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With a never-ending to-do list and plenty on your plate, you might wonder if scheduling an annual visit with your physician is really worth it. Shouldn’t you only visit the doctor when you’re feeling sick?
In reality, adult wellness exams hold more value than many people realize. These visits give you the opportunity to ask questions about your health, identify early risk factors, and much more.
Today, we’re sharing why these exams are so important and all the different services you can access when you schedule yours at Internal Medicine and Pediatric Clinic (IMPC) today.
If you could improve your health in just one hour, would you do it? When you schedule an annual wellness exam, that’s exactly what you’re doing. However, it’s easy to push these visits back, especially when your schedule is full and your free time is limited.
The only problem? Waiting until you’re sick to visit the doctor could leave you with even more health challenges. By taking a preventative and proactive approach, you can often catch and resolve issues before they develop into bigger problems, setting the foundation for a healthy future.
Let’s take a look at a few of the top reasons to make your annual appointment as soon as possible.
If you have a stomach virus or the flu, you’ll usually notice the signs right away. However, there are many conditions that are more difficult to detect because they don’t show symptoms until they’re well-progressed.
These include high blood pressure and high cholesterol, among others. Left unchecked, these conditions can put you at a higher risk of experiencing a serious medical event, such as a heart attack or stroke.
When you attend annual wellness exams year after year, your physician can keep an ongoing record of your vital stats. At each visit, they can compare them to monitor your progress. This can reveal early, subtle signs that a medical condition is developing.
If caught early on, these conditions are often treatable and reversible. However, they become more difficult to treat the more severe they become. By prioritizing your yearly check-ups, you can keep a close eye on your health and take the actions required to keep it on track.
If you are currently taking medication or undergoing treatment for a certain medical condition, your physician can check to see how your body is responding to it at your exam. For instance, you might be taking a statin for high cholesterol or undergoing insulin therapy for type 2 diabetes.
At each visit, your doctor will check your progress and adjust your treatment if necessary. Skipping these appointments could mean staying on a treatment that isn’t as effective as it could be with the right intervention.
Even if you feel well today, you could still carry certain genetic factors that make you more susceptible to developing a medical condition in the future. Your physician can monitor those early risk factors now, allowing you to take early steps to curtail the disease down the road.
Your wellness visit is also a great time to get your annual vaccines or immunizations. These give your immune system the boost it needs to fight off specific diseases, helping you stay healthy and feel your best. At this time, your physician can also share information with you about health screenings recommended for your age group, from mammograms to colonoscopies.
Paying for an annual wellness exam is much more affordable than paying for a hospital stay after a major medical event. By taking charge of your health and monitoring it once a year, you can often prevent illnesses from turning into more serious (and costly) diseases.
Your physician has access to your entire medical history and can recommend healthy behaviors to keep you looking and feeling your best as you get older. The wellness plan you start in your twenties should not be the same one you adhere to in your eighties.
As your needs change, they’ll help you adjust your routine and share practices that you can incorporate to improve your quality of life and ward off illness.
At IMPC, we’re dedicated to taking a personalized approach to your care. Our physicians are board-certified in internal medicine and pediatrics and are ready to help you take charge of your health.
Our adult wellness exams allow us to discover and identify any potential health issues that our patients might be experiencing, so we can take action and treat them before they get serious. We’ll also check your existing treatments or prescriptions to see if we need to make any changes or updates to help you feel your best.
During each visit, we allow plenty of time for patient conversation. This is your time to ask our team any questions you might have about your health, as well as any concerns.
At your visit, we can perform preventative screenings to check for certain health conditions. Among others, this includes:
If you’re showing early signs of these conditions or you have a family history of them, it’s important to run these routine checks to identify potential risk factors and symptoms. In addition to general health screenings, our physicians can also perform aging-specific screenings.
For example, a bone density test allows us to check for the earliest signs of osteoporosis in our patients. This way, we can start treating that condition early and keep your bones strong as you get older.
The best part? We can perform many of these screenings right in our office using our in-house x-ray machine and laboratory. This means you don’t have to visit an off-site lab, so you can receive your results much faster.
Immunizations help support your body’s natural immune response to serious and often
life-threatening diseases. At your wellness exam, your physician may find that you are behind on your immunization schedule, which could put you at a greater risk of contracting these diseases.
Some of the immunizations we offer in our office include:
We understand busy. We know it can be easy to under-emphasize your annual wellness exam, but we encourage you to make it a priority.
Our physicians at IMPC would love to see you. In addition to routine exams, we also offer a full scope of health services, ranging from internal medicine and urgent care to hospital care and telemedicine.
We can also keep the youngest members of your family healthy with our well-child exams and immunizations! Contact us today to schedule an appointment or learn more.
Let’s bring awareness to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – a multifaceted neurological and developmental condition with far-reaching impacts. Here at Internal Medicine & […]
Read More