These seemingly harmless symptoms were actually warning signs of major health issues – find out what to look for!
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or before making any changes to your health regimen.
When it comes to our health, sometimes the smallest changes can be the signs of larger issues. It's easy to brush off minor aches and pains, attributing them to the wear and tear of life, especially as we age.
But what if those subtle signs were actually your body's way of waving a red flag? We believe in empowering our readers with knowledge that could potentially save lives.
So, let’s dive into the stories of individuals who experienced seemingly harmless symptoms that turned out to be critical warning signs of major health issues.
Imagine going about your day, feeling a little off but nothing too alarming—until you find out that “little of” feeling is something much more serious. This is a reality for many people who later discover that their minor symptoms were early indicators of significant health problems.
1. A 50-year-old man's shortness of breath turned out to be life-threatening cardiac arrest. This man walked into an ER screening, complaining of shortness of breath.
“According to the staff, he did not appear to look ill in any way. While being processed for screening, he went into cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation, as recorded on his EKG.”
The storyteller added that the man was admitted to the cath lab due to possibly having acute myocardial infarction. Although, the “angiogram done within minutes of this event was 100% normal — normal arteries, ventricular function, no spasm, no sign of any problem whatsoever.”
2. A woman's persistent exhaustion, bloating, and abdominal pain led to the discovery of a football-sized ovarian tumor. She said, “I shrugged it off because women just have to deal with that. Next, I noticed that I felt full after just a few bites.”
After her sister, a retired nurse, forced her to go to the emergency room and underwent a CT scan, “the ER doctor came in grim-faced. He told me I had a football-sized tumor on my right ovary, and he was pretty sure it was malignant. One total hysterectomy later, I was diagnosed with stage 1 ovarian cancer. Thankfully, six years later I'm cancer free.”
3. A casual glance at a mole during a shower led a 34-year-old to a diagnosis of advanced melanoma.
The patient said, “When I was 34 years old, I glanced in the bathroom mirror at a mole on my back as I was drying off after my shower. The thought, 'That thing is going to kill me,' flashed through my mind.”
After having lunch with a friend who was also a plastic surgeon, a suggested removal was brought up. It was sent to biopsy and then, “the results: stage three or four melanoma with less than six months to live. I was accepted into an experimental immunotherapy program at Duke University Medical Center, and thanks to that study, the concern of my friend, and listening to my body, I am still alive over 40 years later.”
4. An avid runner's vague feeling of “just not feeling right” was the precursor to a heart problem.
A pharmacist narrates that a man entered the ER following his bad feeling, since despite not having chest pain, he felt shortness of breath, nausea, and dizziness. She ended the story by sharing, “He ended up being diagnosed with a dissecting aortic aneurysm.”
5. A four-year-old's difficulty moving his feet was the only symptom before a brain tumor was discovered. The nurse said, “His mother told us he’d been only slightly less active in the past two days than usual. No fever, cough/flu, diarrhea, stomachache, vomiting, or any signs of infections at all…”
Other than having poor motor strength and reflexes, everything seemed normal. Even the lab results were normal.
“However, the situation rapidly changed when the CT-Scan result was released. It clearly showed a nasty mass on the brain, highly suspected as a malignant tumor that needed immediate surgery.”
Sadly, she also reported that while the surgery went well, “...K never woke up from his sleep a week ago. Something must’ve been going really wrong. The chance of him living was always really thin, close to none.”
6. What seemed like dehydration from a stomach bug was actually internal bleeding from a ruptured ovarian cyst.
The woman recounts, “The ER did a CT scan, and it turned out it wasn’t the stomach flu. I'd had an ovarian cyst rupture and had a grapefruit-sized mass of internal bleeding/clotting. I was anemic to the point they talked about transfusion. I was admitted for emergency surgery to remove the blood and stop the bleeding. They also removed my left ovary, which pathology showed had torsion.”
7. A bad flare-up of arthritis turned out to be multiple serious conditions. What this patient thought to be a simple condition led to puking in the ER for a few hours.
He said, “Turns out I was extremely dehydrated, had an inflamed gallbladder, a really bad UTI, and my kidneys were starting to shut down.”
8. A mother's intuition about her son's “lingering flu” and bleeding gums led to a diagnosis of acute leukemia.
The front desk worker at the ER said, “One of the things she said that caught me (non-medical staff) was that he had this problem with his mouth and gums bleeding. I made a comment to my coworker that randomly bleeding gums is a sign of some cancers. Sure enough, the dude had a very serious and aggressive acute onset leukemia.”
