Preventive Health Check-up and Healthy Lifestyle is Important.

Modern lifestyle has become so inundated with Increased stress, lack of time for physical exercise and unhealthy habits that expecting life without diseases is now an absolute challenge.

But the thing is, we won't go to the doctor for general health check-up until we fall sick and simply find some excuse to procrastinate though we may have some troubling symptoms, leaving the body and health until the problems start significantly hamper our daily routine or the conditions become more serious. Yes, it is common that mostly people visit the doctor or hospital when they’re already sick due to some acute health issues like accidents or suffer from high grade fevers due to unknown infections caused by bacterial or viral etc. Preventive health check-up is something different and not designed to the treatment for such acute symptoms though.

So, it is highly recommended that a person at age ideally 30 and beyond should opt for Preventive Medical Check-up. Certain most common and umbrella of chronic conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure and some issues relates to heart and overweight might not cause any symptoms in the early stages. As it is said that prevention is better than cure, regular check-ups help to find underlying potential health issues and to detect certain unwarranted medical problems before they become advanced or a serious threat for life.  If the disease at borderline or in the early stage, it might be possible to reverse the illness with expert advice and right care by maintaining a healthy diet, weight, and level of physical activity. 

But when it comes to health, it is very common that most people act re-actively instead of proactively.

This may be due to various reasons.

- First and foremost is that, in our country, most of the people must pay directly from their pockets so don't want to spend money on healthcare (as the cost of healthcare is unaffordable of reach and very high when compared to income generated by a common citizen) until they feel like it's completely necessary.

- Secondly, some people may have irrational fear of doctors or health tests is called Iatrophobia, simply refuse to get health tests done because of the horror they have to go through if something comes up.

- And then, some people who are generally in good health, especially when they’re young and feel like racing horses, they may not see the point in going to the doctor. For example, if someone is in good health and no one in their family has a serious illness till then, they might believe they are not at risk for a specific disease or condition and strongly assume that they will never become sick so just take it for granted on the health front and don’t understand the health risks.

- Lastly- awareness or accessibility, i.e., some people either may be living far away to the health care access or less privileged and have no/less awareness of any information about the importance of Preventive health checkup, so they can’t make it.

Whatever be the reason for neglecting, ignoring or just procrastinating, everyone should understand that it is a very important thing to note all you ‘the healthy people’ out there, - never take your body for granted. we have no idea what changes are taking place inside our bodies but being overlooked as the signs and symptoms are yet not perceived out. Getting a regular body check-up helps your doctors diagnose a disease before it poses high risk and take action.

For example, take someone of age 37years - who has no idea that he has diabetes, but one fine day he happened to visit an exhibition place and there he found a stall offering a free sugar check-up so with some curiosity he got into the que to get tested. To his surprise the value of RBS the test kit shown was 300+ and he shocked to see that. The health stall exhibitors there informed him as he has diabetes, but he never imagined that this could happen to him as he never had any symptoms of illness!

Then - after a few days – again to reconfirm, on his own interest he got the FASTING and Post Lunch sugars checked at the nearest diagnostic center. There again FBS – 245, PLBS – 340 was reported.

 

That means the person’s sugars was abnormal at least for last 2-3years though he has no symptoms yet. The body takes some time to give symptoms. But, meanwhile, there will be various biochemical changes occur inside and harm our body without causing any symptoms. If the same person would had gone for annual health checkup’s, he would have identified this well before and could have taken care of this health issue without allowing the bodily organs in such stress for this long though. Similarly, it is important to check blood pressure and blood cholesterol to alleviate the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

 

And more importantly we all should understand that the amount of money we would need to spend to diagnose any health issue and then counsel and ensure to take proper measures to delay or prevent other long-term complications of any such chronic diseases would be much lower than the money you would spend on treating the aftereffects of these diseases if they would leave undiagnosed for a long time. Also, it will maintain the good quality and longevity of life if the diseases would get diagnosed and controlled / treated at the early stage.

