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Why You Shouldn't Skip Your Well-Woman Exam

Clinica San Miguel Blog Why You Shouldn't Skip Your Well-Woman Exam

The bodies of women have delicate environments that require regular care and testing. While maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important to your feminine health, including your yearly well-woman exam addresses the special needs of feminine bodies, including the particular types of testing that a general practitioner may or may not offer.

Our team of warm, compassionate providers at Clinica San Miguel proudly attend to patients’ feminine care in Houston, Dallas, Arlington, Fresno, and Pasadena, Texas.

Though we encourage our patients to visit us annually for a well-woman exam, we also stay in touch with you with anything that you may need to know to get healthier, or to maintain your health. What’s a well-woman exam? Well-woman exams are preventative check-up appointments that are designed to protect your longevity. Depending on the practice, these appointments include several types of testing, as well as necessary conversations about any medical conditions that you may have. Even if you’re living with a chronic condition that doesn’t originate in your reproductive organs, your feminine health can still be affected by non-reproductive illnesses.

What can I expect during a well-woman exam?

Our providers at Clinica San Miguel believe in thorough testing to get a complete picture of your medical history to fully and properly make recommendations for your health. Your provider will sit with you to discuss any medications you’re taking, any issues you’re experiencing in your genital or abdominal area, and any other health concerns that you might have. Your provider will need to understand your sexual health history in order to counsel you about safe sex. If you’re a sexually active woman of reproductive age, you may also want to discuss birth control with your provider. Birth control can not only drastically reduce your chances of an unplanned pregnancy, but it can be used to treat other reproductive health issues. Your provider takes your vital signs, and recommends specific tests that are best for women with your background and medical history. Women who are sexually active, no matter how many partners they have have, should be routinely tested for sexually transmitted infections, or STIs. With the number of STI infections, it’s more important than ever to stay current with your STI checks and available vaccines. Along with STI testing, well-woman exams include cervical cancer screenings in the form of pap smear. Pap smears, or pap tests, involve taking a sample of the tissue in your cervix, typically by using a special brush to gently scrape along the sides of the organ. Your samples are sent to an independent lab, and we contact you with the results.

Should you have an abnormal Pap smear, know that your provider is available to explain your results to you, as well as recommend any necessary follow-up treatment. Also important during your well-woman visit is your breast exam, breast cancer is the second most common cancer to affect women, with nearly 300,000 new cases every year. Protecting you from breast cancer requires a combination of early detection and healthy habits. Your provider will give you a breast exam, and show you how to perform your own.

Why do I need a well-woman exam?

As mentioned, a well-woman exam is essential to your overall health and longevity. Cervical cancer is curable when diagnosed and treated early, and the likelihood of surviving breast cancer improves the earlier that it’s detected. Staying on top of your physical, mental, and reproductive health can help you prevent problems in the future, or catch problems before they become serious. To schedule your well-woman exam, call us at any of our offices, Call today.

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