9. A blister from sailing shoes was the least of concerns when a family member was found unconscious, leading to a hospital emergency.
Jenny, the storyteller shares that she had found a blister on her toe after “having sand in my sailing shoes the day before. A doctor noticed that the leg, where the blister was located, was red and swollen.
The doctor “said I needed to be admitted for some tests. His opinion was that I had septicemia, and he was right. Within half an hour, I was in a hospital bed and on intravenous antibiotics, and waiting for test results.”
10. A healthcare worker in a third-world country shares the challenges of diagnosing and treating patients with limited resources. She recounted that a woman in her late 30s complained of extreme pain in her lower abdomen.
The woman also said her last menstrual cycle was four months ago. The worker recounted, “I told her to go right away to the hospital across the street because if it was something obstetric, we didn’t have anyone specializing in this hospital. … We got a call 20 minutes later that the woman delivered her baby at triage of the other hospital.”
11. A routine dressing change for a lost finger revealed a dangerously high heart rate, a condition known as atrial flutter.
The nurse narrated, “He had a condition called atrial flutter, where the top chambers of his heart weren't working properly. He felt dizzy because if your heart rate is that high, the heart doesn't have time to fill properly between beats, so less blood is circulating. His 'little dizziness' landed him in the hospital with a crash cart in his room, an IV drip of medication to lower his heart rate, and one-on-one nursing care. Thankfully, I think he ended up being okay.”
12. A woman's post-surgery nausea was a precursor to a fatal heart attack. The intern who was on call that night narrated, “ I scanned her medications, test results, and vital signs, examined the patient and did not find anything. I ordered her medication for nausea. That evening at about 2:00 AM, I was summoned to see her again for nausea…”
In the room, the woman was having shortness of breath and had no pulse.
“Her heart never responded, and she died within the hour despite the medical team's best efforts without regaining consciousness. An autopsy showed that she had a coronary artery in the heart that was blocked by a 'flap' from her artery. Her heart muscle had died due to lack of oxygen, often referred to as a heart attack.”
13. A request for a sick note led to the discovery of a 4 kg cyst. The patient said that her doctor poked her in the stomach and said, “That’s not normal.”
After waiting around two months for her scan, she had to get more tests. “A few more scans later it was decided that it was not cancer, it was a 4 kg cyst. My only symptom was an enlarged stomach and the 'you're getting fat' comments from my mother."
14. A construction worker's fatigue and difficulty at work were due to a severe loss of blood from a stomach ulcer. The doctor reported that “he had slowly lost 80% of his blood over a few months. Stomach ulcer. I think it was from taking ibuprofen daily to dull the construction pain, but I don’t remember.”
15. A farmer's neck pain, dismissed as a work-related strain, was actually advanced lung cancer.
The farmer’s girlfriend took him into the doctor’s office because of neck and upper back pain, which “he insisted it was just from looking back over his shoulder while plowing. When his x-rays had developed, and my husband had a chance to evaluate them, he was horrified by what he saw. The farmer had advanced lung cancer and was dead within the week.”
16. A playful chase led to the discovery of a pituitary tumor after a hip fracture. After losing his footing, the husband couldn’t put pressure on his leg.
“Once we got to the hospital, we found out that he had broken his hip (in this case, he broke off his entire ball joint from the top of his femur). The nurses said they couldn’t believe that he was able to sit up and had slept on it, implying that we should have come the night before (and probably by ambulance). It required surgery with some hefty bolts to put it back into place.”
The wife added, “a healthy 30ish year old man breaking his femur from standing is highly unusual. After several tests and an MRI, it turned out he was in the early stages of osteoporosis due to a pituitary tumor in his brain .So we discovered a benign brain tumor all because the dude was wearing slippery socks.”
17. A pregnant woman's contact lens discomfort was a sign of severe preeclampsia. The contact lens wasn’t fitting, and the lens tech reached out to the doctor because the patient’s face was swollen and “her eyelids were so edematous that she couldn't get her contacts out. The lens tech had preeclampsia before and recognized this as a danger sign…”
The woman almost had a stroke and intense bleeding, with her lungs filling with fluid.
Luckily, “on day six, she sat up, wanted to eat, started recovering, and went home a few days later. Turned out she had severe preeclampsia with HEELP syndrome."
