health check

[happywithmylot42]

leading up to turning 40 people starting telling me I needed "well man" check or similar, never had one for various reasons and no one has mentioned it to me again. Had a letter from the Docs a few months back offering one..….really don't want it as i'd rather not know if there was something wrong...plus I don't feel like anything is wrong.

Had a very very active younger years and achieved my aspirations in several unrelated sports, unfortunately injury has curtailed most of these.
I now lead a pretty happy life, married two years together for nearly twenty, own home together, good job. Smoke a bit, drink a bit, a little overweight these days...….(all of which i'll get a lecture on). We don't have kids...is it wrong to not go?

I think they check your cholesterol and blood pressure so you may want those done if you are a little overweight and smoke.

Not wanting to know if there's something wrong isn't a good way to think even if you don't have children.

They do them for everyone over 40 and our doctors.

*at our doctors

Of course not.

The checks are pretty basic as far as I know. Blood pressure, weight check, smoking advice etc.

If you are paying privately you can get pretty much anything done, but unless you desperately want to, why bother?

Most people don't, even when it's offered as an employee benefit.

If you aren't taking them up on the offer our GPs ask you to sign a letter to opt out.

Cheers, that's all I needed to hear...it's all good by the way.

as in, I know smoking and drinking and being a bit overweight is bad but i'm content

So you never thought you were being unreasonable anyway!

I went for mine and the health care assistant doing them said the only people who turn up are those who are fit, healthy and exercise regularly anyway. Yes you will get told to quit smoking but they know everyone knows that anyway so they will likely hand you some leaflets. It also worth having your blood pressure checked as I've met some people who had high blood pressure without knowing it and one had kidney failure.

Would you really not want to know if something was wrong? What if it was something that becomes more problematic the longer it is left? Or something which only becomes symptomatic when the damage has been done?

I went for mine this year at 46. They just do your height, weight and blood pressure ask about smoking, exercise etc. I only went for mine to see what my cholesterol was on the blood test.

So no need to go at all if you don’t want too.

Can a pharmacist test cholesterol?

DH is very fit non-smoker. Was super keen to get his well-person check done. There is a history of cardio problems in his family, he wanted reassurance, a healthy set of baseline numbers. I declined when offered to me.

You are at an age where your BP and cholesterol may be starting to creep up.
You'd be well-advised to get these checked, for peace of mind if nothing else.

I guess you're only being unreasonable to expect treatment later on, for something that could have potentially have been picked up at your health check (and treated more easily and cheaply, by being being picked up earlier)
The checks are as much for the NHS benefit as your own, I would imagine

You should also be getting your PSA checked regularly after 40. I thank the lord my DP did. His prostrate cancer was caught very, very early and treatment has been successful.

Prostate that should be damn autocorrect.

I would go. They are designed to try and lower the chances of certain diseases happening or at least pick up on early signs of something you may not even be aware of and be able to help prevent it getting worse.

But at the end of the day if you wouldn't even consider making any changes regardless of what they said then there's no point wasting yours or their time

I m with OP and would rather not know. I just ignore all letters anyway but I would sign an opt out letter if I had to.
Never go to doctors anyway.

The more people that opt out means more room for the people who do want the appointment.

Yanbu. I declined mine a few years ago.

I went for mine and I'm a bit overweight, know I need to do something about it but my cholesterol was sky high which was a total shock, turned out if was due to me not having enough good cholesterol, I would never have know this if I had not have gone!!!

I would say go!!!

The decision is more finely balanced than laypeople think. As a doctor I know that there is a real issue at the moment with "overdiagnosis": having a low threshold for diagnosing diseases, so more of the population is labelled as unwell, then treating people with borderline blood results which might never have progressed to full-blown disease if left alone. The treatments themselves can carry risks, and there is a risk that one abnormal test result will lead to a cascade of further investigations, and possibly more incidental findings being picked up and overtreated.

PSA is a good example. It's still pretty tricky to distinguish between a very slow-growing cancer which a man could have for 30 years before dying of something else; and a nasty, aggressive cancer which can kill a man within a year. If we do PSA screening on all men over 40, in the absence of symptoms, there is a risk that inconsequential raised PSAs will be picked up. Prostate cancer treatment carries plenty of risks and side-effects, including the risk of urinary incontinence or sexual problems. If we find a cancer in an asymptomatic man of 50 and treat it, then, if it would have turned out to be slow-growing, we may have done more harm than good if he has to live for another 30 years with urinary and erectile problems.

This isn't to say that OP shouldn't attend "well man" screening, but he should understand what he's being tested for, why, and what the alternatives are.