There are symptoms and there are symptoms. Some symptoms are benign and can be conveniently tolerated without serious consequences. However, there are those other symptoms that, even when tolerable or seem to appear benign, are indicative of very serious, life-threatening medical conditions or emergencies. These are the symptoms that everyone must quickly identify and notify their doctor about...without delay!


Below are 15 of those "please-don't-play-with-this-symptom" symptoms:


#1. Chest pain: this is chest pain that is often left-sided, crushing or gripping in nature and radiating to other parts of the body such as the neck, jaw or left arm (seen in myocardial infarction and heart failure). Regardless of whether it is left or right-sided or whether it has the other features listed above, any episode of chest pain at all must be reported to your doctor.


#2. Swollen legs: this is swollen legs that is not the result of trauma or injury. This type of swelling is usually on both legs, painless and forms an indentation when pressed. It is more pronounced in the morning and reduces significantly as the day progresses. It is often a sign of heart, liver or kidney disease.


#3. Coughing of blood: also known as hemophthysis, this is one symptom that must appear on your checklist of symptoms. Coughing of blood is often indicative of a serious injury affecting the lungs or more commonly, it is indicative of complicated pulmonary tuberculosis or advanced lung cancer.


#4. Passage of blood-coloured urine: it is very abnormal to urinate blood or urine stained with blood, so when this happens, you must take it seriously and talk to your doctor about it without delay. It is often indicative of a urinary tract pathology such as ballder cancer, urethral injury or infestation of the bladder with Schistosoma heamatobium. Very commonly, it could be a symptom of kidney disease or even a renal nalignancy.


#5. Passage of blood-stained stools: this is known medically as hematochezia. It is an alarm symptom that must be reported to your doctor. Hematochezia is often symptomatic of lower gastrointestinal bleeding, bowel or rectal cancer, severe hemorrhoids, etc. If you are 50 years and above, and you witness this symptom, please don't wait a minute before contacting your doctor.


#6. Convulsion/seizure: any form of convulsion or seizures are a medical emergency! When a person is convulsing or seizing, it is mandatory that the seisure be promptly aborted. This is because, for every episode of a seizure activity, a part of the brain is fried...like dodo, and normal function of it can never be fully restored. Brain tumors, head traumas, infections (meningitis,cerebral malaria), drugs and epilepsy are very common causes of seizures.


#7. Difficulty with breathing: this could present in the form of chest tightness, very slow respiratory rate (bradypnoea), or shortness of breath characterised by gasping. Asthma, pneumonia, damaged lungs (from trauma, pneumonia, cancer, or TB), pulmonary embolism, massive air or fluids in the chest cavity or even heart diseases are very common reasons while one may experience difficulty with breathing. Asthma, pulmonary embolism, fluid or air in the lungs and heart failure are potentially deadly conditions that often present as difficulty with breathing.


#8. Severe abdominal pain: conditions like ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, perforated typhoid, perforated gastric ulcer, ruptured appendicitis, gallstones, etc are some of the causes of a severe, intense, abdominal pain. And tragically, almsot all of them are potentially deadly conditions, and as such they require emergency care when suspected. Report to your doctor when your abdominal pain becomes intorably and intensely painful.


#9. Post-menopausal bleeding: it is very usual for women to experience occasional blood spots or mild bleeding immediatly after menopause. This is due to the hormonal changes associated with menopause.
However, when the bleeding becomes recurrent, and in some cases periodic, then it is time to alert your doctor. Why? Because it could be symptomatic of a genital tract cancer e.g endometrial cancer.


#10. Unexplained weight loss: if you untentionally lose 10% of your total body weight in the space of 6 months, then your doctor must be notified...especially when you are not obese. This is very important because it could be a sign of a cancer, TB, HIV, hyperthyroidism or any other terrible and potentially fatal disease.


#11. Breast lump/dimple: if you ever discover a lump in your breast(s) or you notice a breast dimple, alert your physician about it very quickly. This is due to the simple fact that there is an association between breast lumps/dimples with breast cancer. Occasionally, these lumps are benign and not a cause for worry. However, when they are indicative of a cancer, it is very important that they are diagnosed very early when successful treatment can be achieved.


#12. Persistent fever: fever is commonly associated with an underlying infection e.g TB, HIV or even cancer (lymphomas). If you have fever that's is persistent and has been on for at least 7 days, please consult your doctor for immediate medical evaluation.


#13. Chronic cough: this is any cough lasting more than 3 weeks. When this is associated with sputum production, you must note the colour of the sputum and even the smell, in some instances. Are there traces of blood on it? Does the sputum smell so badly? Is the cough worse at night or during the day? These and more are some of the questions your doctor will ask you when you complain to him/her about the cough. So it is important you understand and note the pattern or features of the cough.



#14. Yellowish discoloration of the eyes: also known as scleral jaundice, this may be indicative of a liver pathology such as hepatitis or liver cancer. It results from the build up of bilirubin in the blood, which on its own can be very toxic. And again, it also co-occurs, occasionally, with with the passage of very pale stools. Usually, before you notice it, one or two persons close to you would have drawn your attention to it. Considering the fatalities associated with hepatitis, this is one symptom you want to quickly verify with your doctor.


#15. Snoring: this can be caused by sleep apnoea- a sleep disorder in which a person experiences moments of complete absence or cessation of breathing lasting for a few seconds to one or more minutes. Usually, the person is not even aware of the snoring and only gets to know about it when someone draws his/her attention to it. Because their sleep is often interrupted and disturbed, they wake up the next day feeling very tired. This condition, just like the others above, is potentially deadly and must be promptly addressed.


The above symptoms may not be entirely inclusive, they are some of the very common symptoms around, associated with the greatest fatalities, that people often take for granted.


NB: the safe thing to do, as a health conscious person, is to notify your doctor about your symptoms, for professional assessment, regardless of whether they are tolerable or not. If and when in need of a doctor, kindly visit http://doctorshub.com.ng/our%20doctors/ and have any of our qualified doctors attend to your concerns.


Thanks for reading!

Until another time,
Ja mata ne.



http://doctorshub.com.ng/2017/01/28/health-alert-15-symptoms-you-must-never-ignore/