Do you get regular cancer screenings

[RB TexLa]

Poll question: Do you get regular cancer screenings

Forty seems to be an age people think of as some kind of benchmark so I chose it.

[Warpy]

1. No health insurance for 20 years

What do you think?

Preventive care goes first.

[uppityperson]

2. Only recently health insurance. Preventive care goes first.

Preventive is cheaper than curative and I found that many places will cut a deal, dependent upon income. Still expensive, but a thought. And, remember to do your BSE/TSE regularly, depending on which you have.

[Warpy]

4. One of those, sure

I was an RN so I always know when some part of me is about to conk out.

RNs are the most uninsured and underinsured profession in the country. Ironic, isn't it?

[uppityperson]

14. I rarely had insurance when working as a RN also.

I asked my coworkers for advice, got treatment, etc. Never needed hospitalization which helped. Scary when I quit and realized I'd lost these med contacts and had to get into the system just like everyone else. That has been a pain.

[ComerPerro]

6. of course preventative is cheaper. But what about people who not only can't afford insurance,

but wouldn't be insurable even if they could afford it?

I had health insurance a year ago, but had to lie on the application to get it.

[uppityperson]

16. That is a real problem and I agee

Having just gone through a "will insurance pay or will I get stuck with the bill" thing myself, I found out that the hosp I got my labwork done at would write off 1/2 if I filled out forms for them. If I were not on the insurance I am on, I would not be able to afford any on my own (self employed).

[ComerPerro]

19. my mother had an issue with the "will they pay or not" recently

she was never able to get any screenings because the insurance carrier her school uses sees them as unnecessary. But recently two of her cousins died of colon cancer, so FINALLY the company agreed to cover a screening for her.

[Firespirit]

9. See my post below...

Some companies will find a way to screw you over no matter what. In this particular case they considered a preventive procedure, recommended by a doctor, to be a "cosmetic" and "elective" surgery.

[InvisibleTouch]

3. No.

Can't afford it, and if "something" were found, I couldn't afford to do anything about it anyway. So, I don't want to know. We all die of something, eventually.

[EFerrari]

5. No insurance and have never had one.

Are they very expensive? :scared:

[Firespirit]

7. When I get insurance at the end of next month, I'll start

My mother had a tumor removed from her breast last year, followed by a full hysterectomy. She's in her 50s and they had been watching the tumor for 10 years before it turned malignant, but she couldn't have it removed because it was considered an elective surgery in the absence of malignancy, and she couldn't pay for it herself.

(Don't even get me started. :grr:)

But yeah, I'm in my 20s and haven't even been to the gyno because I can't afford doctor's visits. Thus far I have been lucky. I hope my luck holds for this final month.

[alarimer]

8. I am not a big believer in unnecessary tests

And I think most of them are unnecessary, simply padding the bill. And they don't detect everything anyway. And in any case I don't really give a shit what happens to me. Given that all the extra time I might gain by such treatment will occur at the end of my life, when I am old, senile and incontinent, I don't see the point in trying to live to be old. I have no one to live for either. And probably never will. My parents will no doubt dies before me so it's not like they will be suffering if I die.

I know this sounds bleak but I have a very dim view of the future. It will be too expensive for me to live anywhere assuming I live long enough to actually retire so I would just rather die than retire to a life of eating dog food, which will probably kill me anyway.

[The2ndWheel]

11. "I don't see the point in trying to live to be old."

I like that sentence. I just do.

[alarimer]

12. Well it sounds a little fatalistic I know

and it's not as if I don't go to the doctor and do whatever it is they tell me to do. I just don't really see the point. The future seems really bleak to me right now. Not personally necessarily but overall. Global warming, peak oil (although the end of massive oil consumption might help with the global warming thing). And that if you eat right, exercise, don't smoke and get all your tests, you STILL DIE. I do not want to live long enough to have to live in a nursing home. Now, I know plenty of older people who are very active and spry but I know of others who are just a shell. They exist but they are not really there.

[MoonRiver]

10. What do you mean by "regular cancer screenings?"

I get a yearly mammogram and pap smear, plus a yearly checkup. Does this qualify?

[CTyankee]

13. A colonoscopy if you are over 50.

As you get older the screenings get more numerous. My husband has his blood tested regularly for prostate cancer.

[SmokingJacket]

15. Skin cancer, yes.

Even when I didn't have insurance I paid out of pocket for screening, because a close relative died of it. And I'm under forty.

On edit: also pap smears and so far one mammogram.

[wicket]

17. I recently had my first mammogram (I'm 28) because I had found a lump

Follow up proved it to be a benign growth.

[EFerrari]

18. kick

[MurrayDelph]

20. 54-year-old male (next week)

and with my family history
(1. Father had colon cancer, but it was the metastatic prostate cancer that did him in 3yrs ago at age 86
2. Mother found cancerous fluid in lungs, not sure where it started, died 9 years ago at age 73
3. Sister had colon cancer, but died of complications of Crohns 8 years ago at age 49
4. Fraternal uncle died of metastatic prostate cancer last month ag age 86)

I've told my doctor to poke me, prod me, bleed me, zap me; hell give me a stick to pee on!