IF YOU EXPERIENCE …

IT COULD BE ….

1. Coughing up or vomiting up blood

Tuberculosis, lung cancer, internal bleeding

2. Pain, swelling, redness, or warmth in your leg, possibly with night cramps and/or bluish or white coloration of skin

A blood clot

3. Sudden, severe headache unlike any you've had before

Stroke, aneurysm

4. Loss of consciousness

Dehydration, stroke, seizure, irregular heartbeat or other heart problem, anemia, low blood sugar, drug overdose

5. A wound that gets hot and red, particularly if you also have a fever

Systemic infection

6. Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath that makes you feel as if you're suffocating

Asthma attack, anaphylactic shock, collapsed lung, pneumonia

7. Sudden increase in the number or size of "floaters" in your vision and/or flashes of light in your peripheral vision

Retinal tear or detachment

8. Chest pain or pressure with or without nausea or clamminess; the pain may radiate to your jaw, upper back, shoulders and/or arms

A heart attack

9. Weakness, numbness, tingling or a feeling of heaviness on one side of your body, or a sudden inability to move one side of your body; may be accompanied by problems seeing, speaking, or understanding words, dizziness, fainting, or confusion, and all symptoms may disappear in a minute or two

A stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA)

10. Loss of appetite, nausea/vomiting with abdominal pain, abdominal swelling, fever, inability to pass gas

Appendicitis, bowel obstruction

11. Sudden change in mental status, such as not knowing where you are or not recognizing people you should know

Stroke or other neurological problem, head injury, infection, seizure, low blood sugar

12. Sudden, severe dizziness

Stroke, heart attack, reaction to medication