Have you or someone you know ever experienced a minor symptom that turned out to be something major? Share your stories in the comments below!
When it comes to our health, sometimes the smallest changes can be the signs of larger issues. It's easy to brush off minor aches and pains, attributing them to the wear and tear of life, especially as we age.
But what if those subtle signs were actually your body's way of waving a red flag? We believe in empowering our readers with knowledge that could potentially save lives.
So, let’s dive into the stories of individuals who experienced seemingly harmless symptoms that turned out to be critical warning signs of major health issues.
Imagine going about your day, feeling a little off but nothing too alarming—until you find out that “little of” feeling is something much more serious. This is a reality for many people who later discover that their minor symptoms were early indicators of significant health problems.
1. A 50-year-old man's shortness of breath turned out to be life-threatening cardiac arrest. This man walked into an ER screening, complaining of shortness of breath.
“According to the staff, he did not appear to look ill in any way. While being processed for screening, he went into cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation, as recorded on his EKG.”
The storyteller added that the man was admitted to the cath lab due to possibly having acute myocardial infarction. Although, the “angiogram done within minutes of this event was 100% normal — normal arteries, ventricular function, no spasm, no sign of any problem whatsoever.”
2. A woman's persistent exhaustion, bloating, and abdominal pain led to the discovery of a football-sized ovarian tumor. She said, “I shrugged it off because women just have to deal with that. Next, I noticed that I felt full after just a few bites.”
After her sister, a retired nurse, forced her to go to the emergency room and underwent a CT scan, “the ER doctor came in grim-faced. He told me I had a football-sized tumor on my right ovary, and he was pretty sure it was malignant. One total hysterectomy later, I was diagnosed with stage 1 ovarian cancer. Thankfully, six years later I'm cancer free.”
3. A casual glance at a mole during a shower led a 34-year-old to a diagnosis of advanced melanoma.
The patient said, “When I was 34 years old, I glanced in the bathroom mirror at a mole on my back as I was drying off after my shower. The thought, 'That thing is going to kill me,' flashed through my mind.”
After having lunch with a friend who was also a plastic surgeon, a suggested removal was brought up. It was sent to biopsy and then, “the results: stage three or four melanoma with less than six months to live. I was accepted into an experimental immunotherapy program at Duke University Medical Center, and thanks to that study, the concern of my friend, and listening to my body, I am still alive over 40 years later.”
4. An avid runner's vague feeling of “just not feeling right” was the precursor to a heart problem.
A pharmacist narrates that a man entered the ER following his bad feeling, since despite not having chest pain, he felt shortness of breath, nausea, and dizziness. She ended the story by sharing, “He ended up being diagnosed with a dissecting aortic aneurysm.”
5. A four-year-old's difficulty moving his feet was the only symptom before a brain tumor was discovered. The nurse said, “His mother told us he’d been only slightly less active in the past two days than usual. No fever, cough/flu, diarrhea, stomachache, vomiting, or any signs of infections at all…”
Other than having poor motor strength and reflexes, everything seemed normal. Even the lab results were normal.
“However, the situation rapidly changed when the CT-Scan result was released. It clearly showed a nasty mass on the brain, highly suspected as a malignant tumor that needed immediate surgery.”
Sadly, she also reported that while the surgery went well, “...K never woke up from his sleep a week ago. Something must’ve been going really wrong. The chance of him living was always really thin, close to none.”
6. What seemed like dehydration from a stomach bug was actually internal bleeding from a ruptured ovarian cyst.
The woman recounts, “The ER did a CT scan, and it turned out it wasn’t the stomach flu. I'd had an ovarian cyst rupture and had a grapefruit-sized mass of internal bleeding/clotting. I was anemic to the point they talked about transfusion. I was admitted for emergency surgery to remove the blood and stop the bleeding. They also removed my left ovary, which pathology showed had torsion.”
7. A bad flare-up of arthritis turned out to be multiple serious conditions. What this patient thought to be a simple condition led to puking in the ER for a few hours.
He said, “Turns out I was extremely dehydrated, had an inflamed gallbladder, a really bad UTI, and my kidneys were starting to shut down.”
8. A mother's intuition about her son's “lingering flu” and bleeding gums led to a diagnosis of acute leukemia.
The front desk worker at the ER said, “One of the things she said that caught me (non-medical staff) was that he had this problem with his mouth and gums bleeding. I made a comment to my coworker that randomly bleeding gums is a sign of some cancers. Sure enough, the dude had a very serious and aggressive acute onset leukemia.”
