House Call Doctor available on QuickAndDirtyTips.com
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Scientific American presents House Call Doctor by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies.
In previous articles I’ve given mystery symptoms and shown how doctors make the diagnosis. But something needs to happen before the doctor can make a diagnosis: the patient has to come in. Deciding when to worry about symptoms is one of the hardest decisions. One one side, you don’t want to feel foolish coming in for something small; on the other side, you don’t want sit at home with a serious problem.
When to Worry About Abdominal Pain
So I am starting a series called, “When to Worry….” I’ll try to give you guidelines as to when a symptom is worrisome, and when it is OK to wait. Let me emphasize, however, that this is general advice that doesn’t apply to all circumstances. It is far better to be seen for a problem that ends up not being serious than to sit at home with a dangerous condition.
It’s two in the morning and you wake up with pain in your abdomen, or perhaps it is your child that wakes you up with a stomach ache. When should you seek immediate help, when should you make a doctor’s appointment, and when is it OK to wait?
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5 Comments
Add Comment"Continue reading" takes me to an unrelated article. . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNever mind. I now see that an audio recording comes on - if I turn my speakers back on. . . :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't even get the audio. "Continue reading" should mean exactly that - I want to READ, not listen (which I can't do anyway) ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my opinion, only a skilled physician is able to state when to worry about abdominal pain. Once upon the time ...when I was a young University's student, an old doctor answered me, asking him how difficult would be visiting a patient suffering from abdominal pain, that abdomen is very often the tomb of physicians. Than, at the age of 24 years, at Genoa's University, I have decided to found a new physical semeiotics, nowadays known around the world as Quantum Biophysical Semeiotics, www.sisbq.org .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Rome consensus working definiton for dyspepsia was: "Any nuisance in the upper third of abdomen lasting two weeks or more". If symtomps as bloating, poor digestion, and like continue in spite of symptomatic therapy, for example OTC products, it's not stupid considering discussing with your doctor some additional testing, one of it can be an abdominal ultrasound examination, because two types of cancer: Pancreas Cancer and Ovarian Cancer are called "The silent killer", as many times people come to get care when the tumor is very advanced. After reviewing the medical history of patients with these malignancies, sometimes it was realized that in the end, their tumors were not so silent, they just whispered, but did not cry.
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