Healthy Living: Regular visits to primary care office vital for maintaining good health

There are different names for it– the annual physical, regular check-up, health screening.

Whatever you call it, it is important to have some regular appointments with your primary care office for the purpose of doing certain screenings that are vital for your health.

A scheduled visit to your healthcare provider gives us an opportunity to focus on your individual needs and give you recommendations.

Most of these visits should be yearly, but if you are young and healthy and have no ongoing medical problems, it may not need to be that often.

Blood pressure should be monitored on everyone every two years after the age of 18. Cholesterol tests would be recommended if you are overweight, smoke, already have blood pressure or sugar problems, or a family history.

Colon cancer screening recommendations start for most people at 50, but your visit allows your provider to help you decide if you need the screening earlier due to a family history.

It is recommended that we ask more questions about depression on visits, screening for that condition, as well as reviewing your Body Mass Index, to determine if you are overweight or obese.

For a woman’s annual visit, we would discuss breast cancer screening- usually starting around 40.

Pap smears to detect cervical cancer are important, and recommendations change sometimes. Now pap tests are recommended only every 1 to 3 years between the ages of 21 and 65.

We would screen for some sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia in women 24 and younger.

Men have other issues to discuss like prostate screening and if they are over 65, consider screening for an abdominal aneurysm.

We also would review immunizations- everyone should get a flu shot every year, be sure a tetanus update is every 10 years, and everyone over 65 should have a pneumonia shot on record. Some people younger than 65 should have one, too.

Your periodic screening exam is much better if scheduled as a separate visit. If you do not make appointments for this, we may ask some of the questions on a visit for something else, but if you are not feeling well because of a pain or illness, you may not get the best information at the time.

Overall, staying healthy is the purpose of all of this, and everything that is now understood, shows that the important things are to stay physically active, get to a healthy weight and stay there, don’t smoke, and if you do drink alcohol, limit it to two drinks per day.

Let our office help you stay healthy in 2014. Schedule a visit for your “Annual Check-up” soon.

Submitted by Chickahominy Family Physicians.