You're probably in good health. Wait for 5 years and then you might find a different MD>
I've had exams mainly because I've had kidney stones since my 20's.
Do you know why you're having kidney stones?
Heeven what if you have a communicable disease?
Then it's not just about you.
If you ever get active TB, believe me the health authorities will track you down and cure you, like it or not. They can jail you for refusing. They'll find everyone you ever knew or hung around and treat them too.
I learned this recently cause I have active TB, although I never had symptoms and never would have known.
Rectal exams aren't pleasant though sometimes I wish they could be. I had an appointment with my regular doctor for one and at the last minute a woman doctor whom I had also consulted in recent years (same practice) took over the appointment. For a moment I had some naughty thoughts about the exam. It turned out to be the same poking, probing, whirly-gigging finger movements that my regular doctor does.
<sigh> Nothing remotely exciting.
I get a full exam every fall since I turned fifty. My insurance pays for it.
Joe (healthy like a horse) Nation
If I don't visit the doctor, how would anyone know I have a communicable disease?
Although if I thought for one second I did have a communicable disease I would go get treated. Definitely would not want to hurt or infect anyone else.
Most of my thing is that I can't be bothered and I get tired of hearing people all around me complaining about this ache and that ache and both real and perceived health woes and the MANY MANY doctors visits and specialists this and that they have to see. I know I am not healthier than any of them but they moan and complain about every niggly thing that I am sure some of it is in their heads.
If I felt really really unwell and needed to see a doc then I would go. But, with the exception of broken bones, being shot, being stabbed, getting moles removed, the odd infection here and there, I rarely get up the energy to visit a doctor.
Now Joe (and everyone else who is reading this) that is one thing I will never volunteer to get done. And yes, I know these days it is considered necessary - colon cancer abounding and what-not - but you can count me out buddy! YIKES!
Heeven- IMO, you are really being short sighted. Colonoscopies are literally a pain in the butt. The thing is, colon cancer is absolutely curable if caught early; If it's not detected in time, a person has about 2 or so years to live. I have known people who have died from colon cancer, and believe me, it is not a pleasant demise. At the least, have a occult blood in stool test done every few years.
I hear you Phoenix. I know all these things and I choose not to get all these tests and checkups. I have been warned and harangued by many about it but what can you do? It is my decision and I accept the fact that I might not catch cancer early enough to fight it.
Just turned 65 in October. Last year in August I started feeling tingling in my right foot accompanied by tightness in the leg muscles. Walking diminished to about a half block before I had to stop to rest it. I went to an emergency room and asked to be tested for diabetes as it is present in the family. I saw five doctors and it wasn't until I saw the third one that they were able to locate a slight pulse in the foot. I am now on five medications for the confirmed diabetes.
The doctor asked in prescribing if there were medications that would conflict with them. I told I hadn't had so much as an aspirin in twenty years. The last physical exam I had before that was forty two years.
Good to see you Heeven!
Bob - I'm glad you caught the diabetes. Taking all those meds after needing none must be a pain.
Hi Littlek:
I'm past the shock stage now. Looking at it as is the glass half full or half empty. Having gone 30 years managing two camera stores (1 for 21 years and 1 for 9 years) without 1 sick day and realizing that I'm not immortal (only immoral) I am happy to report being much better now than I was only a year ago. I lost 50 pounds. I can run up stairs again which I couldn't do last year. I've given up potato chips (sob) and other beloved treats. The logical side of my brain (not seen too often) reminds me that many have either lost mental faculties or physical so they can't function normally. Many are dead. I have nothing to cry about.
Heeven, you do what you want.
Me, I had yearly mammos and was very used to nothing at all wrong. One day there were two tiny dots, that turned out to be real time doodoo. They got it fast, and it wasn't all so horrible to go through in retrospect. Terrible the day it happened, I found out on 9/11.
But my ca was stage I, early nabbing. Not to be all that cocky, as mine could have been a fast small one, but it seems to be snagged and gone.
Let's say the percentages are vastly (waaaaaaaay) on my side.
At the time I was going through all that, a few years ago, I had long time friends sympathizing with me, being sorry, which I am not mocking, I needed it, that is why I told them, connecting to old pals who would care.
But I didn't tell my new home town local cohorts, didn't want to be defined by it. People here in north north still don't know.
I did think though, about all of those people, everywhere, walking around with wee 4 mm. thingies and not knowing it. By now, of course, those are larger and have blood vessels feeding them.
Thinking, maybe it is time to put my Bad Week diary in original writing.
Bob - you lost 50 lbs?!?! I remember you as being very svelt to start.
And to BobSmyth, glad you found out and handled it...
Schniff----------- chips!!!!
Congradulations, Bob, and welcome to the group. There's another bright side to this, that you didn't mention. When people ask about your hobbies, just tell them "I've got diabetes. That's all the hobby I need." Oh, I guess there's other things you could say that would get rid of them quicker, but that one works.
Aw. Actually, tell them, my cat has diabetes and that's all the hobby I need. Even better.
