Men are notorious for delaying health checkups and presenting late to doctors when contracting illnesses. Many men put their health at risk by ignoring health check-ups. The reasons for not giving priority to health check-ups are many.

However, most of the reasons boil down to the need to maintain the image of masculinity. Traditionally, men are expected to be stoic, tough, able to withstand stress, able to take care of themselves and earn for the family. They are taught not to cry easily; minor cuts and scars are to be seen as badges of masculinity. Therefore, medical check-ups are certainly not on their agenda.

A check-up is traditionally viewed as something for kids and pregnant mothers. Hence, health check-ups are viewed by men as something feminine. Once a boy has grown up to become a teenager, clinic visits are important only when he is sick enough to call for help, and not even if there is only a minor ailment.

However, this trend is slowly changing after years of campaigns on the importance of health check-ups and healthy lifestyles by various authorities and non-governmental organisations. Now, more men are interested in going for health check-ups.

For example, men whose parents died of heart disease early in life have substantial risk of heart disease and therefore need earlier assessment of their cholesterol level; men who smoke and have diabetes may need cholesterol treatment at a lower threshold than men who don’t; men who have erectile dysfunction may have undiagnosed hypertension which needs intervention, and so on and so forth.

Hence, it is important for you to visit your doctor for a comprehensive health check-up and determine what tests are needed. Read more »

According to the 2003 National Cancer Registry in Malaysia, there are over 600 new cases of tongue, mouth, gums, salivary glands and oropharyngeal cancer every year!

Smoking does cause mouth cancer as well. It is called oral cancer, which comes under a broader group called oropharyngeal cancer (cancer of the mouth or throat). When detected early, oral cancer is almost always cured.

But unfortunately, so many people still present it at such a last stage. Oral cancer is more common in men than women because men tend to smoke more frequently.

Relatively speaking, oral cancer is easy to detect, but so many people still present it at a late stage? This is because this type of cancer is usually confused with other mouth, lips, tongue, cheek and throat diseases. Many people also overlooked the importance of having ENT (ear, nose, throat) screening in their yearly checkup, thinking it’s not important.

Also oral cancer is usually painless. So the hapless patient might think that innocent-looking swelling in his/her cheek is due to an ingrown wisdom tooth rather cancer. Most oral cancer are on the lips (easy to see), tongue or the floor of the mouth (easy to feel).

Things you have to look out for include:

• A sore in your mouth that doesn’t heal. Or if it keeps on increasing in size (mouth cancer)
• Lumps in your mouth that don’t go away (mouth cancer)
• White read or dark patches inside your mouth that persist, or anything out of the ordinary that wasn’t there before (mouth cancer)
• Persistent pain in your mouth (mouth cancer)
• Repeated bleeding in the mouth
• Thickening of your cheek (mouth cancer growing inside the soft tissue)
• Difficulty chewing, swallowing or moving your tongue (tongue cancer, mouth cancer, oropharyngeal cancer) Read more »