A few adjustments to my health and wellness strategy.

First of all, my strategy is my choice, it’s not something I am promoting for others as it may not be appropriate for everyone.  Complex conditions such as pain, mental health, longterm HIV, do not have the silver bullet for disease management.  I would argue the commonality in this equation is choice.

I am revising my strategy to include the following:

Talk to my pharmacist and ask him if he would do a MedsCheck for me.  

Phone my doctor’s office and ask for a comprehensive bloodwork requisition appropriate for a male of my age with certain pre-existing conditions.  Get my bloodwork done, schedule a follow-up appointment with my Doctor and review the results.

I am also bookmarking the website: 

http://www.lumosity.com/ 

so that I can establish a baseline and then continue to monitor my cognitive functions (off the record, I would encourage anyone who has  a prevention and early detection based strategy for health self-management to do this, it is fun and effective!)

Also, after some self-reflection, I will be honest and say that although I am not thrilled that this is my decision, but for me what follows is the better choice.  In spite of the fact that I opt to keep everything that I need and have to do within walking distance in order to reduce my environmental footprint, I am going to continue to access healthcare (service providers, diagnostics and prescriptions) where I have in the past in Toronto.  It’s not a huge difference, but I feel that I receive better treatment and that I don’t have to deal with stigma (50 may be the new 35 but I am too old to do with that bullshit). It’s slight, but the transactions are a little bit weird in the 905 when my prescription or medical history is revealed.

To close, I suspect that the difference increases the further a consumer of healthcare is from urban centres such as London, Hamilton, Kingston and Ottawa.

As you were.