Health & Wellness Best Posts in Thread: Health checks

Our Silliman experience. Started with my wife following her pregnancy and eventually “C” Section birth of my son with lady GYN Doctor Uy 7 yrs ago, very positive experience. Man Pediatrician Dr. Ongkingko, 7 years caring for my son, very knowledgeable and positive experience, lady Neurologist Dr. Dipatado, helped me survive a serious stroke for the last five years, still alive so positive. My concern is all 3 of these specialists are getting old, my guess past senior age. Lots of experience will be lost when they retire. Younger doctors I used abd recommend are Urologist Dr. Ozzoa, and EEN doctor (forget his name). No complaints other than the clinic rather than appointment orocess sucks.

 

Perpetual Succour hospital in Cebu does a range of health check packages - detailed in the “Executive” packages on their web site

 

Just checked. Silliman can do a PSA blood test, unless the reagent (i think that's the expression) blood tube is "out of stock", which it is currently. lordy lordy, i is tired of that expression <grin>...

 

PSA is just a blood test for a Prostate Specific Antigen. All that is needed is some of your blood to be drawn. So it's not 100% accurate but it is the least expensive, least invasive test.

Say PSA is high, wouldn't a doctor ordered additional tests, like a biopsy to confirm cancer before ordering chemotherapy or radiating to treat it? Can a biopsy cause complications? Sure, but it's not the whole 6%.

Say a biopsy comes back positive for cancer. What are your treatment options? I cant imagine chemo or radiation treatment for any type of cancer wouldn't cause serious complications. In fact I have seen it first hand. It sucks. Some cancers, like breast cancer lead to surgery to remove it.

Probably CAT or MRI scans to look for spreading to other organs. But guess what, if you have cancer, that's what the treatments are. That and praying, but your already doing that if you are not getting PSA tests annually.

 

Another thread, concerning a much-admired member now seriously ill, raised the topic of health checks - in that case PSA for prostate cancer.

In no way would I wish to 'hijack' that sensitive thread and take it off topic (only within it to discuss the specifics of prostate screening) so I opened this thread to ask if anyone has experience of health checks within the Philippines.

In my home country I regularly received colon cancer kits but never returned them and also had a check for aortic aneurysm - I attended that one as I have seen the results of a sudden aortic aneurysm and the need to put in blood as fast as it is being lost (up to 30 pints - a big problem here due to the lack of blood for transfusion).

Anyone any experiences of any local (or Cebu-based) important health checks?

 

To be honest I don’t have any kind of personal experience with doctors or hospitals in the Philippines.

Hence I am still working on rotation schedule, 8/3, I always saw the doctor abroad, but not in the Philippines.

Actually I am thinking about to settle finally in Duma. Am already 4 years here, 11 in total in the Philippines.

There is no doubt that having good doctors in place is an essential part of Expats life. Would appreciate if we could develop kind of list or summary here based on experiences and covering various disciplines.