Comprehensive Health Checkup for year 2008

Created on Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Edited on Tuesday, 1 July 2008

This month, June, I went to Wellness Lab for my yearly comprehensive health checkup. It costs me RM275. Last year, I went on May. Today, I went to collect my report. Here is the summary of the report (The complete report is seven A4 pages long):

  • Cardiovascular System - All result is normal.
  • Kidney Function Tests - All result is normal.
  • Thyroid Disease Screening - All result is normal.
  • Liver Functions Tests - All result is normal.
  • Diabetes Screening - All result is normal.
  • Haematology - All result is normal, except my Thalassemia. Last year's report mentioned about this too. But I can't do anything about it as it was inherited. No worry, I'm just like any normal person. Just that in the future, my wife (if God bless one) needs to go for a blood test to check if she has Thalassemia or not. If both husband and wife have Thalassemia minor, then the child might get Thalassemia major.
  • Immunology - All result is normal, except Hepatitis Bs Antibody is low. 73.1 mIU/ml (immunity > 120). The doctor asked if I want to get an injection to get antibody for Hepatitis B, which will costs RM55. I agreed. She told me that this Hepatitis Antibody can decrease after 5-10 years. Thank God, I did this medical checkup. Otherwise, I will never know that I am lack of antibody for Hepatitis B.
  • Miscellaneous Tests - All result is normal.
  • Urine Analysis - All result is normal.
  • Microscopic - All result is normal.

Thank God, the medical health report showed that I got no serious health problem overall.

I realized the importance of having a full medical checkup after I did it last year and this year. You say, "It is too expensive to go for a full medical checkup. I don't have money lah.". Yes, for some, RM275 could be a lot. But think about it, if you do it once a year, each month only cost you RM23, which can give you some peace of mind for the whole year. If you really can't afford to do it on a yearly basis, you can try to do it once in every two years, if can.

Secondly, if you know some health problems earlier, you will spend lesser money to 'fix' it than compare to when those health problems gotten serious. The worse is when those health problems has reached to a level which cannot be fix.

The other possible reason why people don't go for complete medical checkup is they feel nothing wrong in their physcial health. The fact is even you never get sick for the whole year (very unlikely in this city) or feel good about your health, that doesn't mean there is nothing wrong in your body.

One real case is myself. I didn't take any Medical Certificate (MC) for the past five months plus. I exercise regularly. I am conscious of what I eat. I took supplement. I feel quite good about my physical health overall. But, the result I got showed that I do not have enough immunity for Hepatitis B.

Going for a complete medical checkup also shows your responsiblity to your family. Imagine if you got health problem, and eventually can't work (touchwood), who will take care of you or who will take care of your family? But if you do medical checkup regularly, you can do something about it before some health problems get serious.

It is important to keep all your medical checkup report. so that you can compare them in the future.

Lastly, going for medical checkup helps you to confirm of certain things. Example, if my blood group is AB positive last year and this year shows the same, then I can be very sure that my blood group is AB positive.


Related link - June / July Health Status