Women’s Health Men’s Health Skin Health Weight Loss Center
Women’s Health
Women are generally the main caregivers of the family and often times their own health takes a back seat to all other family issues. We recognize how busy life can be and here at Rocky Top Medical Center we can provide the regular screening tests such as pap smears, cancer screenings, blood work and breast exams. We encourage and can set screening mammograms starting at the age of 40, earlier, if breast cancer runs in your family. We now have a female Provider, Tammy Hughes, FNP for the comfort of those women that prefer a female provider for the services. Having multiple services available in one place can make like easier for woman.
We offer hormonal testing and replacement. Many women have low testosterone levels, which can affect their mood and libido. We also treat depression and anxiety that often affects many women and goes unrecognized.
Women have different symptoms than men with heart problems and we need to educate women in how to spot these early before serious problems arise.
Men’s Health
When we talk about men’s health, most of the time we are talking about heart disease, prostate glands or ED (erectile dysfunction). It is true that men have more heart disease than women, but women are quickly catching up to men.
Men can start at any age and should have a yearly checkup. Many guidelines exist for age appropriate type exams, such as age 50 for the first prostate exam. We feel that even peds, teens and young adults need their blood pressures checked now and then. Cholesterol levels should also be checked at an early age as well.
Depending on your family history, we will go ahead and check you out much earlier than guidelines suggest. For example, if your father died at age 42 of a heart attack and you are 30 years old, we are going to give you a thorough cardiac workup. Many medications and diseases can lead to erectile dysfunction. Low testosterone can also cause erectile dysfunction as well as a host of other problems in men. We check testosterone levels with a simple blood test and are able to treat many men with this condition.
Along with a basic health panel of blood test, men should have a yearly PSA test. This can detect prostate cancer but does have problems with a lot of false positives. A PSA test does not replace a manual exam to test the prostate digitally.
Skin care
The skin is the largest organ in the human body. Many things can go wrong, but luckily most can readily be treated. Many diseases of the skin are generally cosmetic problems as well. Insurance will pay for most problems as long as it is not considered purely cosmetic.
Overall, if you are healthy, eat well, drink plenty of water and avoid too much sun, your skin will be healthy too. Many common skin conditions are readily treated by a family doctor and don’t require a dermatologist.At Rocky Top Medical, we treat most or all skin conditions with the latest techniques in skin rejuvenation. Infections such as abscesses and boils need to incised and drained. Sometimes antibiotics are required.
If you have anything new growing on your skin, make sure you tell us about it during your visit. It is a good idea to let us inspect your skin once a year for skin cancer and precancerous conditions that can readily be treated.
Weight Loss Center
We offer a variety of weight loss options, all the while monitoring the patients health during the weight loss process.
We start with the BMI, which is the body mass index. The BMI is calculated by your height and what your healthy weight should be. A BMI greater than 25 means you are overweight. If it is greater than 30, it means that you are obese.
We also use a calculation called the BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate. This is a crude measurement of how many calories your body needs in a day to keep you at your present weight. A pound of fat contains 3500 calories. Say you need 2000 calories a day to stay at the same weight. You would have to decrease your calorie intake by 500 calories a day to loss a pound a week. 500×7=3500 calories.
We ask the patient to do a light aerobic exercise such as walking for a half hour on most days. We sometimes prescribe phentermine, if indicated. All in all the benefits of maintaining a healthy weight are enormous. Obesity is a killer and directly related to diabetes type 2. It has recently been estimated by the year 2020, 50% of Americans will have diabetes. This is unacceptable and will overwhelm the healthcare system and cause premature deaths