1. I'm Still Young. Do I Need A Comprehensive Screening?
An ounce of prevention is better than an ounce of cure! This is especially true for the younger generations. Chronic disease takes time to grow, that's why they are called the silent killers. It takes from 1 to 10 years for a tumor to grow from a tiny small dot.
Cancer or other chronic disease starts small, and grow over the years without you feeling anything wrong. Your normal blood test will not be able to detect this yet.
The tumor eventually grows and compress other parts of your organs which you then start to feel pain. And usually, these signs shows in your normal blood test result or when you start to feel discomfort, the usual answers from diagnosis are, it's already stage 2 or 3 if you are lucky.
Doesn't this sounds familiar?
Do you know that the cancer death in youngster are much faster than the elderly? That's because cancer spread faster in young cells as their cells are much more active?
Just take a comparison between a young man and an elderly one. Who actually do things faster? So if you think you are young and is healthy, pay attention! Cancer or other disease doesn't choose its victims based on age.
As China Times Express report:
In fact, young does not mean you are healthy particularly. In today's society, we hear stories about people getting cancer, no matter what age people are at.
2.What is the Right Age to Start Health Screening and Regular Checkups?
Human beings live a relatively long time, at least in comparison to most animal species. Overall, we rank in the top ten percent of all species when it comes to long life, nowadays. A lot of that long lifespan can be directly credited to improvements over the last hundred years in public health programs like vaccinations, purifying water, antiseptic surgery techniques and eradication of a few major diseases, such as smallpox.
So, given that we tend to be living longer lives, we really need to ask ourselves the question "what is the right age to start health screening and regular checkups?"
The answer itself isn't as cut-and-dried as we'd like it to be, unfortunately. Generally, the frequency and interval of health screening and regular checkups occurs on a kind of scale, where we get more of that sort of preventive medicine both in our younger, pre-teen years and in our older so-called “senior years" of age 50 and over.
But, the answer also has to factor in the individual personal medical circumstances that each person may have undergone in the past or is currently undergoing in the present. By this, we mean have they had a serious or life-threatening illness like cancer that they've managed to beat, or are they undergoing an illness at present? Now, once we're able to satisfactorily address those input factors, we'll be able to more accurately set a precise timeframe.
When we're young and in our pre-teen years, we may not have yet had all our immunizations or we may not yet have fully developed natural immunities to various bugs and illnesses out in the world. That's why a regular checkup on a yearly or bi-yearly basis may be a good bet.
This allows the pediatrician (child doctor) to gauge the health of the growing child in an intelligent manner. Once kids hit their teens, checkups can generally be done on a longer time range going all the way up to every five years.
Young adults and adults up to age 30 can get away with checkups every two years, for the most part, except for PAP screening in women and also regular breast self-examination. There are also some recommended individual screening tests once we hit age 40, but nothing too complicated.
At age 30 and onward, regular annual checkups should be mandatory, as well as regular screenings for certain male or female issues that tend to appear as we age. Check with your doctor or local health maintenance advocate for a list of screening tests which should be done.
Intelligent planning and forethought in getting medically screened can make a world of difference to any person's quality of life. Try to adhere to an effective yet simple-to-follow healthcare plan whenever possible!
3. Do you have to fast before all Lab tests?
You do not have to stay fasting before all lab tests!
The few important blood test/test panels which require fasting are
Test |
Fasting period
|
Blood Sugar Fasting test(Plasma Glucose) |
8 hours |
Lipid profile(Cholesterol-total, HDL, LDL and Triglycerides test) |
10 hours |
Renal(kidney) Function test |
8 hours |
Hypertension Profile, Diabetes Profile, Obesity Profile, etc |
12 hours |
All Health Check-ups, Complete Body Profile |
8 hours |
Uric Acid |
8 hrs recommended by some clinicians. |
|
|
|
The American Heart Association warns against quick cholesterol tests you find in malls and health fairs/camps because fasting is imperative to obtaining an accurate result.
4.Fasting Dos and Don'ts
Stay hydrated and drink plenty of water. Take any medication that your doctor prescribed to you except for corticosteroids, estrogen or androgens, oral contraceptives, some diuretics, anti-psychotic medications including haloperidol, some antibiotics and niacin. Please consult your doctor for confirmation. Try and take early morning appointment for your test and after performing the blood draw for your test, you can take these prescribed medicine.
Do not smoke, drink any other liquid than water or exercise during your fast. Even chewing gum is off-. Any of these elements can adversely affect your test results.
5.How do I prepare for Post lunch (Post prandial or PP) sugar test?
The post lunch sugar test is done at 2 hours after finishing your regular lunch. For eg. If Mr. Shah has completed his lunch at 12.00 noon he needs to completes his blood collection at 2.00 pm. Mr. Shah will require to reach the lab at 1.50 pm, i.e. 10 minutes early to avoid registration delays. Also Mr. Shah cannot have any food between 12.00 noon and 2.00 p.m. time period. He can have water and his medicines.
6.How much time will it take at the lab for me to perform my lab tests?
After completing your registration(5-20 minutes) it usually takes 5-15 minutes for completing your blood draw. But depending on your test requirements the time may vary. In case you have additional after lunch blood test you may have to come back to the lab. If you have additional ECG, X-ray and other imaging test the usual time taken may be 30 minutes to 2 hours. For health check-up you may usually spend up to 1-2 hour in the morning and 1-2 hour in the afternoon at the lab.
7.How much time does it take to get the test reports?
Usually, for the common tests done in-house, the test reports will be available on the same day evening. For special tests like microbiology cultures, many immunoassay test, histopathology test, etc. the reports will be available after the schedule date of performing the test. Special test are not performed daily and hence may take longer time- few days to few weeks in some cases. The test receipt given to you at the time of registration, will indicate the tentative date on which your reports will be ready.
8.When should I do my health check-up
In general there is no recommended age for health check-up. Health check-up is recommended for all adults from age of 18 years onwards. Most of the health check-ups today will include
-- Common blood tests like CBC, Blood sugar, Urine routine examination
-- Preventive test check-up panels assessing risk of certain disease e.g. heart disease, cancer
-- Assess general status of important organs like liver, kidney and thyroid gland
-- Diabetes monitoring
-- Arthritis tests
-- Radiology test like X-ray chest/Sonography of abdomen test and ECG check-up
-- Check for nutritional deficiencies
9.Does Thyroid test or other Hormone tests require any preparation?
Hormone test do not require fasting. The baseline level for most of the hormones in the body is in the morning. Though majority of these tests can be done at any time, morning time is preferred. Some tests like Cortisol, Insulin, etc. may have to be done at the exact time prescribed by your doctor. |