Men encouraged to get health screenings for Men's Health Month

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas (ValleyCentral) — June is Men's Health Month, a time to remind men and boys to be proactive about their medical care.

Medical professionals say men may avoid seeing a doctor for a variety of reasons, but that health maintenance is vitally important.

“They usually wait until they have symptoms", said Doctor Juan Salazar, Attending Physician for Graduate Medical Education at DHR Health, "They tend to not come on a regular basis.”

Salazar said men often will not seek out medical attention until they are showing symptoms that something is wrong. But early detection is important so that existing health problems don't escalate.

“By coming to preventive medicine, the idea is to diagnose in a timely manner all the diseases that can be prevented to advance," , said Sergio Hernandez, a second-year resident studying internal medicine. "For example, diabetes. That can progress to kidney disease, hypertension, strokes."

Salazar said one of the most important procedures men should have done is a colonoscopy.

“The age to have it is at age 45," Salazar said. "And then every 10 years if it’s negative, and every 5 years if you have polyps that are removed. This will actually prevent you from progressing to colon cancer, which is the number one killer in certain men.”

According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men.

The same way it's important to get treatment early, it's also important for men to not wait until later in life before paying attention to their health.

Rafael Cardenas, a second-year resident in internal medicine said, emphasized being proactive.

“You need to start early, like even 18, 20 years old," Cardenas said. "And you can come once a year. You don’t have to come that often.”

Salazar said there are a variety of different health screenings men should get. Those include prostate exams, vision testing to look for glaucoma and tests to check for different kinds of skin cancer, among others.

“It’s like having your car, you go in there and have the oil changed every 300 miles or whatever," Salazar said. "If you do that to your car, why can’t you do that to your body, you know?”