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National Doctors' Day 2019: 7 Symptoms You Should NOT Hide From Your Doctor

Never lie to your doctor! Never hide facts from your doctor! Most of us tend to do that intentionally or accidentally when you go for a doctor's appointment. It is inherently critical that you should be completely honest to your doctor about your habits, routine and everything that has a possibility of impacting your overall health.

Symptoms Not To Be Hidden From Doctor

A sudden headache, stomach pain or back pain is pretty common amongst today's population, considering the busy schedules and lifestyle. And most of us ignore these because, at a single glance the symptoms may not pose any ardent restrictions to the daily activities, but when kept to yourself for a longer period of time, these symptoms can worsen over time.

Any symptom that arises out of the blue must be treated by a doctor. It is imperative to get their views and analysis on the symptoms. On this National Doctors' Day 2019, let us take a look into the different types of symptoms and signs that require immediate attention from a doctor.

Do Not Hide These Symptoms From Your Doctor

1. Stomach pain & bloating

Not just the pain but also bloating of your stomach should not be disregarded as an after effect of the food that you had consumed. When you bloat, you do not gain weight but your stomach gets bigger due to the ulcer, gastric allergies etc. Along with the pain, if you are experiencing nausea, diarrhoea, feeling of fullness or any unexpected weight loss - it is time you consult a doctor[1] .

Points to consider

2. Sudden hearing loss

In usual cases, it is caused by ear wax which tends to subside after taking a shower. In other cases, a sudden hearing loss is caused by serious issues such as a tumour in the auditory nerve, or a symptom of multiple sclerosis. Sudden hearing loss does not pose much danger but is not to be taken lightly and disregarded [2] .

3. Severe headache

Not uncommon in the current society, headache is something that disturbs people irrespective of their age. Having headache for a long period of time and waiting it out is comparatively fine but the onset of a rapid headache (thunderclap headaches) should not be taken lightly and must be informed to your doctor - as it could be a sign of stroke or bleeding in your brain [3] .

4. Trouble urinating

Urinating can be difficult in the event of nerve damage, hernia or a tumour. The first step you could take is to drink more water but if that does not work and the sensation to urinate is still persistent, you must inform your doctor about this immediately [4] .

5. Dizziness

dizziness

All of us experience dizziness at most times. It is not surprising that you may find yourself feeling dizzy after walking in the sun for too long or due to weakness. Your doctor must be able to find whether the dizziness is caused by any underlying causes, such as stroke syndrome. In some cases, the dizziness is accompanied by bleeding that requires immediate medical attention [5] .

6. Back pain

An ardent indication of the modern lifestyle, back pain is to be taken into consideration when accompanied by weakness and severity. These can be the symptoms of infection of the back joints or due to the compression of nerves. Although one may disregard back pain as being common and manageable, it can be the indication[6] of severe underlying issues - which only a doctor can diagnose and examine.

7. Loss of vision

One amongst the major health symptoms that should not be ignored, focal problems are of great importance to be informed to the doctor. One of the early symptoms of stroke, loss of vision has to be considered seriously and go to a doctor [7] .

Some of the other major symptoms[8] that you should not hide from your doctor are a lump in the breast, a lump in the testicles, blood in faeces, a changing mole, unexplained weight loss, sudden fever [8], a sore throat or mouth ulcer that won't leave, a persistent cough etc.

View Article References
  1. [1] Barsky, A. J. (1981). Hidden reasons some patients visit doctors.Annals of internal medicine,94(4_Part_1), 492-498.
  2. [2] Berenson, R. A. (2009). " Contact Your Doctor": Bad Advice?.
  3. [3] Barnett, H. J., Taylor, D. W., Eliasziw, M., Fox, A. J., Ferguson, G. G., Haynes, R. B., ... & Thorpe, K. E. (1998). The benefit of carotid endarterectomy in patients with symptomatic moderate or severe stenosis. New England Journal of Medicine,339(20), 1415-1425.
  4. [4] Salinsky, J., & Sackin, P. (2000).What are You Feeling Doctor?: Identifying and Avoiding Defensive Patterns in the Consultation. Radcliffe Publishing.
  5. [5] Hak, T., Koëter, G., & van der Wal, G. (2000). Collusion in doctor-patient communication about imminent death: an ethnographic study.Bmj,321(7273), 1376-1381.
  6. [6] Nakada, H., Yoshida, S., & Muto, K. (2019). “Tell me what you suggest, and let’s do that, doctor”: Patient deliberation time during informal decision-making in clinical trials.PloS one,14(1), e0211338.
  7. [7] Dang, B. N., Westbrook, R. A., Njue, S. M., & Giordano, T. P. (2017). Building trust and rapport early in the new doctor-patient relationship: a longitudinal qualitative study.BMC medical education,17(1), 32.
  8. [8] Koops van’t Jagt, R., de Winter, A. F., Reijneveld, S. A., Hoeks, J. C., & Jansen, C. J. (2016). Development of a communication intervention for older adults with limited health literacy: Photo stories to support doctor–patient communication.Journal of health communication,21(sup2), 69-82.