“Most diseases are easily treatable if detected early.” If you visit your health provider as regularly as you are supposed to, you must have heard them say this over and over again.

This, however, begs the question… What signs and symptoms are serious enough to prompt a visit to the doctor?

By now we all must know that when chest pain, dizziness, sudden weakness, or vision changes become a regular occurrence, you need to visit the emergency room as soon as possible. But how do you separate symptoms that manifest as a result of the body’s aging process from that which could potentially be serious?

Delaying treatment, could, as we already know, be life-threatening or have an adverse effect on our body’s general well being.

Often times, people become instant casualties and develop life-long health conditions because they simply ignored what they were feeling initially.

Having said that, here are some health signals you should take seriously whenever they appear.

1. Sudden and Intense Headaches: Most times, headaches such as these are self-inflicted—as a result of stress or sleeplessness. However, when intense and crippling headaches are constantly interfering with the normal flow of your day to day activities, then it’s time to call your doctor’s attention. Chances are that these headaches are early signs of cardiac cephalgia, meningitis, or burst blood vessel in the brain (an aneurysm). If any these conditions are the case, an early visit to your doctor will increase your chances of survival and possible recovery.

2. Constant Coughing: If you have a cough that has lasted for more than two months, then it is probably time you have it checked out. While coughing almost all the time can be severely annoying, it could also be an indication that all is not well with your body. In fact, the persistent cough could be a subtle sign of asthma or acid reflux disease.

3. 3. Sudden weight loss: For most people, losing weight is certainly a blessing. However, when you start losing weight at a rapid rate without even trying to do so, it’s probably best if your doctor ran some checks on you. Weight gain is an automatic process as we advance in age, so when the reverse process is occurring at a faster rate and of its own accord, it could mean something serious. In fact, dramatic weight loss is a symptom of diseases such as cancer, hepatitis C, HIV, and thyroid disease.

4. Too much sleep: While this is a problem that most people will like to have, excessive sleep especially when it begins to exceed the 9-hour mark, is a signal for something serious. It could be a sign of severe inflammation, depression, or multiple sclerosis. Narcolepsy is also a possibility, where you are over-weight and always tired during the day.

5. Persistent Abdominal Pain: Stomach pain and discomfort can be seen as a normal occurrence, but when pain occurs at a specific location- close to the belly button and lasts for a couple of days, then it is time to take action and pay a visit to the hospital. This is could be a symptom of appendicitis, and you will be doing yourself a world of good by going to your doctor early enough.

6. Chronic pain: How much pain is too much pain? Well, the answer to this differs from person to person. However, doctors recommend that pain which last for more than 12 weeks should be considered chronic. It is absolutely dangerous to treat pain that occurs daily and disrupts your daily activity as normal regardless of your age. There are ways to deal with pain, so visit your doctor to discuss the method that best suits you and relieve yourself of the suffering you are currently undergoing.

7. A major Toothache: For some people, toothache is a common phenomenon that probably won’t set off major alarm bells. While there are many people like this, some toothaches shouldn’t be taken lightly especially when it becomes an everyday occurrence. In some cases, this pain may be as a result of an exposed nerve which can be treated easily if detected early. Subsequent treatment in the shape of a root canal therapy can be very expensive. So if your tooth is becoming a needless burden, paying your dentist a visit shouldn’t hurt.

https://blogs.webmd.com/doctors/2018/11/6-symptoms-you-should-never-ignore.html

https://realbuzz.com/articles-interest/health/article/7-health-symptoms-you-should-never-ignore/