Doctor Is In: Men's health and the importance of regular checkups

All right. A recent survey, a lot of surveys and numbers coming in, doctor, but this is an interesting one. We got another number for you. Nothing to do with politics, though. This is from health insurance marketplace eHealth, and it finds four in 10 men skipped recommended medical care in the past year. Dr. Greg Naiman of Epic Health is here with more on why these visits, these annual physicals, these primary care visits are so important. And what should you be asking for, guys? So, Dr. Naiman, thank you for being here. My pleasure. And the reason we talk about visiting, having a primary care doctor, is because these days a lot of people go to the urgent care. Something comes up and you don't have that relationship. Correct. And you're saying, guys, you got to have a, you got to have an annual physical with a doctor, preferably that you see at least once a year, right? Why is that? You want to get the trended reports, someone who knows you over time, and you really want to get to start to know your numbers, right? And like you mentioned, about four out of 10 men are coming to the practices. That means six out of 10 are not. Why not? That's the opposite for women. So you're getting about 8 out of 10 women will actually show up for their physicals. And usually when a man comes to come and get their health care, it's because of us. Something's wrong. Well, something's wrong, or their spouse or a significant other told them they have to go in. I know. See, these guys, they get mad at us. They say we're nagging them all the time, and then we're trying to save their lives. Absolutely. So you're welcome, fellas. That's right. Yeah. So you don't, you don't, you oftentimes when you go to a physical, nothing's wrong. And so, and sometimes it's, it's a pain in the neck to make the appointment, to get to the appointment, all those things. But that information is really important. Okay. So let's talk about some of these know your numbers. We say it all the time. Blood pressure is super important and you can't just do it at this one doctor's appointment though, right? Absolutely. So it's getting in there, checking it ahead of time at home, if possible, or other locations, but then getting there, if you haven't had it checked in that year, come in and at least get it checked there. And we typically will repeat it two more times. more times after that first initial time that we would check it. All right, so blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, cholesterol, all those things that you should be doing at your annual physical. What about testosterone? That's something that you hear talked about a lot on social media. What's the legit science behind low testosterone? Who needs to worry about it, and should it be treated? That's a great question. So you asked about the know your numbers, and know your numbers when they come in for a routine physical where you're typically doing all those things. We're checking their body mass index or the waist-to-height ratio, we're checking their cholesterol, their blood pressure, their blood sugar. One of the things that's not routine is testosterone levels. Now, if you have symptoms as a male, fatigue, low energy, muscle weakness, then that's when we would say, yes, we would want to check that and other hormone levels as well, including thyroid and whatnot. So we want to check those, but they're usually special cases. It's not part of the physical. So when you do come in, if you're having symptoms, then you want to make sure that you're addressing that, and then we would add that to the panel. So talk to your doctor about it. Don't necessarily go on social media to get your medical advice when it comes to that. And also, the weight loss shot is something that you can also talk to the doctor about that men are sometimes reluctant to do, or weight loss techniques. Doctor, thank you so much for being here. It's a busy post-midterm election day. We appreciate you, though, being available to us. Don't forget, Men's Health Month in November. Dr. Greg Naiman from Epic Health. We'll be right back.