Are you someone who is on top of their annual health checks, or the person who forgets every year or are you somewhere in between? With the change in routine over the last two years, a survey conducted by Allied Health Professionals Australia showed a 32% decline in the attendance of GP appointments and a 22% decline in the attendance of Allied health appointments. This includes checks for bone health!
So why is it important to get back to your preferred healthcare practitioners to reassess and explore your health and wellbeing? Because there are many conditions and illnesses that may be asymptomatic and require testing to be diagnosed. The body can efficiently get on with things and hide those internal changes.
With summer nearly gone, now is a great time to be proactive in ensuring your body and health perform optimally, leading into the winter months.
Many of us get to winter, experience an illness, or start to feel run down and then decide to have a blood test or start taking supplement/s. But often, this is too late. Too late to enhance, reinforce or build the robust system designed to fight off colds and flus and support us throughout the different seasons of the year.
What should we test?
With all this in mind, what testing for our immune system should we explore?
- Standard complete blood count
- Electrolyte panel – e.g., sodium, potassium, magnesium
- Liver panel
- Lipid panel – for cholesterol.
- Thyroid panel
- Essential nutrients – e.g., iron, vitamin B12
- Inflammatory markers
What tests can we ensure we’ve checked off in lieu of missing our appointments in the last few years?
- Heart Health: blood pressure screening
- Blood tests
- Bone density tests
- Cervical Screening: pap smear
- Bowel Screening: colonoscopy
- Breast Screening: mammogram
- Skin Checks
- Dental Care
- Eye Health
These are a few general recommendations; remembering your health situation is unique to you, specific risk factors or health conditions might mean you need other testing or additional testing.
The proactive approach to screening for health concerns assists in creating a baseline of data, aiding in transparency to lead to action. You wouldn’t put diesel in your car if it took unleaded petrol, so why would you take a supplement if you weren’t deficient in that nutrient?
If you don’t have a health care team in your corner, establishing one that contains a regular GP or integrative GP is helpful for continuity of care. Other practitioners that could be useful with the results of Screening include naturopaths and nutritionists. They can assist in any implementation required to boost your immune system.
And finally, don’t forget the other good consistent elements to optimise health and immunity
- Get enough sunlight
- Do some moderate exercise every day
- Eat a balanced diet including fresh fruit and vegetables (can this line please be hyperlinked to the march recipe blog)
- Get adequate sleep and find ways to cope with stress
- Don’t drink too much and avoid being overweight
- Don’t smoke, it damages your lung’s ability to clear infection
You can complement your at-home and practitioner-based health care with regular OsteoStrong sessions and by including some regenerative sessions. Together these will all work to ensure your capitalising on every opportunity to boost your immune health and overall wellness as we head into the cooler months.
