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Talk To Your Doctor About Preventative Health Care

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You need to make sure that you are doing everything you can to keep yourself safe and healthy. There are a lot of things that you can do. One of them is to go to your primary care physician and talk to them about preventative care. 

Preventative Care

Preventative health visits include tests and treatments that are designed to help prevent illnesses in the future. Many of these things are routine and should be done on a regular basis. How frequently regular is depends on what kind of care you and your doctor decide that you need. So, what are some of the preventative care things that you should be doing?

Physicals

One thing that you should do is to see your doctor for a full physical yearly. Your doctor will check you out, make sure that you aren't having any new problems, make sure that you don't have new health issues popping up, and that any questions you have are answered. 

Blood Tests

There are also some blood tests that you should have routinely. Your doctor may order these tests to be done before your doctor's appointment so that they have your results prior to your physical. That will let your doctor talk to you about what your results are, what they mean, and what you need to do about them. Your doctor might wait until after your appointment so that they can evaluate what tests you might need to have. 

Diagnostic Imaging

After you reach a certain age, there are certain imaging tests that your doctor may order. For some, that includes getting a mammogram. A mammogram is a good way to catch breast cancer, especially if you have felt any changes or lumps in your breasts during a monthly self-exam or if your doctor found something during a routine physical. A colonoscopy is something that all people should have, to scan for colon cancer. After the age of 50, you should get a baseline colonoscopy done, and based on that result, your doctor will let you know how often they think that you should have the test done. 

Making sure that you are staying on top of preventative health care will help to keep you as healthy as possible. Make sure that you talk to your doctor about what you should do and how often they should be done. In general, these things don't take a lot of time, but they are important to do. 


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