Wellness Check in Winston County

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- It’s everything you can do at the doctor’s office and a little more.

Glucose and lipid screenings are courtesy of Winston Medical Center Laboratory.

Screenings like this serve as an early alert.

Al Porter has been coming to the health fair for years.

He says he has seen the benefits.

“Several years ago they picked up on the fact that my blood sugar was high and it led me to go on to my doctor and get things checked. I was diagnosed as diabetic but I was able to get it treated early and change my lifestyle, my eating, and exercise lifestyle get my diabetes under control,” said Porter. 

Calvin Lim, a student nurse at EMCC uses this fair to help others and help himself as well. 

“I don’t have health insurance. I don’t have access to any of the benefits because I’m in this weird category where you know you work jobs but you don’t make enough to get any kind of health screens. So while I was here with East Mississippi Community College checking blood pressure’s I went around and checked out the other tables and also did a lot of tests,” said Lim. 

He believes, for patients, this is the perfect time to get a jump-start on their own health.

“They need to know what their health conditions are to help essentially do preventative measures. They don’t know that they are sick or maybe in trouble with kind of vital things like respiratory, the heart, kidney functions things like that so it would be nice to know before you wind up in the hospital knowing then,” said Lim.