medical-record

Your Family Medical History: How Their Health Can Affect Your Health

Health, History

While it would be lovely to think that our health is solely in our control and we are only affected by our own decisions, this is not the case. Our family medical history has quite an effect on our health as a whole. If you’ve ever been to a doctor, you will know that one of the things that they ask is your immediate and extended family history.

If you’re not quite sure why, let these answer you:

It Raises Your Risk for Certain Illnesses

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When your father or mother has a certain illness like hypertension, diabetes, or even cancer, it raises your risk for them as well. This is because of the genetic similarities between yourself and your parents. The same is true for siblings and even your extended family members.

If you’ve got high blood, diabetes, and other regularly occurring issues in various members of the family, you can consider yourself at high risk for the same things.

It Determines What Tests You Will Need

blood-test

When your doctor has an idea of your family’s medical history, they will have a better idea of the sort of tests and screenings that you will need in your lifetime. If your parents have congenital diseases, you and your offspring will have to be tested for them as well.

Your family’s medical history can help serve as a roadmap for your doctor to determine how to best help you avoid certain illnesses.

It Will Affect the Sort of Lifestyle You’ll Need

sad-man

When you’ve got a lot of illnesses on either side of the family, you must be conscious of the lifestyle that you lead. If your bloodline is prone to heart disease, it would be smart to be proactive and avoid foods and hobbies which may exacerbate your heart’s condition.

So you see, knowing your family’s medical history can help shape your own health—for better or worse. Are you aware of your family’s medical history? What illnesses have run rampant in your bloodline?

doctors

Spotting the Good Ones: 3 Signs You’ve Got a Good Doctor

Doctors, Healthcare

When it comes to the topic of your health, your doctor should be your partner. The thing is, there are a lot of doctors out there that value money over actual service. This is why you should be discerning of your doctors.

How do you determine if you’ve got yourself a good doctor? Well, for us, they should have these qualities:

Listens

Who here has experienced explaining your symptoms to a bored looking doctor who is quick to judge or dismiss your words? We’ve experienced this several times and it just ended up with wasted money and frustration. A good doctor will take time to really listen to their patient. They will hold off questions until you are finished with your description.

A doctor who listens is one that you can trust.

Easy to Reach

There are some doctors that are harder to reach than most. The thing is even if they are not as busy there are those that are quite difficult to really get a hold of. This is why it is ever important to find a doctor that is easy to reach whether by phone or text or even email.

A good doctor is one that won’t make it hard for you to get a hold of them for your health concerns.

Respects Your Time

Time is crucial. Not everyone has the free time to go and sit at a doctor’s office for hours at a time. Many of us have experienced being made to wait for hours at a time for a doctor that should have been in ages ago.

A good doctor is one that values and respects the time of their patients.

There are a lot of other qualities that you should definitely look for in a doctor. These three are the ones that we listed off the top of our heads. What qualities do you think a good doctor has?

typing

The Importance of Double Checking: What to Ask Before You Believe

Health, Information

Information has always been important for everyone—especially when one’s health is concerned. With information so easily obtained from the net, it is all the more important to double check it. There have been too many instances where a piece of wrong and harmful information has gone viral thanks to scaremongering and social media.

When you read a piece of health-related post or article on the net, there are a few things you should check out before you believe it. Those things are:

Who Wrote It

writer

First things first, you need to find out who wrote the article or post. Often, they simply claim a “source” from the health industry but they done list names. Even if they do, people tend to just take it at face value and do not check if there is an actual person behind the name.

Checking who wrote the medical article can help you determine if the source is credible.

When Was It Written

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Sometimes, one thing that we have believed to be true for years can be overturned with the latest study and research. This is particularly true when it comes to the field of medicine and healthcare. This is why it is important to determine the age of the article or post. If it is something that is quite old, how can you be sure that the information is still valid?

Checking the date of the article can help you determine its relevance to today’s world and technology or findings.

What Is the Source of the Article

woman-laptop

The source of the article or post is quite important. Did you find it off an odd blog? Was it a credible health publication? Was it simply an anonymous post that’s been shared around social media? When you determine the source of the article, you’ll be able to see if the information is good or something that is peddled by a known fraud site.

With homegrown medicines being so big, it is ever more important to be vigilant of the information that we consume off the net. What things do you check out before you believe a health-related article off the internet?

check-up

Annual Checkup Smarts: Questions You Should Ask Your GP

Health, Healthcare

When you are interested in keeping yourself in the best possible health, it would be important to have an annual checkup with your general practitioner. When you do, you had best ask certain questions. If you’re not quite sure what questions you should ask, we’ve got you covered!

Here are a few questions you should ask your GP:

Can You Obtain a Copy of Your Health Records?

Your health records can help you remember important things like which medicines you might be allergic to. It can also have a list of tests that you have taken but not quite remember. When you go and visit your GP, it would be good to ask if you could get a copy of your health records.

They should be able to provide you with a soft copy of your extensive records. You can use this information to keep you safe if you’re traveling in the future.

When Should Regular Screenings Start?

While it would be ideal to think that we would never need certain health tests, it is always good to approach this with both eyes wide open. If you are past a certain age, there are certain tests and screenings that should be done regularly.

You should ask your GP when the regularly scheduled screenings for mammograms and pap smears (for women) and prostate exams (for men) should start.

When Should You Come Back?

General practitioners are usually only visited when we need a checkup or a doctor’s note. This is a habit that you should break. An annual checkup can help you keep track of your progress. If you’re not quite sure when you should be returning to your GP’s office, asking them will be the fastest way to get an answer.

They should realistically be able to give you a time table of how often they should see you and what for.

These are some questions that we make sure we ask our doctors during the annual checkup. What questions do you ask your doctor?

patient

The Big Ones: 3 Health Issues That Claim Most Lives Today

Health, Medicine

Through the ages, the biggest causes of mortality tend to change. It is reliant on the trends of the time and the availability of proper healthcare. In the age that we live in now, there are certain health issues that seem to claim most lives to date.

This is what we shall be focusing on for today. Those three health issues are:

Obesity

fat

With the technology that we’ve got today, processes are a lot faster and it limits the need for actual physical endeavors on our part. There has also been a massive increase of the intake of sugar and fats in our diet. All these have given birth to obesity. This is something that has affected people of various ages, ethnicities, and genders.

Obesity is the gateway to a wide array of other diseases like diabetes.

Cardiovascular Disease

heart-attack

With all the oil rich foods that we have been consuming and other vices which end up clogging up arteries, cardiovascular disease is now a leading cause for mortality in today’s world. There are people as young as 25 years old that suddenly drop dead from a heart attack simply because of wrong lifestyle choices.

Cardiovascular disease, once it is in your system, will require maintenance medication and even the intervention of surgery in order to keep you safe.

Sexually Transmitted Disease

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With the moral laxity and bad decisions that have been going around, people have been less careful about their sexual activities. There has been a massive spike in the number of people that have been infected by STDs. While a majority of them may not fatal, there are some—like HIV—which have been proven to be.

While there have been massive attempts t empower and educate people and communities, the number continues to rise.

These three health issues are some of the most common causes for mortality in today’s age. What other issues would you say contribute toward mortality?

sleeping

The Importance of Sleep: Why You Need Good Sleep

Health, Medicine

In the world that we all live in today, things can often get pretty hectic. Work, school, social commitments, and so many other things demand a lot of our energy. This only proves why good sleep is truly needed.

Sleep can be pretty hard to come by for so many and because of that their health suffers as a result. For today, we wanted to take a look at some very real benefits to getting a good night’s sleep. Benefits like:

Better Productivity

When you get a good night’s sleep, you get to have a fresh mind to tackle any tasks that you may have lined up for the day. Work is an ever present fact of life and productivity is a must. Even if you’re on a day off, productivity is needed to get chores done and what not.

Proper sleep can help make sure that you’ll have the drive and energy to get things done.

Improves Your Immunity

There have been studies that have been developed to establish the correlation between sleep and one’s immune system. They have found that the less sleep you have, the worse off your immunity will be. Haven’t you ever noticed how you get a runny nose or a headache when you lack sleep? That’s your body’s immune system reeling at the lack of rest.

Proper sleep can actually boost your immunity.

Better Mood Overall

People who lack sleep tend to be pretty cranky. This is because their body’s natural rest function hasn’t done its job. When one gets proper sleep, beyond your body getting a boost, your mood gets a lift as well.

Proper sleep makes happier people overall.

The benefits that we obtain from sleep must not be taken for granted. If you continue to go by without it or the lack of it, you can get physically and mentally ill from it. We’d love to know your ideas on this. Why do you think you need good sleep?

 

Body Loves Sleep Infographic

From Visually.