Healthy adults aged 18-44 tend to be the largest group of uninsured people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. On top of that, young adults make fewer doctor visits than those in other age groups, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found. It makes sense that healthy young adults don’t go to the doctor, or at least seems to. Why would a healthy person in the prime of life need to see a doctor if nothing is wrong?
The problem is that many underlying health issues don’t become obvious until later in life. Furthermore, young people often engage in risky behaviors, such as tobacco use, alcohol use, and poor diet, which lead to health problems that don’t affect them until later in life, when it may be too late to prevent and more costly to treat. Primary care is not just for children and the elderly. Here are some of the ways that regular checkups will go far toward ensuring a long, healthy life at every age.
Preventative Care
You don’t wait until your timing belt snaps to take your car to the shop. You take it in the first time you hear that distinctive ticking sound. If you wait until it breaks, the repair is going to be that much more costly. The same goes for your body. It’s better to take care of small problems before they become big problems.
Many health issues are invisible and only show up in blood tests. By the time you begin experiencing symptoms, the problem might be much more difficult, costly, and time-consuming to treat. Preventative care can put your health on the right track before you’re even aware that you were on the wrong track.
Healthcare Includes Mental Health
While young adults don’t often suffer from many physical ailments, they do suffer from mental illness at higher rates than the rest of the population of the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 36.2% of 18-25 year olds and 29.4% of 26-49 year olds suffer from some form of mental illness. Your primary care physician can screen you for mental illness and then refer you to the appropriate specialist.
Factual, Personalized, Evidence-Based Advice
Many young people have turned to social media for healthcare advice. This is problematic for a number of reasons. While there are indeed actual doctors on TikTok and other platforms doing good work in bringing education to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it, the best they can do is give general advice. They don’t know you, your history, or your particular circumstances, so advice that might help one person could potentially harm another. You might also end up believing that a medical issue you are dealing with is worse than it is, or not as bad as it is. Both kinds of misdiagnoses can harm you in different ways.
Social media influencers who are not actual medical experts often have ulterior motives, like selling you unproven dietary supplements. Moreover, content designed to make you scared or anxious gets more attention on social media, so misinformation tends to gain more traction than the boring, well-established facts of legitimate medicine.
As healthcare professionals, we’re here to empower you to make the right health decisions, not scare you into buying a potentially dangerous product. Only your doctor has the expertise and the knowledge of your particular health history and needs to give you an accurate diagnosis.
Form a Lifelong Relationship
The kind of patient-centered healthcare we provide at Alertive doesn’t just treat whatever is ailing you right now. It takes your whole life into account, where you’ve been and where you want to go. You’ll get better care if you have an established relationship with your provider, someone who is familiar with your full medical history, your lifestyle, and your preferences. You might not need a lot of care now, but when you do need it years down the line, you’ll be able to get help from someone who already knows your needs. Over our years together, we might notice changes in mental or physical health that you yourself don’t even notice, whether through lab tests or observation, and work with you to come up with a treatment plan that is right for you.
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late. Take Care of Yourself Today.
You might be healthy today, but regular preventative care visits will keep you healthy. Alternately, you might think you’re healthy, but an annual checkup might reveal a hidden medical issue in its early stages, when it is still easily treatable. Either way, going to the doctor before you get sick is a smart move. After all, the best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining, before the rain starts falling.
