I have been procrastinating to complete a long overdue task - an annual health checkup. An all-so-seemingly benign visit to the medical centre in which, we all know it's designed only to detect the beginnings of disease before anything gets really out of hand.
Anyway, I finally did it - well done, and just received my report as well, well done some more.
That was when I realised doctors have been taught to seek, find and treat illnesses, they are not - there to help us maintain good health. Allow me to explain.
Consequently, when we visit our doctor for a routine physical checkup (like what I did), it doesn't make much difference how healthy I was or how good I felt. My naked and defenseless presence in his examining room is an open invitation to the doctor to declare I am sick. By the time I have been psychologically traumatised by his questions, poking, prodding, and been revealed with some scare-mongering readings from my blood tests, I may very well experience so many side effects that - I am now REALLY sick.
Anyone can learn to take their own blood pressure and know how to weigh themselves. I'd say avoid the yearly checkups. If it's for cancer screening purposes (since we are so deadly afraid of the disease), there are reasons to believe we should be more afraid of its treatments, for they are often more deadly than the disease itself.
And from my recent learning, I found out with all these tests that they perform, exist a high false positive rate with all those readings.
So remind me please, what's the point of annual health checkup again?
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