”
I’m fine,
”
my mother said, cradling her elbow as I fished the car keys from
her purse.
”
I’ll be fine. I’ve never broken a bone. It’s probably just a
bruise, and if it hurts really bad in the morning, I’ll go to the
doctor.
”
“I’m fine,” my mother said, cradling her elbow as I fished the car keys from her purse. “I’ll be fine. I’ve never broken a bone. It’s probably just a bruise, and if it hurts really bad in the morning, I’ll go to the doctor.”
Yeah, right. My mother is made of steel, or at least she thinks she is. She’s the type of person who cuts herself and only realizes what she’s done because her arm is wet.
I’ve only seen her cry from pain once, but I could tell this was worse than she was letting on. Bowled over by a dog hot on the heels of a squirrel, she’d fallen elbow-first onto the hard-packed dirt outside her horse’s barn.
“I think you should go to the doctor, but that’s up to you,” I said, mentally swearing to drive straight to urgent care rather than home.
Twenty minutes down the road, my mom agreed that maybe it would be a good idea, since the pain was bad enough to make her nauseous. X-rays would show she’d fractured the radial head of her elbow, which sort of functions like the door hinge of the arm, allowing the forearm to pivot right to left.
My mother broke her arm in an obvious accident, but for every trip to the doctor’s office, there are a host of other, more mundane issues we choose to ignore. And putting off regular visits to the doctor not only hampers your relationship with your general practitioner, it could be hazardous to your health. That’s as good a reason as I’ve ever heard to get in the habit of regular exams.
Right now there are 7 million Americans who have not been to the doctor in at least a decade, according to the American Medical Association, and while most of us may go a bit more frequently than that, physician avoidance is a problem at least tenuously linked to the severity of diseases. Case in point: the difference between the sexes.
Men are less likely to visit doctors for check-ups on a yearly basis and less likely to share important health concerns unless directly questioned about them, according to the AMA.
The Centers for Disease Control even lists getting regular check-ups as one of the top 10 things men can do to improve their health.
These visits allow doctors to screen for potential health pitfalls such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or sexually transmitted diseases, and some physicians assert that skipping these screenings could lead to premature death.
Men have higher age-adjusted death rates than women for 14 of the nation’s 15 leading causes of death, according to the AMA, and death rates in top categories are often attributed to lack of screening and preventative care.
And why not try to extend things? Men already face shorter life expectancies than women by about five years, according to the AMA, and that gap widens based on race.
Black men, on average, die 12 years younger than white women, and minorities are far more likely to die prematurely than white men, too.
Premature death rates for black and Latino men were listed as 40 percent and 37 percent respectively as of February, with many of the cases spawning from strokes. The premature death rate of white men was 21 percent.
Whether you’re male or female, chances of treatment or cure for cancer and other life-threatening diseases are better when you see your doctor regularly and catch problems early.
The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends regular screening for colorectal cancer for all people over 50 and strongly recommends lipid screening for all men over 35 and all women over 45.
It’s time to make that appointment!
