After surveying hundreds of people from different places around the globe, many would claim that they fear visiting the doctor. This common disassociation between visiting your local family physician and incurring diseases tends to result in people avoiding regular health checkups.
A licensed radiology expert, Dr James Fleckenstein, would recommend that you should not slack on visiting your doctor to get your health checked. Not knowing the potential illnesses that you might be carrying and waiting for symptoms to arise before going for a medical checkup might result in severe damage to your health that could have been prevented if found early.
If you’re skeptical about visiting your doctor because of hearsays, here are some common misconceptions about getting medical checkups that help you understand what you’re signing yourself into.
- Ultrasounds are only for pregnant women
Ultrasonography or the application of ultrasonic waves to visualize your internal tissues and organs digitally is mostly associated with pregnancy because pregnant women are most likely to get an ultrasound to check up on the fetus’ health. Because of this, not many understand that ultrasound is also used to assess the condition of your internal organs such as your liver and gall bladder.
Ultrasound helps doctors check if a patient has an enlarged fatty liver, gallstones, kidney complications, etc. Get one to check if the organs in your system are still healthy and in pristine condition.
- X-rays are only intended for broken bones
As the media likes to portray it, x-rays have got several numerous misconstrued definitions of showing skeletal imagery of our bodies. You might have seen how x-rays are typically visualized as something like transparent flesh wherein all you see is the bones.
X-rays are also used to check the status of the tissues and organs in your body. If anything, x-ray tests are more used to check for respiratory-related illnesses compared to checking if you broke any bones. For heavy smokers, it would be very beneficial to get an x-ray to check and identify the well-being of their lungs.
- Electromagnetic waves are harmful to your body
The term electromagnetic is a bit overwhelming to quite a several people, and it can sometimes be a challenge for some to go for laboratory testing knowing that most digital imagery diagnostic tools commonly use electromagnetic applications. Electromagnetic waves used in for medical checkups are engineered to never harm a person in their usage.
Even though some tests emit high-frequency EM waves to visualize your body organs, these do not interfere with nor directly affect your body. Just like how light and radio waves are harmless EM waves, diagnostic tools are also safe.
- Laboratory testing is painful
The individuals who usually go for laboratory tests are the ones who are suffering from symptoms of certain diseases thus they aren’t feeling well and are oftentimes in pain. This causes a disassociation wherein getting a medical checkup or visiting the doctor results in a painful experience.
If you’re not feeling pain initially and you visit the doctor, you won’t be feeling pain anywhere since most, if not all, diagnostic tools do not even require skin contact, which means that these apparatuses barely do anything to your body at all.
