12 Symptoms You Should Never Ignore
Learning these symptoms could save your life.
IF YOU EXPERIENCE … | IT COULD BE …. |
1. Coughing up or vomiting up blood | Tuberculosis, lung cancer, internal bleeding |
2. Pain, swelling, redness, or warmth in your leg, possibly with night cramps and/or bluish or white coloration of skin | A blood clot |
3. Sudden, severe headache unlike any you’ve had before | Stroke, aneurysm |
4. Loss of consciousness | Dehydration, stroke, seizure, irregular heartbeat or other heart problem, anemia, low blood sugar, drug overdose |
5. A wound that gets hot and red, particularly if you also have a fever | Systemic infection |
6. Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath that makes you feel as if you’re suffocating | Asthma attack, anaphylactic shock, collapsed lung, pneumonia |
7. Sudden increase in the number or size of “floaters” in your vision and/or flashes of light in your peripheral vision | Retinal tear or detachment |
8. Chest pain or pressure with or without nausea or clamminess; the pain may radiate to your jaw, upper back, shoulders and/or arms | A heart attack |
9. Weakness, numbness, tingling or a feeling of heaviness on one side of your body, or a sudden inability to move one side of your body; may be accompanied by problems seeing, speaking, or understanding words, dizziness, fainting, or confusion, and all symptoms may disappear in a minute or two | A stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) |
10. Loss of appetite, nausea/vomiting with abdominal pain, abdominal swelling, fever, inability to pass gas | Appendicitis, bowel obstruction |
11. Sudden change in mental status, such as not knowing where you are or not recognizing people you should know | Stroke or other neurological problem, head injury, infection, seizure, low blood sugar |
12. Sudden, severe dizziness | Stroke, heart attack, reaction to medication |
Plus:
15 Secrets ER Staff Won’t Tell You