Every day it seems, a headline somewhere is telling women to go get a physical checkup. But one local doctor wants men to know their health checkups are just as important as those for women.
Dr. Michael Mitchell, an internist with Florence Diagnostic Associates at McLeod Health, said men tend to neglect their health for many reasons.
“There are not a lot of screening procedures for guys until we get older,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for someone to watch over a man.”
Mitchell said he tries to explain to them that he doesn’t even like going to the doctor, but it’s a necessary evil, so he does.
“They’re so darn scared about a rectal exam that they don’t want to come in,” he said. “They all joke around, guys are all the same. They say I’m going to the doctor and someone says, ‘Oh! Wait for the glove.’”
Mitchell said men don’t like to talk about things that might make the doctors tell them they are doing something bad for their health.
“We just don’t do it,” he said. “But women do. They are conscious of healthy diets, healthy weight and all that.”
Mitchell said he has the same talk with all the men who come into his office for the first checkup, explaining the need for regular checkups to ward off anything major before it gets to that point.
“If I don’t tell him this, I’m never going to see him again until they’re 50 or ill,” he said.
For most young men, avoidance of doctor visits begins as soon as they transition from a pediatrician to a primary care physician, Mitchell said.
“This 18-year-old is going to walk into an office, and they’re probably going to do a testicular exam, because testicular cancer is very prevalent in the teens and 20s,” he said. “Well, this is an 18-, 19-year-old kid, and he’s going to be traumatized, and you’re not going to see him again unless he’s ill.”
That starts a cycle of men only getting bad news when they go to the doctor, which reinforces the typically poor opinion of medical care men often have.
“That’s why guys don’t go to the doctor,” Mitchell said. “I always joke with men, ‘Why are you here?’ ’Cause there are three reasons guys come to the doctor: their wife or girlfriend made them, their insurance company or their employer made them because they need a physical or they’re ill and they’ve tried everything under the sun to avoid seeing me and I’m their last hope.”
It’s important for men, however, to have regular checkups regarding their blood pressure and such blood fats as HDL and LDL cholesterol.
“A doctor’s role is not to tell people what to do anymore,” Mitchell said. “It’s to give them all the facts so they can make good decisions. But if they don’t go to the doctor, they’re not going to get those.”
According to WebMD, men should be screened for blood pressure issues, cholesterol problems and colorectal cancer as well as to update their immunizations.
Mitchell said sexually-transmitted diseases, anxiety and depression, potential alcohol dependency and aggression also should be added to the list of issues men should be aware of as potential health problems.
Copyright 2008 SCNow.com: Florence/Myrtle Beach, SC
