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Are you interested in improving your health? Continue reading to learn some important health checks you may want to consider in order to maximise your health.
Have Your Eyes Examine Every 2 Years For Optimum Health
If the pandemic over the past year and a half has highlighted one thing, it’s the sheer importance of our health and wellbeing. As coronavirus and Covid-19 have rapidly spread around the world, underlying health conditions have become a major cause for concern and many of us are learning to take better care of our bodies where we can. Of course, there are countless things you can do to maximise your health, fitness and wellbeing. You can eat a balanced diet and stick within your recommended calorie count. You can get your recommended one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week. You can take Covid precautions, such as wearing a face mask or face covering, washing and sanitising your hands regularly and keeping a two meter distance from others. But there are also times when you should check in with professionals whose role it is to check in on certain aspects of your health. Here are a few different checkups you should keep up to date with now appointments are opening back up and things are getting a little more back to normal.
Eye Tests
Eye tests don’t have to be attended that regularly. In fact, it’s recommended that you go once every two years. This is extremely low commitment, so there’s no excuse to miss this appointment. No matter how busy you may be, or what commitments and responsibilities you may have, it’s nigh on impossible to not have a half hour window free at some point in two whole years. The eye test itself will be pretty simple and straightforward. When you turn up, you needn’t worry, as it’s a completely comfortable and pain free experience. Your optometrist will greet you and take you into a room where the checkup will take place. They’ll use this opportunity to take a good look at your eyes and their overall health, from front to back, using their own eyes and special machinery and equipment. You are likely to undergo a number of vision tests to determine whether your eyes are functioning as they are expected to. This will help your optometrist to identify any eye related health issues or problems that you may be experiencing, such as glaucoma, cataracts or displaced retina. A simple eye check up can even take a look at the blood vessels inside your eye, highlighting any issues that you may be experiencing unrelated to your eyes, such as diabetes. Once this part of the process is over, you will have a standard sight test with letters on a board at the other side of the room. This will allow your optometrist to prescribe you lenses if required.
Hearing Tests
Most of us don’t have to have hearing tests regularly throughout our adult lives. We tend to have auditory tests as children, to ensure that our hearing is working well, and then don’t visit an audiologist again for a long time. While you don’t need routine appointments for hearing tests, you should make sure to reach out to an audiologist for an appointment if you experience any changes to your sense of hearing. In this situation, your audiologist will invite you to an appointment where they can help to identify and diagnose issues such as moderate hearing loss. If you have issues with your hearing, they will then be able to recommend treatments or hearing aids and guide you through the process towards helping your hearing.
Dental Check Ups
Dental checkups are a more regular occurrence in our lives. It’s recommended that we visit our dentist once every six months and this is for good reason. Decay and other dental issues can progress pretty quickly, and six monthly checkups help your dentist to identify and treat them quickly. The initial checkup will be simple and straightforward, generally including an oral examination and, if necessary, x rays. If any treatment needs to be carried out, such as fillings, root canals, crowns, extractions or anything else, your dentist will be able to schedule you a follow on appointment.
Sexual Health Checks
If you’re sexually active, regular sexual health checks will help to ensure your health and wellbeing. These will help to diagnose any STIs or STDs that you may have contracted if you have had unprotected sex or if your condom has broken. They are simple and you should get your results quickly. The healthcare professional may carry out tests there and then or provide you with something like a Chlamydia test kit. If other problems are unveiled, they will direct you through the correct course of treatment.
Cervical Screening
If you have a cervix and you’re aged 25 or over, you need to attend cervical screening. You may also hear this appointment and process referred to as a “smear test” or a “pap smear”. The process is generally pain free and pretty fast. It will allow healthcare professionals to take a look at cellular material in your cervix and whether it has any irregularities. Irregularities, if found, can be investigated to determine whether the cells are cancerous, and if you require treatment as a result, you will be referred on to the appropriate facilities. Following your initial cervical screening at the age of 25, you will usually be invited back for further screening once every three years until you are 44. Anyone aged between 45 and 60 will be asked to re attend once every five years.
Breast Screening
Breast screening is another necessity for individuals with breasts. It’s a sad reality that breast cancer is something that many women experience in their lives. Fortunately for some, breast screening can help to identify signs or the presence of breast cancer early on, allowing treatment to commence sooner and maximising chances of survival. Generally, you don’t have to book in breast screening yourself. Instead, you are likely to receive a letter from your doctor as and when you should be having it carried out. If you have a family history of breast cancer, or if you notice a lump in your own breast, contact your doctor and they will be able to book you in for a check. Even if you don’t have an appointment, it is still important to carry out regular checks on your own breasts, which will help you to notice any changes to them yourself.
These are just a few health checks that may be relevant to you. Hopefully, this will serve as a reminder to book in if necessary!
