I go to the doctor regularly. I see my primary care doc 2-4 times per year for a diabetic checkup (depending on how my BP and A1C are). I see my eye doctor once a year. I get my teeth cleaned twice a year. I see my gyno once a year. I get the lab tests, vaccines and the mammograms. As an extra bonus I give blood every 2 months so I have my BP and iron checked there.
To me it’s worth it. I’m paying out the nose for insurance, I’m going to use it. Yes there are copays and extra costs associated with actual visits. But I figure I use my body every day, it’s as worthy of maintenance as my car.
My brother and my boyfriend (in their 40s) both have very good insurance but they don’t use it. If they’re sick, they suffer and complain. They don’t know their BP or their cholesterol. My brother maybe might hit the MinuteClinic if his ear is bothering him. But he doesn’t have a regular PCP. I have a female friend about my age who is always at the pediatrician with her kids but never goes to her own doctor (she’s got insurance too). She says she doesn’t have time.
My dad would probably be the same way, but he gets Vicodin and stuff to help his COPD so he manages to get himself to his PCP. Of course, he hasn’t been to the dentist or eye doctor in years. He’s got cadillac insurance, too, as a retired auto worker.
Do you get your regularly scheduled checkups done? Why or why not?
Anyone who used to avoid the doctor/dentist/eye doctor/gyno/etc that now has to go regularly, do you regret having ignored it all those years?
One of the meds I’m on requires me (for policy, not health) reasons to stop in and see my doc every few months. As long as I’m there, once a year he’ll ask if he should just do a physical right away and I typically agree. Might as well.
Dentist, no, I’m really bad about that. For the last [more years than I care to think about] I’ve only seen the dentist when there’s an issue.
Regarding insurance, I’m not sure how yours is, but I have a high deductible. So an annual visit is covered, but anything beyond that is expensive. Those 3 or 4 times a year that I have to stop in to, more or less, say hi cost about $130 each time. No dental or eye coverage at all.
Speaking of eyes, if I didn’t wear contacts or glasses, I can’t say I’d ever see an eye doctor just for a checkup. Does anyone do that? However, since I need to get my script updated from time to time, I still see an eye doctor, probably every 5 years or so.
I didn’t have a family doctor between age 18 to five or six years ago. I got a job with private insurance, and figured I might end up using that. Basically this got me to be responsible. I used a free government service to assign me to a doctor’s clinic.
I’m Canadian, so I do not have to pay for most doctor visits. That makes it easy. Having said that, I don’t go to the doctor every year. I should probably just let my doctor know I want a checkup every year. Any specialty doctors I need (eg optometrists) I got to regularly. They always schedule an appointment.
I avoided dentists because I used to have a fear of them. I had a really bad dentist as a teenager. Even getting insurance wasn’t enough to get me into it for a while. I regret this a little due to the damage that built up; I didn’t realize that I just had a bad dentist. (Also, I think painkiller technology improved. Not the stuff that’s injected, but the stuff that freezes the surface of your gum before they inject.)
I wonder if women are more likely to go to the doctor than men… although maybe it’s just because my mother is a health nut (and I mean nut) and associates mainly with such people, all of whom are women. I have several female friends who have health issues and talk about going to the doctor, but no male friends like that… which is not remotely realistic or logical. I think any male friends in ill health simply zip up, either suffering in silence or going to the doctor and not mentioning it.
I wonder if age is relevant. My niece is eighteen and only goes to walk-in clinics. I told her how to sign up for a family doctor but she’s not interested.
I recently got a notice that I need to have my feet and eyes looked at because of my diabetes, I didn’t even know I was diabetic, all my numbers have been below the threshold and pretty stable for the past decade. I always thought I was pre diabetic. Not sure why i was reclassified unless they lowered the threshold for a diagnosis.
Less than annually for the “yearly” physical now that I retired from the military and keeping those little bubbles in the medical reporting system green for annual checks doesn’t matter. It had still been every calendar year IIRC but more like every 15-18 months. I can’t remember the last time I even met one of the people that was nominally my primary care physician, though. I get my physical from whoever has the most convenient appointment time in the practice. I don’t have any conditions that would require regular visits to their offices between physicals. I make every single one those unnecessary appointments without delay.
I am pretty awful about going to the dentist. Twice a year? I don’t see a doctor who works with the doctor who is supposed to help keep me alive that often.
I am not too awful for the optometrist. I have been wearing glasses since I was a kid and starting kindergarten.In my youth annually was important because my eyes changed that much. My eyes mostly stopped changing after I stopped growing late in college. I have mostly gone back to my early adult “every couple of years when my glasses are wearing out or broken” cycle now that the Army isn’t driving the train for deployability. Sometimes that is in keeping with the recommendation of every two years for healthy adults up to 60. Sometimes it is longer. Not awful but not on schedule either.
