The Slim Book of Health Pearls: Symptoms Never to Ignore

Sheldon Cohen M.D.

Description

There is danger in delaying the evaluation of an unexplained medical symptom.

The author lists thirty-four such symptoms, describes them in detail, lists the possible diagnoses the symptoms may represent, their urgency, and the consequences of delay in diagnosis.

Procrastination is the thief of time and results in many preventable deaths. Hopefully, the book will stimulate patients to a more prompt appraisal of an unexplained symptom.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Santé du quotidien
• Medical
• Médecine
• Clinical Medicine

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456607951
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Slim Book of Health Pearls
 
SYMPTOMS NEVER TO IGNORE
 
Sheldon Cohen M.D. FACP
 


Copyright 2012 Sheldon Cohen M.D. FACP,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0795-1
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 


A symptom is a noticeable change in the normal working of the body that indicates or accompanies disease or sickness. Therefore, anyone developing such a noticeable change must not procrastinate…because:
 
“Indecision and delay are the parents of failure”
George Canning
(1770-1827)
 
That quote sets the tone for this book, but here are a few more:
 
“Delays breed dangers”
John Lyly Poet
 
“Delays have dangerous ends”
Shakespeare Playwright
 
“The prescription comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays”
Ovid Poet
 
“Procrastination is the thief of time”
Edward Young Poet
 
“Indecision is debilitating; it feeds upon itself; it is, as one might say, habit forming. Not only that, but it is contagious: it transmits itself to others”
A.H. Hopf Algebraist
 


 
 
 
Failure to pay attention to any symptom can be, at the very least, detrimental to health. This book is not an all-inclusive list. There are many more.
 
NEVER IGNORE ANY UNEXPLAINED SYMPTOM THAT IS NEW OR IS CAUSING EMOTIONAL OR PHYSICAL CONCERN. CONSULT A PHYSICIAN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
 
Illustrative examples follow...in alphabetical order
 
BLOOD IN URINE (HEMATURIA)
If suddenly passing red or tea-colored urine, with or without pain, consider it blood until proven otherwise. If grossly red, the bleeding is considerable; if tea-colored the bleeding is less, but significant. There should be no blood in the urine beyond zero to four red blood cells per high-powered microscopic field. Zero to four is the normal. If the bleeding is not enough to color the urine, the patient will be unaware. Here is where a routine urinalysis including a microscopic examination of the urine as part of a complete physical examination, can be life saving.
The causes of blood in the urine include:
• A stone in the kidney, ureter, or bladder. The stone may be painless if it is in the kidneys or bladder, but pain will be its hallmark if it is stuck in the ureter
• Bacterial infection including tuberculosis or a fungal infection
• Trauma can cause bleeding as well
• Benign tumor
• The most urgent and main cause is a malignant tumor of the urinary bladder, and, less commonly, the kidney
 
BREAST CHANGES
The sudden appearance of a lump, skin changes, or nipple changes suggests cancer. This applies to men as well as women.
These changes include:
• A spontaneous clear or bloody discharge from one nipple with or without an associated breast lump
• A sudden retraction or indentation of one nipple
• A change in the size or shape of one breast
• Indentation, flattening, retraction of the skin of the breast
• Persistent nipple rash known as Paget’s disease of the nipple, also called Paget’s disease of the breast, is an uncommon (less than five percent) type of malignancy that forms in or around the nipple
• Localized breast redness
• Pitting of the skin of the breast so its appearance looks like the skin of an orange
 
Any one or combination of the above mandates a physician evaluation and diagnostic studies to rule out breast cancer.
 
BROKEN BONES
Patients will seek medical help for a broken bone, but if the bone broke with only light trauma, such as a slip, trip, missing a step, or a short fall, the diagnosis is osteoporosis until proven otherwise.
Osteoporosis is a skeletal condition characterized by decreased density of bone that minimizes its strength resulting in fragility enough to cause fractures. This traumatic event may be the first sign of osteoporosis: abnormally porous bone, compressible like a sponge. Osteopenia is a milder form of osteoporosis.
The spine, hips, ribs, and wrists are common areas of bone fractures from osteoporosis although osteoporosis-related fractures can occur in almost any skeletal bone. This treacherous condition progresses without symptoms, and the first evidence of the diagnosis is the fracture. If the screening test proves osteoporosis, treatment is imperative to reverse the process of slow bone loss and prevent future fractures. They can cause disability, deformity and even death.
Since osteoporosis and osteopenia are both mostly asymptomatic conditions, it is important to know who is at risk in order to take preventive measures. The following are factors that increase risk for osteoporosis or osteopenia:
• Female gender, Asian or Caucasian race
• Family history
• Small, thin body frame
• Cigarette smoking
• Increased alcohol consumption
• Low calcium diet
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Gastrointestinal malabsorption where nutrients are poorly absorbed from GI tract
• Low estrogen levels in women and low testosterone levels in men
• Absence of menses
• Overactive thyroid (Graves disease), or too much thyroid hormone as therapy for underactivity
• Medications can cause osteoporosis. Heparin (a blood thinner), Cortisone, Dilantin, Phenobarbital
 
A routine X-ray may reveal osteoporosis because the bones appear much thinner and less dense than normal bones. However, by the time X-rays can detect osteoporosis, about 30 percent of the bone must be lost. In addition, X-rays do not accurately indicate bone density due to variations in the degree of exposure of the X-ray film. Because of these deficiencies, major medical organizations recommend the early detection of osteoporosis by the use of a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan (DXA) to diagnose osteoporosis. The test measures bone density in the hip and spine by comparing it to the bone density of young adults of the same sex. The test takes only five to 15 minutes to perform, exposes patients to very little radiation (less than one-tenth to one-hundredth of the amount used on a standard chest X-ray), and is quite precise. The bone density of the patient, compared to the average peak bone density of young adults of the same sex and race, known as the “T score,” is a measure of osteoporosis.