NHS Health Check
Sep. 13th, 2016 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathanyThe NHS offers a health check to people in the 40 to 74 age range (I don't know what happens to those over 74, although my mother would like to know!). The idea is to spot early signs (or earlier than they might be) of a range of conditions from diabetes to heart and kidney problems. Having (re)found the most recent letter about it when I tidied my desk a couple of weeks ago, I booked mine.
The check comes as two appointments. The first is simply for blood samples. This appointment is offered in the morning and you are asked to fast for twelve hours beforehand. I went along and they took three vials of blood, presumably for three different tests. It only took a few minutes and most of that was getting the correct labels on the samples.
The second appointment is the rest. You get back the results of the blood tests, have a number of other checks (height, weight, waist measurement and blood pressure) and are then asked a number of questions about your lifestyle (smoking, alcohol consumption, food choices, exercise) and your family history (my family has a lot of people who smoked and died young and then the rest are fairly healthy and long-lived). It's stated as taking twenty minutes, but mine was much quicker than that (probably less than ten). That said, I had no problems at all. All my tests came back negative, I was ready for the various questions, my family history wasn't complicated and whilst I'm technically overweight (my BMI is 25.5), it's sufficiently close to normal that doctors tend to mention it and then move on. Apparently my chance of developing a serious problem (I think she said heart) in the next ten years is 0.18 per cent.
At the end I asked what sort of things it did sometimes spot. She told me that the most common is undiagnosed diabetes. Apparently people know they've become more thirsty and tired but without realising there's an underlying condition.
The check comes as two appointments. The first is simply for blood samples. This appointment is offered in the morning and you are asked to fast for twelve hours beforehand. I went along and they took three vials of blood, presumably for three different tests. It only took a few minutes and most of that was getting the correct labels on the samples.
The second appointment is the rest. You get back the results of the blood tests, have a number of other checks (height, weight, waist measurement and blood pressure) and are then asked a number of questions about your lifestyle (smoking, alcohol consumption, food choices, exercise) and your family history (my family has a lot of people who smoked and died young and then the rest are fairly healthy and long-lived). It's stated as taking twenty minutes, but mine was much quicker than that (probably less than ten). That said, I had no problems at all. All my tests came back negative, I was ready for the various questions, my family history wasn't complicated and whilst I'm technically overweight (my BMI is 25.5), it's sufficiently close to normal that doctors tend to mention it and then move on. Apparently my chance of developing a serious problem (I think she said heart) in the next ten years is 0.18 per cent.
At the end I asked what sort of things it did sometimes spot. She told me that the most common is undiagnosed diabetes. Apparently people know they've become more thirsty and tired but without realising there's an underlying condition.
