Friday is International Self-Care Day. It’s a global reminder to take care of yourself every day and especially these days amid the pandemic.
NBC 6 anchor Sheli Muñiz spoke to Family Medicine Specialist Dr. Carlos Ballestas with Westside Regional Medical Center.
SHELI: Define self-care.
DR. BALLESTAS: Self-care pretty much defines itself. Taking care of yourself, taking care of your body, taking care of any issues you might have, acute or chronic, and doing this prevents further complications or things getting worse in the long run.
SHELI: So why is it so difficult to do?
DR. BALLESTAS: When it comes down to it, if you feel good, you don’t want to go to a doctor, you think you don’t need to go to a doctor, and you don’t follow up as you should.
SHELI: These days we are so focused on the virus. Do you find that people are neglecting routine checkups?
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DR. BALLESTAS: We have all the extremes from people not really following what they should to people, to people following what they should, to maybe too much. And in that shuffle, the biggest thing that gets lost is taking care of yourself and following up on your health and your own medical issues.
SHELI: What else could we be doing?
DR. BALLESTAS: There's a lot of things that we could be doing. One of the most important things that we need to consider is to take care of our routine things. If you go to the doctor every year, get your checkup, make sure everything is okay. That's going to help you in the long run as an extra measure of protection for the coronavirus. If you’re getting your teeth cleaned every six months, dentists take a lot of precautions. Doing that will help prevent complications in the future and predispose you to having a weaker immune system and more susceptible for more complications.
