I’m American. I haven’t visited a doctor since required checkups for high school sports. My neck has a few lymph nodes that are hard and bothering me for about a year or two now. My whole neck, head area muscles are cramped and in pain and loud from TMJ or something similar and feels like it’s getting gradually worse. My required checkup from work said my urine has high levels of something. My side feels like it’s getting squeezed just all of a sudden sometimes.
I went to a jibika inkouka last week but they made me wait more than an hour, the doc touched my neck a bit and said it seems fine. Prescribed me some allergy pills….can I just go to a naika and tell them everything? Or maybe the dentist since I most likely have TMJ? Or did I just get the wrong jibika inkouka? Or maybe a chiropractor cuz there seems to be one on every corner, open all the time?
How do I go about getting a more thorough checkup and healthy? I’m finally in the financial position and country to go to a doctor, I don’t know where to go with all the specialists and hundreds of mini clinics …quite disappointed by the last one.
I speak Japanese fine enough to work at an all Japanese company. I don’t live too far from central tokyo.
2 comments
Consider a full-on 人間ドック　(“full physical”). Many private hospitals do them, but you’ll need to make an appointment. Can be expensive, but better than letting things go.
You can also just go to any local naika doc and explain, and perhaps get a referral to specialists as needed. But with these walk-ins, yeah, you’ll have to wait, and it’s a roll of the dice whether you find a doc that actually seems to care.
You could go to a naika in a bigger hospital. If you need additional examinations or a different department, you can do everything at that clinic.