because everything happened so slowly, you hardly notice it’s happening until the damage is so apparent that it hits you in the eye."

"So, don’t get sucked in by the airbrushed old ladies in the glossy magazines who claim that 60 is fabulous," laughs Leissa, "because it most certainly isn’t and they are either on HRT (and taking an enormous risk) or lying through their whitened false teeth and botoxed lips, desperately trying to hang on to their past glory days."

Read Leissa’s other story: old age sucks for women!

old age sucks for women!

Leissa is newly retired, just sixty, and having adapted to grey hair, wrinkles, poor hearing and eyesight, partial incontinence due to weakening of the pelvic muscles after childbirth, a dental plate, loss of libido and the inevitable creaks of ageing joints she is terrified of the more serious degenerative diseases that await her and admits that old age sucks a lot more for women than it does for men.

"My general health has always been pretty good, but by the time I turned 60 this year I was well and truly ready for retirement," sighs Leissa. "On top of everything else, I had developed high blood pressure and had lost a lot of my energy."

"We are so hung up about the physical manifestations of ageing that we completely forget that horrible things are happening to our inner organs, too – our hearts, lungs, liver, kidneys and bowels, etc, are ageing as fast as everything else!"

"Apparently, our blood vessels lose their elasticity from the age of 40 onwards and the heart has to work harder," explains Leissa. "By continuing to work long hours and doing my normal hectic activities I was setting myself up for heart disease, so I took the opportunity to retire early and take things easy."

"I’m not overweight, I maintain a healthy lifestyle and I am a happy, positive person," says Leissa, "but no matter what the esteemed medical authorities say, or the snake oil purveyors of potions and lotions say, all of that is no protection whatsoever against the degenerative diseases that await us all. As mere mortals, degeneration of all vital organs and then death is normal and inevitable."

"There's digestive degeneration to look forward to; the loss of smell; short term memory loss (which I fear I already have, now where did I put my keys!); a decrease in the ability to learn and concentrate; slower reflexes; loss of strength; and the dreaded dementia," sighs Leissa. "If that weren’t bad enough, then there's lung, kidney and liver degeneration and the possibility of cancer and late onset diabetes - all of which, thank God, I’ve escaped so far, but some of my same age friends haven't."

“And, as well as the physical degenerations, we must also face psychological degeneration,” says Leissa. “Depression, I believe, goes along with every physical loss.”

"We're all different, we age in different ways, and die of different causes, but we all suffer some sort of degenerative disease (mostly heart disease) and no matter what you do, ageing is inevitable, you can't turn back time and you can't live forever," sighs Leissa. "None of us is immune from the ravages of time exacerbated now more than ever by modern lifestyle stresses and environmental factors - and in the end we all succumb."

"Turning 60 was a giant milestone,” confides Leissa. “I am now very aware that my days are numbered and that from herein out it is going to be a very bumpy ride."

"Take my word for it: old age sucks, it started sucking at 50 and gets suckier with each passing year!"

Read Leissa's other story the menopausal years

a smoker lives to 122!

In researching the secrets of longevity, Emerald, 62, was amazed to learn that the world's oldest people – Jeanne Louise Calment (pictured) and Marie-Louise Meilleur – were smokers.

"I gave up smoking seven years, two months and five days ago," laughs Emerald, "and it's been such a terrible time for me that, yes, I have been taking each day as it comes, reciting the non-smoking mantra and believing that I'm doing myself good when, in fact, I'm probably doing myself more harm by drinking and eating more and stressing myself being a reformed smoker."

"No, I'm not going to rush out and buy a pack of cigarettes," says Emerald, "but I am going to stop all the other nonsense I've been doing for the past seven years, two months and five days and if I ever feel like having a smoke then I will deal with it in a mature and informed manner."

"Jeanne Louise Calment began smoking as a young woman -- like I did," says Emerald, "and she quit smoking at 117 because by then she was was blind, too proud to ask someone else to light her cigarettes for her and was encouraged by her doctor to do so."

"At 117 she had reduced her smoking to just two or three cigarettes per day -- like I did -- and she should have been able to quit completely," says Emerald, "but I guess she was too smart to go through the daily non-smoking mantra and strict regime that the rest of us ex-smokers have to go through."

"She actually resumed smoking a year later at 118 because she felt miserable -- oh boy, do I know about that -- and told her doctor to get stuffed, or words to that effect," laughs Emerald. "She believed, quite rightly I suppose, that only someone who had lived as long as she had was qualified to tell her what she should and should not do."

"When Mme. Calment died in France in l997, at the incredible age of 122, her place on the longevity list was taken by a 116-year old chain smoker from Canada -- Marie-Louise Meilleur -- who had quit smoking just 16 years before."

"I certainly don't believe that smoking prolongs life," says Emerald, "but facts like these really make you wonder about doing what people tell you to do, and doing what your gut instinct tells you to do."

Read more stories by Emerald related to longevity:

how to live to 122

everything in moderation

doggy friends

overeating and early graves?

smoking and lack-of-heart disease

Kirsten is 47, a smoker and a nurse who should be setting a good example for the community in regard to healthy living but she fumes at scare-mongering, heartless, anti-smoking propaganda and maintains that smokers are no more or less healthy than non-smokers.
"Smokers are being blamed unfairly for the rise of lung cancers, heart diseases and spiralling national health costs," sighs Kirsten, "but I'm seeing far less smokers on my wards than I did thirty years ago."

