It is a scary fact that there is a nearly 20% chance that any given man will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during the course of their 75 year life span. These men are sons and husbands and fathers. Now is the time to remind the man in your life to go get a thorough check up.
There is a litany of reasons men resist visiting the doctor, especially urologic specialists. On the one hand, men view a visit to their doctor very differently than women do; only going to see the doctor when something is wrong.
Men generally do not seek out preventative medical care; whereas women routinely seek out preventative care such as mammograms and pap analysis. Prostate cancer is an example of a serious illness that affects nearly a quarter of a million men each year that has a very high treatment success rate if detected early enough.
Because medical care very often starts at home, a spouse, girlfriend, or daughter is usually the driving force behind getting men to a health screening. While going to a qualified urologist for a prostate exam is sometimes on a guy’s To-Do list, it usually ranks somewhere between root canal and cleaning the grease trap.
If it is a good idea to see an urologist before anything happens, how often should men see a physician? Healthy men under fifty with no history of chronic disease in his family; visiting a doctor every two or three years are probably enough.
However, the more risk factors that present; such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or an immediate relative with a serious illness, men should see a doctor every year. Once a guy hits the half-century mark, annual visits should include a prostate exam and associated blood panels.
The best way to keep your man around for a long time is to remind him, or better yet, go ahead and make that appointment with an urologist for him today.