Other side, with the increased social media & news broad cast - some people are now proactive & conscious of watching, understanding and then seeking medical advice on how to live a healthy life by maintaining a healthy diet, weight, and level of physical activity. Unlike earlier times, people are now preemptively seeking medical advice and looking to lower the risks of various conditions or diseases by maintaining a healthy diet, weight, and level of physical activity.

 

Despite the frenetic lifestyles, if you take some time out and think about what it is about your life that is not healthy, you will easily be able to identify a few things which you must change. It is never too early. Never think that I am too young to not do this or start worrying about my health. Remember that chronic conditions are hitting the young at an alarmingly increasing rate.

There are simple things you can do. For example, few are like…

• Drink enough water, never get dehydrated.
• Eat healthy food. Consume less SALT & SUGAR,
• Understand and follow the food pyramid in diet.
• Don't eat processed food, Reduce the intake of harmful fats,       .
• Don't smoke.
• Avoid Alcohol or Drink within limits.
• Spend some time in Exercise, Walking, cycling, swimming, jogging and be active.
• Work normal hours, Practice yoga, meditation, etc. to reduce the stress.
• Get good sleep.
• Also– keep a habit of reading good books. And may be some more things to adapt.

See, no rocket science there. Simple common sense and consciousness.

By adapting these good changes in lifestyle at one side, keeping a watch on regular Preventive Health Check-ups on other side can help to be in good health hopefully!

 

The pandemic is not over yet so please follow the covid appropriate behavior.

 

Wishing you all a healthy, wealthy, and happy New Year ahead and may God bless all!.

Group-video-call with my college friends after about 20years!

19th Sep'2021, Evening 7pm-9m - It was really a very happy and wonderful moment when some of my college friends were met online in a WhatsApp video call after a very long time and that is about 20plus years. And many are not even in communication all these years. And It's such a great evening time seeing and talking to our friends after this long, getting connected from different parts of the globe.

-Screen shot of the group chat-

Just to give a short flash-back, we have studied Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engg. (Year 1995-98) in Gov’t Polytechnic college, Visakhapatnam, AP. Those were the days of no mobile phones and all the communication used to be made with Inland Letters and post cards etc. Out of the total class strength of 50students, 13 of our batchmates were resided together in the accommodation allotted in the college attached Hostel and the others were used to attend the college as day-scholars.

Since I was also a hostel student, it happened like I had very less interaction with others in our class but all my daily activities like discussion about classes, subjects, exams, evening hangouts, watching movies in many theaters in Vizag city and then occasionally visiting RK Beach, VUDA park etc. and so many more memories were just refrained only just with my Hostel mates.

-Elevation of the College building-

Yes, those were the golden days the days I spent with my hostel friends. Journey of that hostel life was just 3 years which might be very short, but the memories given by them are so beautiful and are remained in our hearts even now. It was a student managed hostel though the amenities and buildings are provided by government. There would be a warden, clerk and few cooking and housekeeping staff along with the participation of few elected/nominated representatives from 2^nd & 3^rd year hostel students called as ‘Mess Secretaries’ to manage the business of hostel with a strength of 130-150 students from all branches of 3year batches. All the expenses pertaining to the hostel are recorded in the expense registers and the same shall be accounted at the end of the month, further the costs would be divided with total strength to arrive on the amount that would have to be collected from each hosteler as mess-charges against that particular month. Some of our hostel mates were always very keen to keep the mess charges limited to as conservative as possible due to the low-income family back grounds. whereas on other side, few others demand for regular servings of Non-Veg dishes and asking for improvement in quality of food that is served in the mess with no bar or fear of mess charges. There were always yes / No opinions in the mess committee debates but still got to arrive on some decision at the end. (May be this was my first experience to get exposure for planning, budgeting, and understanding the importance of financial discipline which really helped in every stage of my personal life later).

