How Often Should I get a Physical?

@OeKc05 – Your family is right. You need a checkup so that the doctor can catch any serious conditions before it's too late.

So many people get cancer and don't know it until it is in its later stages. This means that treatment likely won't help, and if only they had gone sooner, they could have survived.

Often, you don't know you have cancer for awhile. Once you start to experience symptoms, it has progressed to a dangerous stage.

Just one checkup a year could save your life. I think it's worth whatever you have to pay.

@alisha-- But didn't you have any symptoms before your routine physical? I'm sure you felt that something was wrong.

If someone is healthy, I think once a year, or once every two years is fine for a physical. And if there is a health condition, physicians will require people to come in anyway.

You said you have a thyroid problem. Your doctor must require you to go in for blood tests once a month or once every three months anyway.

My mom for example, has a cyst in her breast and her doctor requires her to go in for a physical and mammogram every six months. So doctors do direct us in the right direction when there is an issue.

Should someone who seems to be healthy but is in their thirties really have a physical yearly? It just seems to me that if it isn't broken, there's no need to fix it.

My family is on me about going for a checkup, even though I feel great. They are outraged that I haven't been to a doctor in about ten years, but I see no need to pay someone to tell me that I'm doing just fine, because I already know this!

I have a kidney disease, so for awhile, I had to go to the doctor for a physical every six months. This was just to make sure that my kidney function hadn't declined.

With the condition I have, my kidneys could stop functioning normally at any time. My doctor does blood and urine tests to make sure everything is going well. Of course, my diet and lifestyle have a big influence on this, so as long as I do what he tells me, everything seems to go okay.

After a few years of visiting him every six months, he said that I could cut down to once a year. I was obviously in good health and taking care of myself, and he didn't see any need for me to come in that often.

I didn't start having regular physicals until I was in my late twenties. Before that, I only went to the doctor when something was wrong.

It had to be something that I just could not bear, too. I hated going to the doctor, and I would often wait weeks or months to see if a problem would go away on its own before I would agree to go.

I think people should get regular physicals, at least once or twice a year, regardless of age. I'm only 25 but I've been diagnosed with diabetes and hypothyroid. It was diagnosed with blood tests during my annual physical.

@rallenwriter-- Yes, it's to see how the child is developing. But sometimes these physicals can be deceiving. Some kids grow more slowly at first but they catch up later on. Sometimes I feel like these development physicals freak out parents for no reason.

Of course it should be done at least once a year. Because if there is a problem, it can be diagnosed at this time and the necessary treatment can be given. In some cases though, nothing needs to be done and the child will catch up on his own. My younger son was much smaller than kids his age until the third grade. His pediatrician kept telling us that he wasn't growing fast enough and was asking us if we weren't paying enough attention to his diet. But we were!

Then, in third grade, he grew suddenly and became even taller than the other kids.

I really liked this article. I thought it was great how you mentioned that older people need to get physicals too, because I know I have a tendency to try and skip them.

You know how it goes, you put off having a physical for a month, then that turns into a year, and then the next thing you know it's been five years since you went to the doctor.

Too many adults assume they don't need to go to the doctor unless they feel sick, which is simply not true.

Well done for pointing that out.

@rallenwriter -- A child development physical is a check up where the doctor check and tracks a child's growth and his or her body development.

You should take children to have a child development physical about every year or so, so that the doctor can check his or her muscle tone, motor skills development, attention span, and skeletal development, as well as giving them any shots they may need.

Child development physicals are very important for making sure that your child is healthy, and to catch any potential health problems early on, so they have less of a chance of turning into something serious down the road.

What is a child development physical?