The Urgent Reason You Should Go to the Doctor—Even If You Feel 'Fine'

I was healthy, dammit, and I even had the numbers to show it: Low body fat and reasonable blood pressure, and on my yearly blood tests, the nurse circled my cholesterol numbers and added an approving exclamation point.

Related: Ace Your Doctor Visit

So perhaps I could be forgiven for my actions that summer day, on my road bike, as I went out for a long ride to prep for a fall Century I intended to complete. It was early morning, and I was drinking in the cool, salty air on Martha’s Vineyard.

And yet, every time I cranked up my velocity, my lungs said “not so fast,” and my chest chimed in, “I’m really not comfortable with this.”

Mind you, I’d just edited a major piece for Men’s Health, written by a guy who was a little older than me who had had a heart attack, but put off going to the doctor for 24 hours.

He was lucky to be able to still be able to put pen to paper, given what had been going on in his chest cavity.

But did I learn a lesson from that? No. I put off my doctor visit for a full week after I felt the symptoms, which meant it was two weeks until I got the diagnosis that rocked me to my core: 98% blockage of my left anterior descending artery.

My inaction didn’t kill me, but it could have.

An angioplasty and stent work pretty well as a wakeup call, though.

Related: 10 Questions You Must Ask Your Doctor

I’m not alone in avoiding the doctor’s office, of course. The lonely guys at the American Academy of Family Physicians point out that 85% of U.S. men seek treatment only when they’re sick, and only six out of ten of those guys actually go to a doctor.

Or say they do when nosy interviewers are asking questions.

In fact, Men’s Health recently polled their readers on Facebook, asking if they have a primary care physician they see regularly. Here’s what they told us.

That’s right, a mere 35.2% of them said yes, while 64.8%—a big majority—don’t have a doctor. At all.

And we’re talking about Men’s Health readers. People who ostensibly care about their health, enough to visit our Facebook page.

Considerably more than half of them don’t see a doctor unless they’re sick.

What’s going on? Why are so many men avoiding a routine doctor’s visit? As a recovering doctor-ditcher, I lump the excuses into three categories, all of which I have used at one time or another.

1. I’m terrified.
I love the deranged logic of this one. If you’re afraid of knowing the bad news, shouldn’t you be even more afraid of not knowing the bad news?

At the very least, it could encourage you to take that vacation in Maui, or ask Jennifer Anniston out on a date.  (More bad news: She’s married now. See? You should have acted before the diagnosis.)

Related: Five Tricks to Banish Your Fears

2. I’m too manly.
This school of thought equates going to the doctor with a spa visit, or aromatherapy. (I’ve done both recently, and they’re awesome, by the way.)

Hyper-masculine guys (or, guys who fear they might not be perceived as hyper-masculine) look at the doctor-visit as a kind of self-indulgence, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a waiting room.

Much better to be caught dead elsewhere, clearly.

3.  I’m too busy to be seriously ill.  
Our busy schedules provide great excuses to set aside what’s actually important in our lives. Our time-consuming wife, our attention-sucking children, our parents who will live forever, our bodies wracked with stress and pestilence.

For the guy who prioritizes face time with his boss over sucking face with his wife, the doctor doesn’t stand a chance. Until that same guy is hospitalized, of course.

But is that really the time you want your kids to finally see you? Laid out, in a hospital gown?

(Into the idea of self-improvement without doctor interference? Pick up a copy of The Better Man Project, the new book from the Editor in Chief of Men’s Health. It’s got 2,476 tips and techniques that just might keep you out of the doctor’s office, or lead to his congratulations when you do visit.)

Let’s align those head-smackingly stupid “reasons” for doc avoidance—especially the last one—with these disturbing truths about guy life and death:

• Melanoma kills 8,000 people every year. And guys (who spend more time outside than women, and don’t cover their stupid bare bald heads) are especially at risk. Spotting a mole early means you won’t be one of them.
• More than 50,000 people die of colon and rectal cancer every year.  Finding a funky polyp early means no cancer later. Bonus: they explore your bowels with a video camera!
• In one third of fatal heart attacks, the first sign of trouble is, um, death. That is, the first sign of trouble that the victim notices.
• Men avoid doctors most between the ages of 20 and 40, the years in which they are, um, twice as likely to die as women. Hey, maybe it’s just a coincidence, right?

My own brush with mortality has cured me of doctor avoidance. Now I have an entire pit crew of M.D.s, D.O.s, P.A.s, and R.N.s who are watching my health portfolio the way my financial advisor is tracking my investments.

And, given the stock market recently, both bear careful watching.

They’re in it for the long run, and so am I. In fact, I’ve already outlasted the doc who placed my stent. He retired, I’m still playing basketball on Monday’s and Thursday.

Advantage: me.

Turns out, the only thing I had to fear was health itself.

The Urgent Reason You Should Go to the Doctor—Even If You Feel "Fine"