9. A blister from sailing shoes was the least of concerns when a family member was found unconscious, leading to a hospital emergency.
Jenny, the storyteller shares that she had found a blister on her toe after “having sand in my sailing shoes the day before. A doctor noticed that the leg, where the blister was located, was red and swollen.
The doctor “said I needed to be admitted for some tests. His opinion was that I had septicemia, and he was right. Within half an hour, I was in a hospital bed and on intravenous antibiotics, and waiting for test results.”
10. A healthcare worker in a third-world country shares the challenges of diagnosing and treating patients with limited resources. She recounted that a woman in her late 30s complained of extreme pain in her lower abdomen.
The woman also said her last menstrual cycle was four months ago. The worker recounted, “I told her to go right away to the hospital across the street because if it was something obstetric, we didn’t have anyone specializing in this hospital. … We got a call 20 minutes later that the woman delivered her baby at triage of the other hospital.”
11. A routine dressing change for a lost finger revealed a dangerously high heart rate, a condition known as atrial flutter.
The nurse narrated, “He had a condition called atrial flutter, where the top chambers of his heart weren't working properly. He felt dizzy because if your heart rate is that high, the heart doesn't have time to fill properly between beats, so less blood is circulating. His 'little dizziness' landed him in the hospital with a crash cart in his room, an IV drip of medication to lower his heart rate, and one-on-one nursing care. Thankfully, I think he ended up being okay.”
12. A woman's post-surgery nausea was a precursor to a fatal heart attack. The intern who was on call that night narrated, “ I scanned her medications, test results, and vital signs, examined the patient and did not find anything. I ordered her medication for nausea. That evening at about 2:00 AM, I was summoned to see her again for nausea…”
In the room, the woman was having shortness of breath and had no pulse.
“Her heart never responded, and she died within the hour despite the medical team's best efforts without regaining consciousness. An autopsy showed that she had a coronary artery in the heart that was blocked by a 'flap' from her artery. Her heart muscle had died due to lack of oxygen, often referred to as a heart attack.”
13. A request for a sick note led to the discovery of a 4 kg cyst. The patient said that her doctor poked her in the stomach and said, “That’s not normal.”
After waiting around two months for her scan, she had to get more tests. “A few more scans later it was decided that it was not cancer, it was a 4 kg cyst. My only symptom was an enlarged stomach and the 'you're getting fat' comments from my mother."
14. A construction worker's fatigue and difficulty at work were due to a severe loss of blood from a stomach ulcer. The doctor reported that “he had slowly lost 80% of his blood over a few months. Stomach ulcer. I think it was from taking ibuprofen daily to dull the construction pain, but I don’t remember.”
15. A farmer's neck pain, dismissed as a work-related strain, was actually advanced lung cancer.
The farmer’s girlfriend took him into the doctor’s office because of neck and upper back pain, which “he insisted it was just from looking back over his shoulder while plowing. When his x-rays had developed, and my husband had a chance to evaluate them, he was horrified by what he saw. The farmer had advanced lung cancer and was dead within the week.”
16. A playful chase led to the discovery of a pituitary tumor after a hip fracture. After losing his footing, the husband couldn’t put pressure on his leg.
“Once we got to the hospital, we found out that he had broken his hip (in this case, he broke off his entire ball joint from the top of his femur). The nurses said they couldn’t believe that he was able to sit up and had slept on it, implying that we should have come the night before (and probably by ambulance). It required surgery with some hefty bolts to put it back into place.”
The wife added, “a healthy 30ish year old man breaking his femur from standing is highly unusual. After several tests and an MRI, it turned out he was in the early stages of osteoporosis due to a pituitary tumor in his brain .So we discovered a benign brain tumor all because the dude was wearing slippery socks.”
17. A pregnant woman's contact lens discomfort was a sign of severe preeclampsia. The contact lens wasn’t fitting, and the lens tech reached out to the doctor because the patient’s face was swollen and “her eyelids were so edematous that she couldn't get her contacts out. The lens tech had preeclampsia before and recognized this as a danger sign…”
The woman almost had a stroke and intense bleeding, with her lungs filling with fluid.
Luckily, “on day six, she sat up, wanted to eat, started recovering, and went home a few days later. Turned out she had severe preeclampsia with HEELP syndrome."
Have you or someone you know ever experienced a minor symptom that turned out to be something major? Share your stories in the comments below!
