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I don’t consider myself old. I’m 40. If you’re 20 you think I’m old. Well I think you’re a teenager! So regardless of how old you are – in your 20s or 30s or 40s – I’m going to strongly recommend something all y’all need to do: get yourself a physical. I have nothing wrong with me; nothing hurts and my only problem is that I don’t sleep all that great because I keep waking up thinking about new ways for Be Better Guys to make money!
I don’t consider myself old. I’m 40. If you’re 20 you think I’m old. Well I think you’re a teenager! So regardless of how old you are – in your 20s or 30s or 40s – I’m going to strongly recommend something all y’all need to do: get yourself a physical. I have nothing wrong with me; nothing hurts and my only problem is that I don’t sleep all that great because I keep waking up thinking about new ways for Be Better Guys to make money! You may have nothing wrong with you either. But sort of like your car, things could be wrong and you may not be able to tell. See, that’s what scares me: that I feel perfectly great and healthy and robust and somewhere inside me something’s growing that I can’t tell or feel and that will knock me clean on my ass. When you get to be my age things happen to people. They get sick. Or worse.
 So, for 30 minutes I went and saw my doctor and said “Check out everything there is to check out. And I mean everything. Find out if something wrong exists.” Remember it’s like taking your car in for its 60 thousand mile maintenance (unless you lease in which case you’ve never driven a car over 15 K miles!). You do it even when nothing’s really wrong.
Women get checked out regularly because they go to their “girl” doctor once or twice a year. You don’t go to a doctor unless your leg has fallen clean off or you’ve gone legally blind. Time to be precautionary, fellas. And that’s why Be Better Guys is going to offer a guide to the physical.
First you want to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you’re going to submit to a variety of procedures just to make sure you are as great on the inside as you look on the outside. The biggest hurdle is convincing yourself that you’re skip work (not hard) and that you’re gonna go (real hard). It’s like managing your money, no one’s going to do it for you. You want to find something wrong now before it could be too late to do something about it.
Second you need a doctor. If you have a girlfriend or wife call that doctor and have the doc recommend an internist. That’s what you need – an internist. Find one close to where you live so you don’t have that as an excuse. I recommend you go to a guy doc because this is a pretty intimate exam. You may feel a wee uncomfortable having a female doc handling your batteries. Or maybe you won’t.
 Here’s what happens during a physical and why:
- You will give blood. It’s to test cholesterol and other conditions like blood sugar and the presence of viruses like HIV. No joke.
- The doctor will take you vital signs (e.g., temperature, pulse/heart rate, blood pressure), as well as record your weight (in case you didn’t already own a scale).
- The doctor will check for lumps, lesions, discoloration of the skin, or an overall cruddy look. That includes your feet.
- Eyes, ears, nose, throat and mouth will be checked (so clean your ears before you go).
- Neck, particularly the thyroid gland and cervical lymph nodes to ensure there is no gland swelling.
- Respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems will be checked for anything enlarged, abnorma,l or irregular.
- You will pee in a cup to run some tests on your urine such as abnormalities with your liver (from all that tequila you drink).
- Your package will be checked for lumps or discomfort. It doesn’t hurt but it’s strange having someone handle your bits that isn’t you or your girl.
- Your prostate will be examined. Let’s get right to it – you will lie on your side with no pants on and you’ll pull your knees to your chest. The doctor will put on a glove and some lube jelly and (if you’ve ever seen “Fletch” you already know) he will put his finger up your butt to make sure your prostate gland isn’t enlarged. I’m devoting extra time to this part of the exam because it’s usually this part that makes most guys say “I’d just rather crap out than have a guy put his finger in my can.” Really? Prostate cancer can kill you. You’d really rather kick off before 50 instead of sucking it up and submitting to an exam that takes about 4 seconds? Suit yourself.
The doctor will review his findings with you before you leave and you’ll get the urine and blood test results about a week later. Be sure to relay family history (like your grandpa had prostate cancer or diabetes runs in your family) so the doctor can be on the look out for related symptoms. You should be done in roughly an hour, max. If done regularly, the annual physical will keep you on top of any problems coming down the pike, and there's no time like the present to get one.
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Your Body