Routine Health Care is a Health-Promoting Behavior
Let me just acknowledge the fact that we don’t all have the same access to or quality of health care available to us, but that part of the conversation would be for another time.
In this post, I want to address how the act of seeking and following up with routine health care (as available) is one of the best health-promoting behaviors we can engage in.
Catching problems in the early stage like cancer, degenerative conditions, infections, etc. often means there are more options available and improved outcomes.
Listening to and honoring the signals our bodies give us is something that should help guide this process as well.
For example, I shared a few posts back that I was having what appeared to be prostate issues … I am 50 after all.
Mine is enlarged and yesterday, I went in for a cystoscopy which is a scope looking at the prostate and bladder from the inside.
I can think of lots of things that I would rather do but I honored my body, took the Drs. advice, and had it done.
Side note, it was super-interesting to see the inside of my body on the screen as the Dr. described what he was seeing. The human body is truly amazing!
Anyway, my prostate is clearly enlarged, restricting the flow of urine from the bladder out of the body, and since it’s been going on for a while (I didn’t go in at first signs), my bladder has been under stress and it is being damaged so I need to have a simple surgery to correct the root cause so no additional damage occurs. BTW, it’s called a plasma vaporization procedure. The name just sounds cool, right?
This is something that happens to a LOT of men as we get older, regardless of weight, level of fitness, nutrition, etc.
We often focus our attention on nutrition, physical activity, sleep, hydration, etc. when we think about “health-promoting behaviors.”
However, don’t overlook the extremely important behavior of just checking in with your Dr., dentist, therapist, etc. when something is off. Even just taking your meds as prescribed falls into this category (I get to stop mine after the procedure which is another benefit).