"What I am seeing more of in my wards is patients who are far more obese and a far lot older than before," says Kirsten, "and that's a fact that airlines, funeral parlors and all health-related industries are noticing."

"When airlines and funeral parlors have been forced to widen their seats and coffins to cater for rising obesity -- and the average age of air travellers and dearly departed has also risen -- you get to understand that all the hype about smoking is a smokescreen to hide the true facts about community health."

"Sure, lung cancer is on the rise but so is every other type of cancer and heart disease," laughs Kirsten, "and it's all because people are living longer these days."

"If disease incidence and death statistics were published by age rather than per capita, everyone would see that the vast majority fall into the older age groups where you'd expect people to be developing degeneration of their vital organs. And, where they don't, obesity is the prime causative factor, not smoking."

"When you're 88 years old does it really matter if you die of lung cancer, heart disease or a bee sting?" laughs Kirsten. "Of course not, so why should it bother anybody else?"

"Antibiotics and modern medicine have eradicated diseases that once wiped out millions of people are these diseases are being replaced on the death statistics with conditions like lung cancer and heart disease that most people once never lived long enough to develop."

"The number one cause of heart disease is aging," says Kirsten. "If you stop smoking or change your diet in middle age -- by which time the aging process has set in -- you're not going to improve your chances of avoiding heart disease. The clock is ticking away and will stop exactly when it is programmed to stop unless something intervenes to make it stop earlier."

"Get it?"

"What's more, medical opinion is divided as to how much cigarette smoking is directly responsible for the rise in lung cancer and heart disease," adds Kirsten. "Very few people die of one thing or another. There are always a myriad of factors involved in disease and death. If an old lady with osteoporosis dies from a fall while she's smoking is the cause of death an accidental fall, osteoporosis-related or smoking-related?"

"Doctors have carte blanche, almost, to record causes of death as they see fit," says Kirsten, "and believe me, I've seen some records that are plainly wrong. In relation to AIDS, I can accept that pneumonia might be a kinder cause of death for the sake of the relatives than the true cause -- but in relation to lung cancer and heart disease I object to smoking because listed as a primary cause just because the deceased was a smoker."

"Fanatical anti-smoking health workers are naturally prone to inflate the figures of smoking-related disease incidence and causes of death, but thankfully there are still many in the professions who are open to consider factors other than smoking."

"Apart from the obvious reason -- that we're living longer -- factors such as increasing air pollution (from carcinogens not known thirty years ago), the stresses of modern living (more people on the planet, and increasing daily), personal stressful circumstances and all manner of bugs need to be taken into consideration when assessing lung cancer and heart disease in smokers."

"Whenever I see a list of risk factors I feel like adding ridiculous things like 'wearing pink shirts'," laughs Kirsten, "because that's just about as true as everything else."

"If just one non-smoker -- such as Dana Reeve -- dies of lung cancer," says Kirsten, "then it's pretty obvious that cigarettes are not the primary cause of the disease and other factors have to betaken into consideration. Bearing in mind that it's only recently that a bacteria was found to cause stomach ulcers and a virus was found to cause cervical cancer, it's imperative to keep an open mind."

"I'm pretty sure, too, that anti-smoking propaganda has had a lot to do with the spiralling increase in obesity," says Kirsten. "I'm seeing less smokers on my wards than I did thirty years ago because so many people have quit and started stuffing their faces with food instead."

"Everyone I know who has quit smoking has put on a lot of weight," says Kirsten, "and because obesity is more a health risk than smoking I believe the medical profession has a duty to make this fact more well known."

"I am most certainly not going to come out as an advocate for the tobacco industry -- I hate their sly tactics to increase addiction as much as I hate the anti-smoking lobby for creating fear," says Kirsten."What I am saying is that people who are happy smokers should not be bombarded with lies, damn lies and statistics to scare them into quitting."

"There are plenty of doctors who smoke but they are too cowed by the system to publicly counteract the anti-smoking propaganda," says Kirsten. "Like me, they are supposed to set a good example for the community in relation to healthy living but unlike me they have more to lose from the exercise."

"They believe it's better to keep quiet, keep a low profile and in time -- like alcohol prohibition -- the focus will go off smoking onto something else," sighs Kirsten. "They are probably right -- it's just a fad -- but I still believe it's unfair to jerk smokers around and rip them off."

"Here in the public health system I don't see any of the extra taxes being ripped off smokers being spent to pay for the so-called costs of 'smoking-related diseases'," says Kirsten. "So, if you expect your smoking dollars to ensure good treatment in hospital should you develop lung cancer or copd in old age, forget it."

"I've known many smokers who lie about being smokers when they need to come to hospital for some minor treatment," says Kirsten. "It's medically unwise, but understandable within a punitive system fed by anti-smoking hysteria where you're treated badly if you admit to being a smoker. Would you freely admit to being a Jew in a Nazi German hospital with someone like Dr Mengeles likely to treat you?"

"Forget about heart disease in smokers, it's lack-of-heart disease that's the real problem with our society."