While you may appear to be healthy physically, inner health can only be ascertained by a medical check up. Recently, after suffering recurrent headaches for a couple of weeks, I decided to seek medical advice. Apparently I had been "treating” myself with pain killers, that would only suspend the pain for sometime and the pain would resume.

To my utter surprise, even the medical doctor failed to detect any form of physical illness despite my complaints. But of course as a professional he advised me to visit a medical Laboratory and carry out a number of tests and from the results he would establish my sickness.

Like the doctor had prescribed, I undertook several tests that included screening my blood and urine. All tests were negative except for one thing: my blood level was found to be low and in fact later my doctor interpreted the results that I was anaemic and explained that it was the major cause of recurrent headaches.

He prescribed a number of drugs and also advised me to step up my diet with fruits and lots of drinks. It is wise to proceed with any referrals and follow up with doctors or health-care providers’ recommendations. Return visits are extremely important to establish that treatment is working without undesirable side effects, measure any progression of the problem, and fine-tune methods to cure and prevent further disease processes.

Many diseases can be prevented, at least from becoming life-threatening—they just need to be identified and treated early. As a woman, you should also see your gynaecologist once a year for a Pap test and breast and pelvic examinations. If you have any disease risk factors or take any regular medications, you might need to see your doctor more often.

You might be referred to a specialist after a routine screening exam. There are medical specialists, who train in internal medicine and then continue with a specialty in their area or expertise, and surgical specialists, who train in surgery and go on to surgical specialties.

Because medicine and surgery are so complex, you might need to see more than one specialist for the best care. Seeing your doctor regularly is an important step to preventing health problems. Remember: Prevention is the best medicine.

Contact: ubernie@gmail.com