Men's Health: Treatment, Cost and Side Effects

Men’s health is an umbrella term that refers to a range of diseases or disorders that are most common among men belonging to different age groups. The most common diseases that men are prone to are heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer etc. These diseases share more or less similar risk factors and are caused primarily because of unhealthy lifestyle- poor dietary habit, strenuous work culture, poor immune system, smoking, consumption of alcohol and others. The usual symptoms or signs of poor health condition include- high blood pressure, high cholesterol, nausea, indigestion, pain in the chest, breathlessness, palpitation, spitting out blood while coughing.

If you’re diagnosed with any of the aforementioned diseases, the doctor will most likely perform some medical tests and examinations to confirm your condition before starting with the treatment procedure. Blood tests, ECG or a CT scan can confirm the diagnosis. Although advanced stages of these diseases have to be operated surgically, the initial treatment procedure primarily involves improving your lifestyle and maintaining a healthy diet.

Chronic diseases like heart ailment, stroke, lung cancer, liver cancer, peripheral vascular disease etc usually result from unhealthy lifestyle. Hence the first thing your doctor would suggest will be to improve your lifestyle choices. Maintaining a proactive lifestyle is very important. The doctor will prescribe you to stop smoking as it leads to respiratory problems or even lung cancer. You should limit consumption of alcohol as it may be harmful to the liver, and if not controlled on time, may even lead to liver cancer.

If you are diagnosed with diabetes or heart ailment, you will be required to stop having sugary beverages or food that may increase the level of sugar or glucose in your blood. The doctor will recommend eating a well-balanced diet which includes lots of vegetables, healthy proteins and anti-oxidants to flush out the impurities from your blood. Men who are overweight usually face more complications resulting from chronic diseases, so it is essential that you maintain a balanced weight by engaging yourself in physical activities and exercises. Exercising or any sort of physical activity can help reduce stress which again, is a major cause of ill health among men.

If you are diagnosed with chronic health problems like stroke, heart attack, diabetes, liver cancer, lung cancer, or if you show symptoms like nausea, indigestion, pain in the chest, breathlessness, palpitation, spitting out blood while coughing, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, you should visit a doctor as early as possible. Depending on your symptoms and severity of illness, the doctor will prescribe necessary health tips and medications.

People who already are in best health conditions, and do not show symptoms of diabetes, heart problems, cancer, or any other disease, are not eligible for the treatment.

Since the most effective treatment procedure revolves around making lifestyle changes, there are no side effects for the treatment.

Post treatment guidelines include abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes, sugary beverages or food that contain trans fat, including vegetables and fruits in your diet, drinking lots of water and liquids, indulging in physical activities, getting adequate sleep in order to fight stress problems, maintaining routine follow ups with your doctor and following proper medications that have been prescribed.

Recovery usually takes time as making lifestyle changes does not happen in a day. However, many people may need to rely on medications and therapy for the rest of their life if the illness reaches an advanced stage.

The cost of treatment depends on the form of treatments used. For instance, if the medication and lifestyle change is enough to cure the condition, the cost may be limited to under a Thousand. However, if other forms of treatment are used to deal with the condition, the cost t may substantially increase and may even touch Lakhs.

Making healthy lifestyle changes usually yield long-lasting results. However, whether the results are permanent or not, is not known. In some cases where the illness has reached an advanced stage, you may need to undergo a surgery or operation that can either improve the condition, or make it worse.

Alternate treatment procedure involves a surgery or transplantation depending on what kind of illness you are suffering from.