Why Prevention Beats Cure: Our Personal Story

For six days during the last fortnight, I walked past 44 beds to get to Bed 45 in The Alfred Hospital ICU.

It’s quiet and noisy all at the same time in the cathedral of ICU. Machines hum, beep and buzz in their own rhythms that somehow harmonise with all those around them. An orchestra of medical instruments. The conductors – doctors and specialists stand around patients deliberating. The nurses hover, ever alert, expertly adjusting the score.

I purposely didn’t look at the other patients as I walked past the beds every day. They don’t  deserve to have their privacy invaded, nor their vulnerability further exposed. However, I could not help but notice that, with few exceptions, the beds were occupied by men. A nurse I spoke to confirmed this was typical.

My generally very healthy husband, David, had been buoyed by a glowing annual bloods panel and cardio test he’d passed with flying colours – ‘you’ve got the health of a much younger man’ said the Drs. Exactly the right message for the co-Founder of a longevity health, fitness and wellness club called Be Well! David knew there was ongoing discomfort in his stomach but this had come and gone for a decade. He changed his diet, less gluten and lactose, to adjust, but had done nothing more about it nor mentioned it to our GP.

We’ve now learned, in the hardest possible way, that David had H. Pylori, a common bacterial gut infection. We learned this because the infection went rogue, creating a bleeding stomach ulcer which forced him to his knees, literally and metaphorically, after which I found myself sitting beside his bed in Alfred Hospital ICU.

So, this blog is addressed to the men, our guys, and all who know and love them!

Men and their Health

Even though 7 out of 10 men say their health isn’t very good, they are notorious for avoiding the doctor and ignoring unusual changes or symptoms. The monthly cycle women experience for four or more decades teaches us to listen closely to what is happening in our bodies. In contrast, men are generally deaf to their body, buttressed by a ‘tough-it-out’, ‘she’ll-be-right’, ‘I’m just-getting-old’ attitude when things go south.  

This is why our men:

• die 5 years earlier than women, on average

• 6 out of 10 (62%) of people who die prematurely from preventable causes in Australia are male.

• death by heart disease is nearly twice as high in men and the No 1 cause of death among Australian men aged 45 – 85 years

• 7 out of 10 men are overweight or obese, with a marked difference in the proportion of men (42%) and women (29%) who are overweight.

Men are also much poorer at attending to their mental health, and are three times more likely to die from suicide than women.

Men: Please do these three things TODAY.

1) Ask. Listen. Act.

ASK this question: ‘Hello body, how are you feeling?’ Your body will answer.

LISTEN to the answers. Are you truly feeling healthy and well, full of vim and vigour, ready to leap tall buildings? Or are you feeling a bit off, not great, perhaps tired or stressed? Are there any niggling or ongoing discomforts or pains? A sense that you’re not really feeling that terrific?

ACT, by taking the next two steps. And by making ‘Ask. Listen. Act’ a habit.  

2) Get your bloods done

Get off Dr Google, go to a real doctor and share the answers your body gives you. Ask for a comprehensive blood panel, and get it done. Within a week, your GP will have reviewed the results and identified any concerns.

3) Get your prostate checked

After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis among men. If you’re over age 50, or over the age of 40 with a family history of prostate cancer, ask your GP to include a PSA test as part of your blood panel.

It goes without saying that none of those steps replace Lifestyle Medicine, the foundation of health span. Life span is the number of years your heart is beating. Healthspan, on the other hand, is when everything is wonderful, and there’s no disease.

David

I’m profoundly relieved and grateful to report that David is healing well and fully on the road to complete recovery. To close out the blog this week, I asked him to share some words…..

Eric is a friend of ours who is currently enduring ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract, along with diarrhea, rectal bleeding, abdominal pain and cramping, excessive weight and muscle loss, fever and chronic fatigue.

He told me this week that if had elective surgery two years ago, he would have avoided the surgery he’s now going through, the humiliation of a colostomy bag, and levels of pain he did not know existed. It was all preventable.

My story is the same. Had I listened to the discomfort in my gut that I’ve  experienced for a decade and gone to the GP, I would have been given a  H. Pylori breath test, and put on a 7-day antibiotic program that kills it.

By not curing this common bacterial infection (half the world’s population has it), I ended up having to rely on Jan and the Alfred Hospital’s Ninja staff to save my life. The two surgeries, six days in ICU, four days in the ward, and now a few weeks of healing and recovery, along with the intense physical and emotional trauma of it all, all of which was preventable.

If you’re experiencing stomach discomfort, ask your GP for a H. Pylori breath test, and avoid what happened to me.

Above all: Ask, Listen. Act. You, your body, and everyone who loves you, will thank you for it.

As the saying goes, a healthy man has a thousand wishes, a sick man just one.

Look forward to seeing you – yes, you men! – again at Be Well soon.