Fear can keep many men from going to the doctor. It may be based on past experiences or anxiety about the unknown, but whatever the case, in recognition of Men’s Health Week, health care professionals are encouraging men to visit their doctor every year, even when they aren’t feeling sick.
Aaron Skiles, DNP, C-FNP, is a family nurse practitioner at The University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center – A Campus of UNM Hospital (SRMC). He’s been providing primary care to patients at SRMC since the hospital first opened its doors in 2012.
But he started his own career in a much different setting, in the neurosurgery intensive care unit (ICU) at UNM Hospital in Albuquerque. That’s where he saw firsthand, the importance of preventative care.
“When I worked in the ICU, I saw patients facing life-threatening conditions,” Skiles said. “Things like strokes, where we would hopefully save their life, but sometimes they’d end up with some long-term impairment, or a diminished quality of life.”
You should visit your primary care physician every year, even if you don't have any concerns. Look at it as an investment in your future state of health.
-Aaron Skiles, DNP, C-FNP, Family Nurse Practitioner, SRMC
Skiles’ experiences in the ICU made him want to shift his professional focus to helping his patients identify health conditions early on, before they become a critical emergency.
“Often there are things we don’t feel,” he said, “like high blood pressure, cholesterol or early diabetes. That’s why preventative screenings are so important. If we can diagnose it early, the treatments are really effective.”
When it comes to men and their health, Skiles said there isn’t a time in their life when they shouldn’t be seeing a doctor on a regular basis.
“You should visit your primary care physician every year, even if you don't have any concerns,” he said. “Look at it as an investment in your future state of health.”
Men’s Health Checklist
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Recommended Health Screenings
Here are some of the top screenings, Skiles recommends to his male patients:
Heart Disease Screenings
The number one cause of death for men in New Mexico is heart disease. Skiles said routine screenings during annual visits are key.
Doctors will look at heart disease risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. If necessary, a body mass index screening can also be used to screen for heart diseases if somebody is overweight or obese.
Diabetes Screenings
Depending on a patient’s family history, their body mass index and age, Skiles said a diabetes screening could be performed. That screening looks at a patient’s blood sugar average over the past three months to see if those levels could be consistent with or a risk factor for diabetes.
Cancer Screenings
The second leading cause of death for men is cancer. Skiles recommends men screen for colon cancer, prostate cancer under the latest guidelines and lung cancer.
Colon Cancer
“One of the most valuable early detection cancer screenings is for colon cancer,” Skiles said.
The guidelines for who qualify for a routine colorectal screening is now age 45, down from age 50.
“We've been seeing an increase in younger people diagnosed with colon cancer,” he said. “There needs to be more awareness around that; that people can start screening, and should start screening at age 45.”
Colon cancer screenings can be done through a colonoscopy, a fecal occult blood test or a stool-based test, which can be done from home.
Prostate Cancer
While prostate cancer is typically the screening men are most familiar with, Skiles said guidelines for doing a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test have changed.
“In the past, it was very standard practice that men of a certain age would do a blood test for prostate screening, but it is not a recommendation, across the board, for men in their 50s or 60s to be screened for prostate cancer,” he said.
“Part of that is because prostate cancer is very common in men as they get older, but a lot of times, it's not going to be a type of cancer that would actually cause death. More commonly, it would be something like heart disease that would actually kill them.”
Based on guidelines from the American Cancer Society, Skiles said he works with his patients on what’s called “shared decision making”, which involves taking a look at that patient’s risk factors and the benefits of the prostate cancer screening.
“We have found, we may have over diagnosed men with a mild prostate cancer,” Skiles said. “And they end up going through a lot of invasive tests, like a prostate biopsy, going through cancer treatment, getting their prostate removed, and in the end, it may not have really added years to their life. It may have actually reduced their quality of life while they were living due to some of the side effects of the treatments.”
Lung Cancer
Another important screening Skiles recommends is for lung cancer. The screening is recommended for people who have smoked a pack a day for 20 years. The test can involve a CT scan of the chest to look for early signs of lung cancer.
Hep C in New Mexico
Finally, a screening Skiles said is not commonly thought of, but important in New Mexico is screening for hepatitis C, which affects approximately 3% of the population in the state.
Hepatitis C is a viral liver infection that can lead to serious liver damage including cirrhosis and liver cancer, if left untreated. Skiles said the universal recommendation is for all adults ages 18 to 79 to be screened one time for hepatitis C.
“We have amazing medicines to completely cure Hepatitis C with medications that people take for either eight weeks or 12 weeks, pills once a day, and they have almost a 99% cure rate,” he said. “They're very effective. So, it's a really exciting thing for people to find that they have that because we have really good treatments to cure it.”
Key to Good Health
At the end of the day, Skiles said the key to good health is early detection by working with your doctor now to prevent something more serious down the road.
“It’s valuable to see the meaning and purpose of going to see someone when you are well,” he said. “You can say ‘this is how I'm feeling now, and I would like to work on some of these things a controlled, comfortable way,’ rather than crashing into the ICU or the emergency room, and things are going really bad.”
