My personal experience is that doctors, while they are great at surgery and fixing things, are not very good when it comes to disease prevention. I guess it might have to do with the economics (or may be just incompetence. Can't say.). Two years ago, my cholesterol numbers were off the charts and the doctors asked me to start taking statins. I disregarded their advice, did my own research for diet based solutions, and have very healthy numbers now. I know quite a few people who have been given poor advice by seemingly good doctors/dietitians.
I have been through the packaged checks. It takes 4-5 hours to go through the whole cycle and the neighborhood hospital doesn't do Vitamine D, B12 or Thyroid T3, T4 (they only do TSH) or CRP. The dietitian and GP sessions are useless (one fat lady asked me to reduce weight, they still follow the BMI nonsense ). Won't do it more than once in 3-4 years.
I was looking for the smallest number of tests that will alert me if I am heading towards a chronic problem.
I would say be very careful about both. Pretty much everyone in my friend circle who tested for vitamin D came out deficient. I have now started taking vitamin D supplements. If you stay indoors all day, you are deficient in D.
B12 test is important if you are a vegetarian.
If I understand correctly, the deficiency of these vitamines have long term consequences.
Yeah you are Right, it is the Economics of Time, it is easier to prescribe a medicine than counsel someone, Plus there are medical guidelines to be adhered to. after certain level of LDL, statins need to be prescribed unless contraindicated, they are the most researched molecule on earth. My Own Uncle (Sr Scientist in DRDO) is undergoing Bypass after seemingly good dietary control of Cholesterol. He was advised Statins after angioplasty, used his own logic (obviously I wasn't made aware of it), came back with the blockage of both the stents. I have umpteen number of examples on this (in fact 7 /10 re admissions are because of drug non compliance) , but discussing this is beyond the scope of this forum. Its your body not a CPU which you can apply a experimental fix from online research. I just take a required medical consultation whenever it is beyond my area of expertise, without fail.
Avoid 3 "I' s when dealing with doctors
I (ego) - you didn't follow his prescription, would you have adhered to his dietary/ lifestyle advice ? it would have been a waste of time counselling you , because you would not have listened until you realize it yourself. But his prescription did the required trick .
I( Internet research) - Medical science is not a absolute science, I prefer experience over so called research data. There is so much confounding data ; to understand and apply what, where requires a experience. Because of Internet; Knowledge is at your fingertips, but Wisdom still needs a hard-work. So please be careful when you are applying some internet based research onto yourself. I still consult my teachers (Luckily I have been gifted with best of them) whenever I face such a dilemma, I have umpteen number of examples where Experience beats evidence of hard core research & guidelines.
it is not CRP it is HSCRP (High Sensitivity) you are talking about. both are very different.
Check Vit D, B12 , Thyroid once in 5 yrs if not deficient. Otherwise as prescribed by your Physician. Mind you , HYPER-vitaminosis of Vitamin D is equally problematic.
@dpandey Even I am taking statins for my cholesterol level. But my ECG said that I have a chance of a block. So I don't know what else I can do other than take the statins!
This IT life is killing me!
Not just IT almost every field has become like this, we are glued to our smartphones or Computers. Lifestyle diseases have reached an epidemic proportion.
I still stand by my words
In a Indian scenario seeing a reliable MD/DNB Medicine physician yearly is more useful than anything else.
If in Doubt take Second or Third Opinion but that is THE best option. Indian doctors have a better clinical acumen than their western counterparts (it is a well known fact) , please make use of that.