You’ll never know what you’ll find out in your yearly medical exam.
It’s that time of the year again, another company event like the annual fire drill that you’d rather avoid or shirk from doing. You probably think of it as nothing more than a formality, another useless exam that you need to accomplish to satisfy the indiscernible mind of the company’s admin. But you’re wrong.
The annual medical exam is very important not just for your employment but for your health and well-being as well. How? See below for the reasons we listed as to why a yearly medical exam is important and you shouldn’t ever consider dodging it.
- Mandatory for some professions
For some professions, primarily those that involve physical exertion such as seamen and policemen, physical exams are not just a mere formality. They are a requirement for continued employment. It is important for these professions to see if their members are physically fit and able-bodied.
- Get to know your doctor better
Often, we just go to our doctors when we we’re sick or feeling something out of place with what’s normal. Which is a bit odd for doctors with no background knowledge about you. Annual medical exams build a relationship between you and your doctor, this can also make you less hesitant when talking about the symptoms or sicknesses that ail you. Once you’re diagnosed with a sickness, for example diabetes, you and your doctor need to work as a team. There will be no teamwork between the two of you if you’re not comfortable with your doctor.
- You’ll get important immunizations
Every year, newer and more dangerous strains of diseases are cropping out. Diseases that were previously thought of as eradicated due to vaccines reemerge with new strains. Your yearly medical exams can also be a time to get updated vaccines to be safe from the new strains of dangerous diseases becoming more and more prevalent.
- Do the standard screening tests
The standard screening tests are important to note the current state of your body thru your blood, urine, or even stool samples. Due to the nature of physical examinations, these tests might just take a few hours and you can already see the results. It is important to take screening tests for at least twice a year.
- See the state of your heart
Not just another sappy way or euphemism for your love life, determining the state of your heart to see if you have potentially fatal conditions is very important. It is one of the required procedures in an annual medical exam. The electrocardiogram is an examination of the electrical activity of the heart that is in turn used to show underlying heart conditions. This can be used to see if you have arrhythmia or an enlargement of cardiac muscle.
- Know what habits to change/improve
During your medical exam, you will be asked to undergo several screening tests. These tests help identify which people have increased risks for a disease or complication before even the symptoms show up. By doing these tests, preventive measures can be taken, and lifestyle changes can be instituted. High blood sugar can be a precursor to diabetes and appropriate measures can be taken to manage or even reverse it. High cholesterol can be a herald of an inevitable stroke.
- Know the kinds of food to avoid/eat more
Once the results of the screening tests are shown and several abnormalities are discovered, it is most likely that your doctor will talk to you about a severe lifestyle change. This change will be most reflected in what you consume and what not to eat. If you’re diabetic, sugar and rice are both suspect. For those with high cholesterol, fatty foods are the first to go, replaced with green, leafy vegetables.
- Your doctor can treat you better
A doctor who doesn’t know anything about you the moment you step inside their office will not be able to provide you with the best treatment. On the other hand, if the doctor who treats you have a yearly history of your medical examinations, they can treat you better and chart your medical history more effectively and more accurately.
- Identify warning signs ASAP
With the various tests’ results already available, it will only take your doctor a short time to determine which diseases you’re at a higher risk of contracting. Even without the overt symptoms showing, the indicators in the submitted samples are enough to identify the diseases that have a high chance of developing if left untreated.
- See your progress
You can compare your annual medical examinations to see how far you’ve come since you started following or disregarding the advice of your doctor. You can easily track if your blood sugar shot up and you need to take herbal supplements for diabetes or if you need further diet restrictions for your rising cholesterol. You can also see if you lost weight or you gained some, relative to your body height.
Prevention Is the Name of the Game
As the adage goes, “Prevention is better than cure.” Treating a disease that has already taken root in your body is vastly difficult compared to preventing the complications from happening in the first place. Yearly medical exams are important because they serve as your warning beacons when there are certain diseases that are starting to develop in your body.
