So, it has been a funny few months with a few of my friends being diagnosed with cancer or other health issues.
It got me thinking: I could have cancer and have no idea about it. I rarely go to doctors.
What kind of procedures should you do to have a regular check to be able to catch cancers or other health issues early? e.g. are there blood tests, or other procedures.
Do you have regular check-ups? If so, what do you do?
You can literally ask any doctor this exact question and he will advise accordingly. If you are young, it is normal to rarely see a doctor. Remember, a lot of these diseases (i) are hereditary (ii) affect people over a certain age. So it can be very different for two people. But basically, the checkups increase (exponentially) with age…
I would recommend an annual check-up including blood tests for all the usual suspects including your PSA*. If possible have your blood tests before your checkup so you can review them with your physician. From 50 a colonoscopy every 10 years, more if you have family history of colon cancer.
Most cancers can be cured if caught early.
*Regular PSA checks are currently discouraged as the can lead to over or mis-diagnoses. But knowing you have it is more important that worries that your physician will want to treat you unnecessarily. If you are diagnosed always get a second or third opinion.
I think people just get to an age when these things become more common so more of your peer group, parents etc get ill.
I don’t. I haven’t been to the doctor for twenty years (apart from with the kids).
I’m going to get the colon blood test done soon and will book an examination for a few moles.
Two things I do:
If anything changes in the way I feel - constant stomach ache, blood in stool, over-bearing tiredness etc then I will definitely book an appointment.
There are early signs of cancer which are easy to overlook or ignore.
Having a mindset that prevention is better than cure: I follow the much-published health advice freely available on the web
Health anxiety is a serious issue.
Times have changed. People talk about their health issues much more. On the one hand this is positive, a problem shared… On the other hand, it can cause worry.
Diagnoses and testing have improved vastly which probably explains some of the recent rises in diseases. It is a very personal decision, I prefer not to know but some members of the family are not happy with this attitude. Screening in Switzerland is pretty good. As others have stated, it is age related though there is no harm in getting regular checks with your GP at any age. I have had my colonoscopy, skin checks, ultrasound for prostate - Blood pressure and cholesterol levels are medicated.
I’m not sure that’s true. There’s more stuff in the media but a lot of people don’t go to their GP through embarrassment or to wanting the bother them.
My father refused to go and died of cancer because of it.
There’s a good BBC podcast episode on Embarrassment / GP visits - Inside Health
How long is a piece of string?
Some things are easy to measure: height/weight, blood pressure, blood sugar. If those are fine, all good. If any of those are not fine, why waste time worrying about cancer?
PS. in spite of my naive bravado, I will get a general check up next year. I guess it’s a good time to get baseline values of several parameters. All humans are different, only way to know something is “out of normal” is by comparing to when things felt right, not with values from the books or scientific literature.
Health has four key factors:
*Genetics
*Environment (how the world affects your body)
*Lifestyle (how you treat your body)
*Luck (good or bad)
Don’t underestimate the last one.
I will be going to the doctor today for a half-check up, half-weight management consultation. At first At first I asked for a simple check-up, but they won’t prioritise those do to lack of capacity.
My clinic unfortunately doesn’t proactively remind me for checkups.
I have had a regular blood check for the last 25 years. Over 65, my doctor calls me in each year now. This results in a two page list of results, with comparisons with previous years. Decoding what the the values are is a battle. PSA = 1.40.
Aslo a have been having a colonoscopy every few years. Last one this March all clear again and recommended next in 4 years.
The Krankenkasse pays for this.
My employer pays for a “full” (read 4-5 hours at a clinic, with blood, urine, etc) tests every 3 years. During that, if you have some risk factors (e.g. a history of disease x in the family), they then do additional tests.
I’ve always joked that it’s to see how close to a burnout you are, but the reality is, only I get the results 
From swissinfo today.
Switzerland, home to the world’s biggest diagnostics company, Roche, and a leading manufacturer of medical equipment, is the fourth-biggest spender on healthcare as a percentage of GDP among 33 countries comprising the EU, Turkey, the UK and the four members of the European Free Trade Association, according to the trade association Medtech EuropeExternal link.
The country has the highest number of imaging devices per person among the 25 European members of the OECD, according to a January reportExternal link from the Swiss federal audit office on the appropriate usage of medical imagery. There are 80 CT scanners and MRI devices per million citizens, nearly double the number for Netherlands, although the two countries are similar in terms of life expectancy and quality of the healthcare systems.
Switzerland is also the biggest spender on invitro diagnostics, medical tests performed on samples such as blood and urine. Although this is partly due to the cost of living, high spending on health and the quality of public health services, such as the speed at which a patient is taken into care, are also key factors, according to the Swiss Association of the Diagnostics Industry.
Yet despite heavier spending on diagnostics in wealthy nations, which leads to earlier and more frequent cancer detection, death rates from the disease remain similar to those in low-income countries, according to a 2017 New England Journal of Medicine paper cited in O’Sullivan’s book*,* The Age of Diagnosis, published this year.
This is because we treat cancers that aren’t necessarily going to become fatal. “We’re very good at finding diseases, but not very good at finding which will progress and which won’t,” O’Sullivan says.
don’t worry, (some) AI is doing already a better job than (some) physicians about that.
The problem? Harvard has seen it already… Does AI Help or Hurt Human Radiologists’ Performance? It Depends on the Doctor | Harvard Medical School
Oh no!!!
Beyond the screening, now a 2nd or 3rd opinion on the interpretation of results is needed hahaha
I guess I’m lucky, I’ve had 19 years remission from cancer in October. I was seriously ill for a while and had to undergo 2 years of treatment, the second 4 cycles of chemo were like something from hell and at one point I thought I was going to have a massive heart attack and die as the pain from the side effects was indescribable (and believe me, I have a very high pain threshold).