As I mentioned before, there was no accessibility of mobiles for maintaining the communication, we all have left the college after our Diploma final year exams and had no clue about most of us where and how we have proceeded in our lives further. But once we got the access to phones, internet and then most importantly the social media like Facebook etc., slowly we got to trace and connected with one after other and then we formed as a WhatsApp group way back a year or so. Till date we have 10 friends out of 13, yet to find the rest but hope the group will get with complete presence very soon.

Now coming back to the group video call, it’s quite warmth of those memories and so funny to chat on a video call as a group after the gap of such long time. Everyone is so excited to talk about their present life both on personal and professional fronts while others are listening and interrupting with their notes. Some friends have their kids with them so made them to get introduced to other friends with their names and explaining about their education etc. Also memorizing and recapping all the stuff we had done when we were in collage / Hostel days and counting many friends with their names one by one who were in touch but not joined the call, also enquiring about some friends not in-touch to anybody so making plans to enquire about them.

That way, it was all about 2hours group call engaged in spending time with sharing and discussing different topics like career, personal life, social and political matters of respective origins, time zones and what not?

So, it was very amazing feel to have such a call got arranged with my hostel friends and that too on my birthday i.e., on 19^th of September coincidentally.

Thank you, guys, and wish you all GOOD LUCK!

The present vaccination regime in our country, is it appropriate?

vaccination drive in India is huge and considered to be largest in the world. The govt is permitting the population in a phased manner.
In the initial phase, COVID-19 vaccine provided to the priority group - Health Care and Front-line workers. The second phase vaccinations, starting 1^st March 2021 allocated for all those are above the age of 60 and Indians between the age of 45 and 59 with comorbidities but later included all the people of above 45years of age. The country has huge scarcity and vaccine crunch for the 2phase itself. Even first dose is also not received by many and thinking of 2nd dose is far from reach.

In the midst of this drama, Recently as a third phase, the central government announced that everyone above the age of 18 to be eligible to get vaccine from 1st May 2021.

At this moment when the central govt has announced for 3^rd phase, this has brought utter confusion in to the health care system and the state governments, further how to handle the situation? Some state governments have declared that they will not start the 3^rd phase (vaccination for age of 18years and above) but instead they will first ensure to give the booster (2^nd dose) dose to all those who were already vaccinated under Phase-1 and Phase-2.

If this is the way the vaccination program will be taken up, at least it will take another 12-15 months to cover 50% of population of our country and even that may also be a tough task considering the present production capacities of only 2 vaccine producers.

This theory of vaccinating in phased manner to prioritize the groups which are "age-vulnerable" may work for other countries. But the same strategy which is being followed there may not be appropriate for our country.

In my opinion, considering our huge population and crunch in vaccine production capacity, (instead of prioritizing the vaccination for people vulnerability by age),

Firstly, the govts should target the vaccination to those who are highly moving and active in social life (Employees – Govt, Private, organized, un-organized labor, Taxi drivers, Auto rikshaw, etc.)

Secondly, - prioritize the urban areas and in particularly the metro cities which are connected to direct access with international / national travelers. This including all the population living in the urban cities, Employees, and workers of all levels from Shopping malls to street vendors.

Now, as a case study, I will elaborate this with an example and give the reasons why the present model of vaccination is not appropriate and can be redesigned to strengthen the vaccination drive to give better results with the same available production capacity.

Example1: (Urban population Vs Rural population)

I am staying in Hyderabad, but I belong to a remote village of AP state. I was knowing from my father, many village friends and relatives that as part of the 2nd phase of vaccination program, the govt officials made an arrangement to visit our village (all the rural areas) to figure out the people with eligibility criteria and give the vaccine to some of them depending on the stocks and supply chain.

But in reality, it was very very rare that the people living in those areas to getting infected with covid while the 2nd phase starting date 1st Mar 2021. Instead, the govt should have first concentrated on the urban population irrespective age vulnerability concept. This would have helped containment of covid spread and unnecessary strain on the authorities in logistics of the drugs to scattered locations. The rural population has a chance to get infection only when they visit the nearest urban areas for marketing, shopping etc.

