Wellness checkups - 6 reasons you should go for regular physical examinations

Do you remember the last time you went to see a physical health practitioner? What caused that trip to the doctor? Were you suffering from an especially bad case of flu, or was the situation more serious? Whatever the case was, one thing is certain - for more than half of you, it was not a simple wellness exam.

Most people in the US do not get themselves examined regularly

Going to see the doctor can be an unnerving and intimidating experience. This is why most of the US population is hesitant to make the trip unless it has become absolutely necessary. Most people delay a regular wellness checkup until they have torn a limb or are coughing up blood.

According to studies, about 20% of the US population has not seen a doctor in the past year, and more than 50% of the population admits to deliberately put off a regular medical exam until the situation has become quite grave.

This means that these people are more often going to the Emergency Department rather than to a doctor’s office. Fortunately, for when you need urgent care Weatherford TX, there are a lot of competent options you can choose from.

Reasons you should be scheduling a regular physical wellness checkup

Overcoming your stress, fear, and reluctance about visiting a health care professional is exceptionally imperial to maintaining good health and wellness. Going to a doctor regularly can have multiple benefits - and not just to your health! In the following paragraphs, we will discuss some of the most significant advantages of keeping a regular check on your health.

1.    A well-timed medical exam will help you to nip your health problem right in the bud

First off, we will discuss the most prominent advantage to regular medical checkups. This is the reason why we even schedule the medical exam in the first place. Yes, we are talking about early detection of any condition you might have or be at the risk of developing shortly.

When you are going to the doctor regularly, it is easier to pick up problems before they have escalated dramatically. Rather than catching your lung cancer when it has reached its full-blown potential at stage IV, a well-timed medical exam may recognize the risk as soon as you start wheezing a little when taking a long breath.

Regular medical exams help you and your health care professional to focus on preventive measures for a high-risk disease rather than treating the disease. In this way, it nips your health problems right in the bud and excuses you from any unnecessary suffering and end-stage diseases.

2.    Going to the doctor regularly can save you a whole lot of money in the long run

When your health problems are being detected early on, this means that you can take the cheaper way out - prevention. Taking precautionary measures when you are at risk of developing deadly diseases does not only spare you a whole lot of pain and suffering but also weighs easier on the pocket.

Let us continue with our lung cancer scenario from above. In this example, for a small fee of a normal physical checkup with your doctor, you do not only look at a life free of painful surgeries, chemotherapy, and other medical procedures but also manage to avoid the hefty medical bills these procedures would incur.

3.    Getting yourself checked every once in a while helps to determine your baselines

Thirdly, frequent, and regular medical checkups enable you to establish what is normal for you. Though there is an average range set by the medical authorities for every lab test as a ‘normal range,’ the reality is that your normal can be very different from this normal.

Every individual has a different value for their baselines. The standard normal values are determined to take the majority of the population into account, but that does not mean that you cannot fall out of this pre-established range and still be normal. If you are such an individual whose baselines do not match with the standard value, this information can be beneficial when your doctor is trying to diagnose a condition and the extent to which it has spread.

4.    Regular wellness exams help you build a trusting relationship with your health care professional, allowing you to be open and clear about the problems you are facing

This is perhaps the second most important reason why going to the doctor regularly and frequently should be made the norm. When you are seeing your doctor every year or every few years, it helps you break the ice and build a trusting relationship with him. You start to confide in him of all your problems that arose since you last saw him.

For example, a patient is probably not going to be very comfortable letting a stranger know that he has developed a strange-looking mole on his bottom. If it is a doctor whom he has never seen before, he will not be encouraged in making the information known. Rather, he would downplay the condition and maybe even manage to convince himself that it is not as big of a deal.

However, when that same patient has been going to that doctor for a while, he will feel more at ease telling the doctor about things that he may consider ‘embarrassing.’ This does not only help the doctor to check out something that he may have missed otherwise but also gives the patient the peace of mind that he is not living in doubt anymore. There is somebody who has got his back when it comes to his health and wellness.

5.    Make the most of your insurance policy - take what you can from what you are already paying for

Many people are deterred from going to the doctor because they do not want to incur any more costs - especially if they feel healthy. In this case, looking into your insurance policy is a good idea.

If you already have an insurance policy that covers regular medical checkups, then you might as well make use of it. Without costing you anything extra, going to the doctor’s, in this case, helps you get the most for your bucks.

6.    A competent physician can identify any mental health problems while he is doing your physical exam

Last but not least, going to a health practitioner regularly allows you to not only get assessed physically but also mentally. This is one of the most overlooked benefits of visiting your doctor on the regular.

In recent years, we have seen an alarming increase in mental health conditions between the general public. Whether this is caused by the overindulgent lifestyle practices of today or the overworking of an individual is up for debate. But whatever the case is, this is a significant cause for concern and needs immediate attention if we hope to minimize this issue in the future.

But in our society, mental health awareness is still in its initial stages. There are stigmas associated with getting an appointment from a psychologist, psychiatrist, or even a regular counselor to solve any mental problems you must be facing. Fortunately, even your family physician is trained to know a mental disorder when he sees one.

When you schedule a physical exam, you are getting more than just checking if you are at risk for developing heart disease or diabetes. If your doctor is a genuinely good one, he will be able to point out any mental health issues that may be festering undiagnosed, or warn you if you are at risk of developing one in the future. In addition to this, he can also refer you to the right professional to get the issue sorted.

The final word

Do you visit your doctor regularly for a checkup even when you are not sick? If you do not, then this is the time you start doing that. As the saying goes, “prevention is better than cure.” Detecting your problems early on can spare you a lot of pain, suffering, as well as medical bills in the future.

*This blog post was written by Alycia Gordan. 

ABOUT Alycia Gordan

Alycia Gordan is a freelance writer who loves to read and write articles on healthcare technology, fitness, and lifestyle. She is a tech junkie and divides her time between travel and writing. You can find her on Twitter: @meetalycia