I rarely saw a doctor or dentist for more than 20 years. Now I see my doctor at least twice per year and my dentist 4 times. I get a complete physical with blood work once a year. I see a cardiologist every 5 years, just to be safe.
I highly recommend to all my friends and family that they use the insurance they are paying for and see their doctors and dentists. I am in reasonably good health, but it would prolly be wonderfully good if I had been able to receive regular medical checkups all those years.
I hate going to the doctor with a passion, which is strange because I go quite often. T2 diabetic. I’m pretty well controlled but have high cholesterol and BP (of course), so I go every 3-6 months for an A1C and a lecture about losing weight (which im happy to say I actually have been doing. Yay me.)
I go to the ophthalmologist yearly for a diabetic eye exam. Ditto the foot doctor. I have heel spurs that hurt like a mofo when they flare up, so my podiatrist gives me different insoles to try every now and then.
I just started a new full-time job, and with it comes insurance. Of course, they have a relatively small pool of doctors that they work with (or rather, that will accept their insurance plan) so I spent something like 3 hours today calling around to find a new doctor that will take my insurance. I finally found one, which I guess isn’t the end of the world. But I’ve been with my old doc for 6 or 7 years now and he’s helped me through a cancer scare, suicidal depression, the diabetes, and other shit that I cant remember. I hope my new doc is good.
I had a tooth pulled a couple years ago because I didnt have insurance. Haven’t been in for a routine cleaning in… 4 or 5 years I suspect. My new insurance has a dental plan but my youngest son needs braces so it’ll likely be used for that.
I have gone to the dentist every 6 months for over 30 years. I have no problem getting my annual eye exam. I also have an annual visit with the urologist.
But, when it comes to a regular doctor, it’s a different story. I used to have a primary care physician just down the street, but he got too old and retired 10+ years ago. Since then, we have hooked up with a medical group and I do have an doctor that I have been to just once. However, I find it to be inconvenient to schedule a regular check-up appointment with them, which is a problem (I travel for work, so my available time at home is limited). I would like to get on a regular schedule and to feel comfortable visiting when the one-off needs arise. It’s on my to-do list to call them again and schedule a check-up, really it is!
I do my regular preventive maintenance: annual (more or less) physical, annual (more or less) gyno checkup and mammogram, annual (more or less) eye exam, 2x/year dental cleanings, etc. I procrastinated a bit on my upcoming gyno checkup because my old doc retired and I had to find another one, and it takes forever to get a new patient appointment for anyone halfway decent.
In between, I am usually at my doc’s office for something or another anyway - this year it was a concussion. Not fun.
(I used to argue with my gyno that many recommendations were that women with no particular risk factors for breast cancer didn’t need annual mammograms. Then the younger sister of a HS friend was diagnosed with metastatic Stage 4 breast cancer that had spread to her bones and liver on a routine annual mammogram. She lived less than 6 months after that. I don’t argue about mammograms anymore.)
Annual physical at the Medical group practice near me, but except for a flu shot this year that’s the only time I see them. Dentist visit every 6 months for cleaning/X-ray/etc., they schedule the following one when I’m in for the present one (next appointment is August). Haven’t been to the eye Dr. in awhile, probably go sometime this year as it’s been 2 years since my last check.
I haven’t been to a doctor since… last century sometime. So far that’s worked out okay for me, but I’m getting old enough that I ought to start getting regular checkups.
(Why haven’t I done so yet? Partly time, partly fear, partly inertia, and partly not knowing how; but none of those are particularly insurmountable.)
I’ve always been a believer in annual checkups. Dental and optical, not so much until the Feds started offering separate insurance which covered them too, at which point I started having annual eye exams and twice-yearly dental checkups and cleanings.
Of course, now that I’ve been diagnosed with various medical issues I see a cardiologist once a year, a liver specialist every six months, a neurologist for my sleep apnea, and more frequent visits with my regular doctor to monitor my blood sugar and iron levels. I plan to live to 100, or die trying.
I worked with a man who was my age. We were in our mid-forties, and he bragged, actually bragged that he had not seen a doctor in over twenty years.
I told him EVERYBODY needs to have blood pressure checked regularly. High blood pressure doesn’t feel like anything. If you have noticeable symptoms, irreparable damage has occurred.
He said he didn’t need to worry about that. He had "special relaxing exercises " he did to lower his blood pressure.
I told him, “You’re the kind of guy who gets carried out of here feet first.”
Because we’d seen a number of coworkers who had done just that.
When Mr VOW ws first diagnosed with high blood pressure, he didn’t take it seriously. He took his pills…sometimes. He didn’t feel bad, so what difference does it make?
Fast forward to present day. He has a heart murmur now. General consensus of the doctors is that the murmur is caused by scar tissue, from not treating his high blood pressure.
~VOW
