ZOOMER Magazine

10 REASONS TO HEAD TO THE ER – STAT!

- By Dr. Zachary Levine

ALMOST ANY SYMPTOM can indicate something serious, but it doesn’t mean it necessaril­y is. For example, back pain is benign 90 per cent of the time, but it can be life-threatenin­g.

Here, 10 symptoms you should not ignore. 1 Chest pain Perhaps this is obvious but not to everyone. Don’t chalk it up to heartburn. If it’s

a heart attack, you need to know that symptoms associated with cardiac chest pain include sweating, shortness of breath, dizziness and palpitatio­ns. 2

Shortness of breath Don’t decide it’s just a cold or asthma, especially if you don’t suffer from asthma. It could be your heart or your lungs. A blood clot in the lungs, a.k.a. a pulmonary embolus, can be deadly.

3

Sudden severe headache Sometimes a headache is just a headache. But if you don’t usually get headaches and you get a sudden one that is severe, get it checked out. It could be a bleed in your brain. 4 Rapid unexplaine­d weight loss If you lose weight for no reason, i.e., you are not eating less or exercising more than you usually do, you need to find out why. It may be that you are not absorbing food properly or it may be a symptom of cancer. 5 Excessive urination When we drink a lot, we urinate a lot. That’s normal, as the body keeps a balance of fluids.

Urinating frequently, however, may indicate other things, such as infection (usually accompanie­d by burning on urination) or diabetes, especially if accompanie­d by unexplaine­d excessive thirst. 6 Bleeding Normally we bleed when injured, and healthy blood makes clots to stop bleeding. If you are bleeding for no reason, however, it should be checked out. You may have a blood disorder. Blood in the stool or black, tarry stools, or vomiting blood means bleeding in the gastrointe­stinal tract. This can be caused by benign entities such as hemorrhoid­s, but can also be caused by cancer, and the bleeding can sometimes be severe. Blood in the urine needs to be checked. It can be caused by stones and infections, but also by cancer of the bladder or the kidneys. Coughing up blood may occur with infection (in small amounts) but more serious causes need to be ruled out, such as pulmonary embolism and cancer. Postmenopa­usal vaginal bleeding needs to be checked out to rule out a serious cause, such as cancer. 7 A swollen painful leg (without an injury) Leg swelling can result from injury, to be sure. But a single swollen painful leg is concerning for a problem with circulatio­n, such as a blood clot. Swelling in both legs can result from a heart problem or something blocking the flow of blood back into the pelvis from the legs. 8 Severe abdominal pain Sometimes benign conditions, such as gastroente­ritis, can cause severe abdominal pain. Some life-threatenin­g conditions, however, can cause it as well, such as abdominal aortic aneurysm (swelling of the large blood vessel in the abdomen, potentiall­y bleeding), ischemic colitis (lack of blood to the bowel, which can cause the bowel to die), appendicit­is or cholecysti­tis (gallbladde­r inflammati­on, which often requires surgery to treat). 9 Severe back pain Most people experience back pain at some point in their lives, and the majority of back pain is musculoske­letal in nature (due to muscle strain, etc.), benign and resolves without any treatment. Severe back pain may be from kidney stones, which are usually benign, but you need to check them out. It may also represent serious infection or cancer. The red flags doctors use to indicate potentiall­y serious back pain include duration of more than six weeks, age younger than 18 or older than 50, trauma, a history of cancer, night sweats, fever, chills, weight loss, night pain, IV drug use and neurologic­al symptoms such as weakness and numbness in the legs or in the saddle area, or urinary retention or incontinen­ce. 10

Flashes of light Seeing flashes of light may indicate an oncoming migraine, but they may also be a symptom of retinal detachment, an eye emergency that needs emergency treatment.

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