Preventive medicine can help you stay healthy by diagnosing and managing health problems before they have a chance to grow serious. During preventive care exams, your provider screens for diseases like diabetes and serious health conditions like high blood pressure.

If you’re at risk for serious health issues, the providers at Sanctuary Health Practices can help you take control and prevent the illness. In some cases, as with type 2 diabetes, you can prevent the illness by carefully managing your diet and exercise.

Depending on your needs, Sanctuary Health Practices can also screen for STDs like HIV. If you’re at risk for HIV because of either sexual activity or injection drug use, Dr. Littlejohn may recommend a type of preventive care called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

PrEP treatment

When taken exactly as instructed, PrEP treatment is 99% effective in preventing HIV. The PrEP regimen involves taking a pill each day. When you take the pills consistently, the medication builds up in your bloodstream.

This can prevent the virus from affecting you, even if your partner has HIV or you’re exposed to the virus in another way (like IV drug use).

For preventive care to be successful, it’s very important to schedule regular physical exams. If you have new health issues, schedule an additional sick visit to treat the problem as quickly as possible.

Depending on your needs, Dr. Littlejohn can also screen for STDs like HIV. If you’re at risk for HIV because of either sexual activity or injection drug use, Dr. Littlejohn may recommend a type of preventive care called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

The providers at Sanctuary Health Practices offer physicals of all types as part of his preventive medicine services, including:

• General physicals to check whole-body health and screen for disease
• Sports physicals to verify eligibility for sports participation
• School physicals for your child
• Preoperative physicals to make sure you’re healthy enough for surgery

Sanctuary Health Practices generally recommends an annual preventive care physical for all healthy patients, with other physicals as needed for other circumstances.