From time to time going forward, I will be inviting other health care professionals in the area that I know and trust to present topics for your benefit.
This first one comes from Dr. Carolynn Francavilla, MD. Enjoy!
PREVENTATIVE SCREENS
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and a great time to think about catching up on preventive health screenings.
Mammograms should be started between 40-50 years of age and be done every 1-2 years. These are the best tests to find and diagnose breast cancer early.
Pap smears are done to look for cervical cancer and have dramatically reduced deaths from cervical cancer since being done as a routine screening test. Everyone woman should get their first pap smear at age 21 and follow up pap smear every 3 years until 30 and then may be able to go as long as 5 years between pap smears. If you have a history of an abnormal pap smear, you may need a pap smear sooner.
Cervical cancer is caused by HPV, a virus, and almost all women will be exposed to this virus. Girls and young women (and young men!) can get a set of three shots to protect themselves against this virus. All of these services can be provided at Miramont Family Medicine as part of Annual Exam or Physical.
Additionally, as needed, we can do bone density testing, catch up on vaccines, refer for colonoscopy (needed by at least age 50) and order blood work to screen for thyroid problems, high cholesterol, or diabetes as part of your Annual Exam.
By Carolynn Francavilla,MD
Dr. Francavilla works at Miramont Family Medicine in Glendale CO. She went to undergrad at University of Denver, Med School at CU and completed residency at Rose Medical Center. She enjoys all areas of family medicine, especially pediatrics and women’s health. Dr. Francavilla also enjoys helping patients to lose weight with personalized combination nutrition, physical activity, and medications as needed.
She can be contacted via phone at 303-629-9022. Miramont Family Medicine is located at 4100 E Mississippi St # 100 in Glendale, CO 80246
CONSERVATIVE CARE BENEFITS
October is also National Chiropractic Health Month!
Each year the ACA picks a topic to spread awareness about the many benefits of chiropractic care. This years theme is “Choose Conservative Care First!”
The basic idea is to spread the word that chiropractic care and other forms of conservative care are being shown more and more often to be superior choices for managing musculoskeletal issues.
I’ll spare you the details and let you peruse the site that the ACA created for this year’s topic: