How often do you visit/ contact your GP?

[BrokenBrit]

Just musing really.
I’m a bit avoidant and can put off or forget about booking routine appointments (adhd) so I can go for a long time without seeing the GP. At one point I hadn’t gone for 4 years (despite being on meds!).

A close family member of a similar age (late thirties) seems to be there every other week with one thing or another - nothing chronic or serious just niggles. She asks for things like blood tests ‘just to check’. Or a ‘health check’ … I didn’t even know you could do that! To be fair our area isn’t too bad for booking appointments it’s none of this ring at 8am nonsense you can ring anytime and get an appointment within a few days or that day if it’s serious.

I just wondered what was more usual. Am I negligent with my health by not going to the gp or having ‘check ups’.

I don't think I've seen the GP for about 10 years! But I don't have any chronic illness and I'm not on any medication. I work at a GP practice, we have many patients who are here very frequently- as they have complex problems and / or need to see us for wound dressings / medication monitoring etc. I see patient records that show upwards of 100 visits a year.

if you’re on medication then the GP would normally organise reviews but I think it depends on the medication you are on, in terms of health checks these would depend on age, there are also screening programmes run nationally, generally I would say GP appointments are for if you feel there is something wrong (feeling ill, initial mental health and some other things)

however I could be wrong!

GP insists on seeing me for birth control reissue but it's now my last year of taking them. Other than that I go when I'm called for smears plus once a couple of years ago when I had low haemoglobin (picked up when I went to give blood).

I don't think you're negligent with your health, just a regular person. Do doctors even have time for check ups these days?

Regularly. They come to me though because I'm housebound. I have to have regular blood tests and have kidney disease, heart failure and all sorts of shit shutting down on me so the nurses are here regularly and the GP phones me every month or so to see if I'm dead yet 😁

They are a fantastic surgery I must say. The nurse is even coming out to do a smear because I've been avoiding having one for about 15 years. I don't generally contact the surgery, it's mostly them contacting me to continue my care.

I didn’t know you could request a check up… I saw a GP a month ago for pneumonia and a year before that for pregnancy related stuff.

Only if it needs referral to someone else. I realised I had gallstones and any resolution for that needs a referral.
For everything else I usually treat myself, ask a pharmacist’s advice.

I last saw mine in Dec 2022. Aside from an annual medication review for 2 different things which is done by the practice nurse I rarely go unless there's something really wrong with me (had ongoing Gynae issues a few years ago so i saw my GP more than I saw my own family for a while!)

Sounds like the majority of us are similar then. I know in America ‘health checks’ and preventative appointments are a much bigger thing than here.

Barring antenatal care I don’t think I’ve seen a doctor for at least twenty years. I did need a round of antibiotics for something a couple of months ago but that was dealt with by a combination of a pharmacist visit and a phone call from a 111 GP - my own surgery was closed that day for training but is impossible to deal with even when it’s open.

It would never occur to me to go for a “check up” and my American friends are always baffled my kids don’t have well child visits and that I don’t have a gynaecologist, dermatologist etc. I dare say some is helpful but I do suspect some is just a facet of commercialised healthcare.

I have a blood test once a year as I am on blood pressure tablets but that is through the nurse. I used to get an annual meds review over the phone but that has stopped. I do not mind as I never found it very useful. Apart from giving me my cholesterol reading.

I don't think I have visited a GP for about five or six years!

Barring getting contraception, then, years later, confirmation of pregnancy appt, I think I went 29 years from when I turned 18, only seeing the GP once that I can recall.
Since Cancer diagnosis, menopause and lots of issues since, it has sadly become more regular - but by that I'm talking 3 or 4 times a year, not weekly or even monthly.

I've lived here for I think 9 years, and I haven't had to see a doctor. I've been for smears and vaccinations, but not an appointment.

I've been to see my GP once in the last eight years and I've had one phone call with her, about the same issue.

I also attend national routine screening, smear & mammogram. Three years ago the mammogram showed I needed surgery, so I've been seen by the local oncology unit every 6 months since but nothing else.

I took ds in to the practice nurse once when he took a large chunk out of his knee, A&E was heaving and I just wanted her to check there was no grit in it, and ds wouldn't let me near it.

So that's three times we've used the surgery in eight years, between us. We're generally fairly healthy.

not since i had kids (now 13 and 15), mind you i don't think i saw a GP then, so probably like 16 or 18 years.

i appreciate i have been blessed with good health and the constitution of an ox. others aren't so fortunate