It might seem nonsensical to visit a doctor when you’re healthy, but that’s the best time for the doctor to secure baseline information from the healthy you. Then, over time, he or she can compare measurements of things like your weight, cholesterol, and blood pressure to address changes before they become a problem.
You and your doctor can decide how often you need to be seen, whether it’s yearly, every other year, or some other interval depending on your health, family history, and age. Medical experts say it might be more accurate to look at it as maintaining periodic health visits rather than getting a traditional annual physical.
Disease screening
Staying in regular contact with your doctor will allow you to develop a personalized plan for scheduling screening tests for all sorts of health issues, including high cholesterol, diabetes, and colon cancer. These tests usually follow age- and gender-specific guidelines, but they also depend upon your health risks and family history.
Screenings allow diseases to be detected early in their most treatable stages and can even flag signs of a budding problem. In those cases, you can begin to manage your risk factors and reduce the chances that you’ll develop a life-threatening disease or condition.
These early-warning indicators are important because many medical conditions don’t produce symptoms until they’re at a critical level. By then, they’re harder and more expensive to treat. For instance, high blood pressure shows no symptoms but all the while can be causing damage throughout your body; increased blood sugar doesn’t necessarily produce symptoms until it is at dangerous levels, requiring emergency care.
Immunizations
Doctors can make sure you’ve received immunizations, including shingles, pneumonia, and flu shots, important for older adults to stay healthy.
Lifestyle and health history
It’s important for long-term health to keep your doctor apprised of your family health history because it can influence your risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. You need to be honest with your doctor about your lifestyle behaviors such as diet, activity level, safe sex practices, and drug, alcohol, and tobacco use so he or she can monitor your health in context with how you treat your body.
Any changes in your family’s health history—say a relative’s new case of breast cancer—or changes in your lifestyle—a new, stressful job or significant sleeping problems—should be shared so your doctor can help with the tools and information you need to stay healthy.
While it is easy to avoid the doctor’s office while you’re feeling healthy, it’s always good to know what’s brewing on the inside so you’re not blindsided by a serious health problem and the expenses that come with it.