Late 30s. In a few weeks I’m having my first physical in about three years (and that was the first one in probably six years). Overall I think I’m pretty healthy minus some small ortho issues, not being in as good of shape as I was in early 30s (kids and WFH killed my workout routine), and some minor weight gain (I’m still very lean).
My family has had some bad medical stuff, but most of that is lifestyle related.
I don’t want to go in there and just have a doctor look at me for five minutes then rush out to the next appointment.
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Also, my initial post on this topic was auto-removed because the title was under 8 words (seven). This is a weird rule.
7 comments
Bloodwork, lipid profile (cholesterol, lp(a)). Go over all your family history.
My girlfriend is a nurse practitioner so I don’t worry about too much.
If I was a doctor, I would be sorely tempted to look at the blood work and notes, then look at the patient and ask “Are you sure you are alive?”
Be totally honest with every question. Smoking, drinking, exercise, diet, everything. Your sleep patterns, snoring, fatigue, what you do for work. ALL of it.
Get total blood work. Have them go through the results when you call, just don’t go with “these numbers look good for a man your age”
I went too long just ignoring things. Once I opened up about stuff things got addressed.
I’m not a medical professional and this is not real medical advice.
With that said from what I’ve learned:
1. Do not trust your primary care provider to be aggressive enough. They may see several biomarkers that are “a little bit high” that over time will cause problems. In particular pay attention to LDL, fasting glucose, HbA1C from the standard panels. Docs will claim numbers aren’t bad when they are pre-diabetic or not insane LDL numbers. Ignore any nonsense talk about HDL/LDL ratios. Get the labs and check the major biomarkers. Heavily question anything out of range or near range max.
2. Go see a preventative cardiologist and ask for a full workup separate from this. They run far more extensive labs. ESPECIALLY do this if there is any heart disease in your family history, or if you see elevated LDL in your standard panel. Do any imaging if they suggest it (CIMT, CAC, CTA, etc).
I’m not sure what “bad medical stuff” is in your family but tell your providers. Heart disease esp can be treated early. If you have a family history of cancer it’s tougher to detect, but you could potentially do colonoscopies earlier, etc. You also would def want to run at least annual labs to try to catch elevated numbers that might indicate things are going bad. (ALT for liver, eGFR for kidneys, elevated white blood cells, etc)
Make sure your blood work gets a baseline of magnesium. Also, where your testosterone is. Kidneys and liver enzymes. Make sure you are fully hydrated when doing blood work.
See if there are any age-related screenings you should start. Colonoscopies are very common in your age range if there’s family history of colon cancer.