So, if the URBAN POPULATION is vaccinated first, there will be less chances of spreading the infection to the surrounding rural population.

 

Example2: (Age vulnerable people Vs Family responsible people)

Case1: A friend of mine staying in Hyderabad living with family of total 6 members. He is the only person working in the family. He got his parents vaccinated after the 2^nd phase announced but because of his age (<45y) himself and his wife could not get the vaccination yet. Since he is working in a private company, he has to attend to office which is unavoidable. Except him all others of his family are staying at home. If at all they get an infection, that can be only through him. But with the existing phase-wise protocol of vaccination he can’t get the vaccine.

By chance, if he gets the infection and something goes serious with his health, who will take care of his family? Whole family including the vaccinated parents will come on to road. And no doubt in it.

So, the govt should prioritize the working people than the people staying at home. How can you prioritize with age? Some people, even at the age of 60 also live with a good immune system. And some people at 30s suffer lot of comorbid diseases and in high risk with such infections. The biological age of a person can’t be compared with the calendar year age.

 

Case2:

One person was working in Chennai and as he felt few symptoms like fever etc., he immediately got back to his native place which is neighboring village to us. First week the symptoms were on and off, so he didn’t reveal it to anybody in the village, but their family members were in as usual mingling with all others in the village. After a week, his mother got badly infected and showed severe symptoms. Only then, both of them were taken to a nearest covid center for treatment. The boy was recovered but his mother lost her life. Also 25-30 cases reported in the same village in 2 to 3 stages of testing as on date with in 15 days of span. How this will further explode in the village and surrounding villages later on is unpredictable and critical to estimate now.

Now coming to find out the source point of the infection, it is the young man who was returned from Chennai. If had he got the vaccination from his company reference, he wouldn’t have got the infection and wouldn’t have returned to his native place and the situation wouldn’t had been messed up like this.

 

So, the govt and the responsible authorities should first target the Sources of infection. They shall first concentrate on all metro cities where international connectivity is unavoidable due various business reasons, Export and import activities etc. Then next level cities, then towns and then finally the rural and remote rural areas.

Secondly, they should not fix up with a condition like age vulnerability. They should first vaccinate the age vulnerable, people with comorbid conditions though they may be of less than 45years of age and most importantly the working people (because the total family depend on their earnings).

If we streamline this way and structured to a new action plan (with the existing manufacturing capacity of vaccines), the govt can handle easily and successfully the vaccination regime in much better way to contain the corona virus spread in our country.

Happy New Year 2021! Then what should our new year resolution be?

Life comes as a full circle!

Yes, this phrase is profoundly apt to describe the journey of human life, right from the birth to the final stage of one’s life. 

Also, it is ascribed to say, “what goes around, comes around!”. Meaning, the consequences of one’s actions will have to be dealt with eventually.

Going little deep into the subject, at first, we start believing that our WEALTH can get us everything and anything in life. This nature continues and we are least bothered about the people around us. It is only when a crisis (Like the current situation) hits us, do we realize the value of relationships and other people in & around our lives. We look for our relatives, friends and all the society and expect them to nurture us, if no one bothers, then we feel left out, complain, or blame the whole society for our state and situation. 

The realization and recognition that happiness in life is based on the quality of our relationships (rather than our wealth) that will make us reflect. This reflection may help us change course and improve the quality of our lives.

This reflection may help families, friends, societies and as a chain of action, helps the nation to prosper. The main aim should be that the focus is on building relationships and spreading happiness rather than competing with others only just to accumulate more wealth.

While is it quite natural as a HUMAN to accumulate wealth and focus on self but it shouldn’t be too selfish to be INHUMAN, we must realize the existence of other human beings around us and value them, the better it is for us.

So, our new year resolution can be – “How many people can I make happier every day in the new year?”

May your New Year bring you reasons to smile! May the New Year 2021 bring you more love, happiness, and blessings! May all sorrows be washed away by God and you get showered with the best blessings!