Long gone are the days when people only saw their doctor when they had a serious ailment or were at death’s door. Nowadays, preventive healthcare is commonplace as people are becoming more health-conscious. Many people are now looking at preventive health options as well as trying to live a healthy life in order to lower their risk of various conditions and diseases, and in particular, to ward off cardiovascular issues.
As heart diseases are becoming a frighteningly common problem in today’s society, doctors advise that everyone should get regular check-ups to help stay on top of their cardiovascular health. Regular heart check-ups can not only help you to detect diseases early, but they can also lower your medical bills in the long term and save you a lot of suffering by catching issues before they escalate. Moreover, based on your results, your doctor can help you develop a long-term plan with regard to exercise and diet to maintain and improve your heart’s health.
Lower treatment costs
The unfortunate reality is that medical bills in many countries, especially those for heart-related diseases, can be enormous, and just the thought of these costs can be daunting to the best of us. Heart diseases that are detected at an already exacerbated stage can become very difficult to manage and can be a major financial drain on both a patient and their family. As one cardiologist in Singapore explains, regular heart check-ups can mitigate the risk of potential ailments that could turn out to be dangerous, and identify diseases in the earliest stages (or even before they show symptoms), so that you don’t have to pay and suffer as much as you would with a late diagnosis.
In certain cases, early heart screening can help reduce the risks of undergoing heart surgery and other serious medical procedures which would be extremely invasive and expensive. It’s not a rare case that the patient is left with a huge debt even after they are totally recovered, so if you want to save yourself from this, check your heart’s health regularly.
Nip heart diseases in the bud
A lot of potentially harmful heart diseases don’t show symptoms until they get serious or enter the later stages of the illness. As a result, there are a lot of cases where the patients are not aware of their condition until it gets serious. Even if you commit to a health check-up 2 times a year, some diseases are even impossible to diagnose without the specific equipment. Regular heart health check-ups help doctors diagnose heart disease before it advances to greater proportions, especially if you have a family history of certain physical conditions.
The doctor will consider your test results as well as your age, sex, history, and lifestyle choice to advise various tests for you to take. Early treatment is one of the most important factors which contribute to the potential rate of recovery and the ease of treatment for the patient. Appropriate preventive screenings can help detect any risk to the patient and identify diseases at the onset, thus making the diseases easier to treat if they do develop.
Build a good relationship with your doctor
Scheduling a regular heart check-up with a doctor can help you maintain a good relationship with your doctor which will ultimately result in better treatment. A doctor who already knows about the condition of your heart can prescribe the right medicine without having to learn about your condition all over again. If it ever happens that you end up in the hospital due to a heart condition, you will also feel more comfortable with a doctor that you know. Moreover, having all the records from your regular heart checkups can help your doctor to track the development of your disease and diagnose it more accurately. The right treatment or preventive plan can help stop the disease totally in its tracks or reduce the duration of your treatment, leaving you with less suffering and financial costs.
In our extremely fast-moving world with hectic work schedules, the lifestyle we choose can spark off a variety of diseases in the human body, especially heart diseases. Various studies have shown that stress releases a hormone called cortisol, a high level of which can increase blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure – the most common factors which contribute to heart disease. Regular heart check-ups can make sure that you get the advice and support you need from your doctor so that you can take timely action on adjusting your lifestyle to prevent heart diseases resulting from a high-stress lifestyle.
Stay in touch with your health
As the heart pumps blood through all parts of the body, the health of your heart very much reflects your general health. Your heart screening results will tell your doctor all they need to know about your heart health, from which they may warn you on how you can do to maintain your heart health better. Heart diseases can exacerbate very rapidly and cause problems at a later stage, while some can be handled with small changes in lifestyle at an early stage. Regular heart check-ups are a great way to stay aware of what you can do to reduce your risk of heart diseases and stay in touch with your overall cardiovascular health.
Takeaway
By pumping blood throughout the body, your heart plays such an important role in your general health. Bad heart health can result in not only heart disease but also affect and spread to other parts of your body. However, some heart diseases don’t show symptoms until the very late stages, and some are incurable and cause serious consequences if they are not detected early enough. Regular heart health check-ups can help find potential health issues before they even become a problem. The use of modern technology can enable your doctor to better analyze your heart’s health and check that everything is working as it should be. By getting the right heart screenings and treatment, you will be taking important steps to secure a long and healthy life.
Ellen Diamond did her degree in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. She is interested in psychology, mental health, and wellness.
