Hopefully until tomorrow morning.If I keep saying this and am always right,I’ll watch the Sun explode in a few billion years time
Wb
Chuffin eck John…don`t get maudling on that one luv!
Folk with MS normally live as long as anyone without it…sometimes longer, who knows.
I see you`ve got loads of replies backing my thoughts.
nay lad, get on wi` living and leave the rest to whatever, eh?
luv Pollx
John,
Your life expectancy will certainly affect your annuity provider’s decision! You may already know this, but for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t, make sure you declare your MS, and any other health condition, because the harsh reality is they DO impact life expectancy - but it’s not all bad news, as that should qualify us for a higher annuity rate! This is one instance where you should never keep quiet about anything that’s wrong with you, because they’ll be ready to pay more if they think there’s a good chance of you popping off soon. So the worse it looks, the more you’ll get.
It’s also worth remembering you can purchase an annuity on the open market - you don’t have to stick with the pension company that’s been administering your scheme. The difference between your existing provider’s offer, and the best available to you can be significant. And as the terms you sign up to will apply for the rest of your life, it can add up to many thousands of pounds, if you don’t shop around, or declare all medical conditions.
Tina
Amazing article about annuities in money section of Sunday telegraph yesterday saying that insurance companies have been ripping off clients for years. Apparently they base a standard policy on someone living to 93 and being in good health. ( Meaning that if you don’t last that long you’ll lose out. ). When a policy matures (you do not have to take pension with your policy provider) shop around for best payout , mentioning all ailments in health, including whether you smoke etc. Once you’ve signed up with payment provider it’s for life ie no changes can be made ! Tony
I have been following this thread with some interest, but it was the post from Sewingchick thar really prompted this.
Beware of calculating from “average” data.
I had a heart bypass in 2000. I was told then that the "average life of a successful bypass op was 7 years. So, I have probably been dead for 6 years.
The life expectancy calculator from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, suggests that I will die at 75 (I am 76 next month).
The figures from the World Health Organisation suggest an expectancy of 79 (that’s better), but I have seen a figure of “5 years less for MS” so I died last year, and if we take the 10 years in the study quoted by Sewingchick I should have died in 2003 (but I had the onset of what became a Dx of MS in 2007, so that one does not work at all.
My own feeling is “not yet” but it will probably not be from MS. Say I have another bad fall and break a hip; that could put me in hospital with the prospect of not coming out again - but it will not be the MS that kills me. Delayed shock, post-op shock acquired infection, all of these would be possible, but not MS as a direct cause.
However the “averages” do not stop there. People of 70 do not get MS - that’s a fact. It is also a fact that those who get MS later in life have the condition develop at a much slower rate - so why have I gone from an EDSS of 1.5 to one of 6.5 in just two years?
So there you have it - do not trust the “averages”, guesswork, or reading the entrails of a freshly killed chicken might be closer.
Geoff
When a close friend had cancer she asked her oncologist what the ‘average life expectancy’ is for her particular cancer. He told her that there was no point in looking at ‘averages’ you’re either dead or not - you can’t be 70% dead - though I would argue that he hasn’t seen me trying to get my teenage son out of bed on a Saturday morning 
I agree with the oncologist - averages tell you something about a large number of people, not about what is going to happen to any one person. So if the medical profession has collected data about people with MS, and they have found that those people, as a group, had shorter lives than a similar group, none of whom had MS. I wasn’t saying that any particular person would die at a particular age. Neither was ‘Doctor’ Geoff’s life expectancy calculator telling him what age he would die - to say that you’re alive when the statistics say you should be dead simply shows you don’t understand statistics.
I meant to say ‘The medical profession has collected data about people with MS, and they have found that those people, as a group, had lives shorter on average by ten years than a similar group, none of whom had MS.’ I’m struggling for clarity on this thread.
hiya
i expect to live til tomorrow-one of these days i will be wrong.
ellie x
Yesterday is gone. All we have is today as tomorrow is not promised to any of us. You could put yourself round the bend if you thought too much about the future. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best has always been my motto.
Mary
My somewhat tongue-in-cheek post produced some interesting responses, particularly with reference to a life expectancy of -1 year. Yes, thats right, I died a year ago!
For those who want to try the calculator for themselves, the URL is:
http://www.uwic.ac.uk/shss/dom/newweb/lifestyle/age_expectancy2.htm
but please do take note of a few things.
It is not accurate. If it can give the -1 figure, it cannot be accurate
It is not accurate. It asks you to give the number of “life events”; this means the number of life events (typically marriage, divorce, death of a loved one or family member, moving house) but not over any specific period. I had to fake some of the values to get the -1 value; if I had put in the real life events value (which is not possible with this calculator) I would have died over 10 years ago.
This is a teaching tool (probably for would-be health psychologists - play with it, change a lot of the inputs, see the effects - ) and it can be a good laugh. Just please don’t trust the underlying formulae, 'cos the assumptions are not accurate. Particularly, it assumes that smoking is the only condition that can affect your health (nothing about alcohol abuse, hard drugs, critical illnesses, etc).
So have fun, but please don’t die while you are doing it - it upsets the ifgures.
Geoff