Pains Men Should Not Try to Macho Through

[Nephissa]

When the going gets tough, guys should go to the doctor.

By Scott McCredie for MSN Health & Fitness.

 

 

You’re a guy’s guy, tough as nails and hard as rock, right? Able to soldier on despite hardships or injuries? Because everyone knows that hardship builds character, and pain is all in your mind. And, oh, don’t forget: no pain, no gain.

 

Well, that’s the traditional view, anyway. Modern males are supposed to dance to a different tune. We’re advised that a healthier philosophy is to listen to our bodies and heed the language of pain, the body’s way of telling us that something is wrong and needs our attention. Men who fail to heed the message often meet disaster.

 

“Men tend to ignore pain more than women, but they also tend to seek medical attention less than their women counterparts for any ailment or symptom,” says Dr. Camelia Davtyan, associate professor of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

 

My brother, Tim, is a good example.

 

A 25-year-old law intern living in Portland, Ore., Tim woke up one morning with severe stomach pain. He thought the culprits were the guacamole, chips and beer he’d had the night before. “It was the stomachache from hell,” he remembers. “I thought I could endure the pain and hoped it would go away.”

 

A few days went by and the pain continued. He went to a doctor who examined him but could find nothing amiss. A couple more days passed and he broke out into a feverish sweat that scared him into a hospital, where a doctor immediately sent him to the surgical ward. Tim’s appendix had burst, a life-threatening situation. Fortunately, he was young enough to withstand the bacterial onslaught this caused, and after the emergency appendectomy he recovered fully.

 

Here’s a list of potent pains that you ignore at your peril:

 

1. Severe headache

 

“If you were to say, ‘that’s the worst headache of my life,’ it could be related to a brain aneurysm rupture, which can be quickly fatal,” says Davtyan.

 

A brain aneurysm is a swelling of an artery due to a weakness in its wall. Anyone, at any age, can have them, but they’re most common in adults between the ages of 30 and 60. If an aneurysm should burst and bleed into the brain, it can cause “hemorrhagic stroke, permanent nerve damage and death,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

 

In the U.S., some 27,000 people a year report ruptured aneurysms. In addition to the headache, other symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, a drooping eyelid, light sensitivity, and a change in mental awareness.

 

If you experience the “worst headache of your life,” especially combined with any of the other symptoms, you should go immediately to the ER.

 

2. Chest pain

 

Davtyan explains that if you ever have the sense of “having an elephant on your chest"–intense chest pressure, pain or squeezing sensation–you could be having a heart attack, which can also be quickly fatal.

 

The NIH describes the feeling as “uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain” in the center of the chest that lasts for more than few minutes, or goes away and comes back. Other parts of your body can be affected too, including pain in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach. You may also feel short of breath, lightheaded, nauseous, or break out in a cold sweat.

 

Don’t delay for an instant if you think you’re having a heart attack. The NIH reports that most victims wait two or more hours after their symptoms begin before they seek medical help, resulting in death or permanent damage to the heart.

 

3. Other chest pains

 

“Sharp, stabbing chest pain of sudden onset, with or without shortness of breath, could be pneumothorax [a collection of air or gas in the space surrounding the lungs] or a blood clot in the lung,” Davtyan asserts.

 

The latter condition is called a pulmonary embolism, a sudden blockage in a lung artery, usually from a blood clot that traveled to the lung from the leg. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute says more than 600,000 Americans experience a pulmonary embolism each year, and about 10 percent of them die from it. Fatalities usually occur within an hour after the symptoms begin, so time is of the essence.

 

Pulmonary embolism, according to the institute, is one of the leading causes of death among people who must remain in hospital beds for long periods of time—and it also can crop up in people who must sit (say in an airplane or office) for many hours without interruption. (Say, don’t you feel the sudden urge to get up now and walk around a bit?)

 

 

CONTINUED: Severe back pain.

[Baluug]

Originally posted by Nephthys:

 

“Men tend to ignore pain more than women, but they also tend to seek medical attention less than their women counterparts for any ailment or symptom,” says Dr. Camelia Davtyan, associate professor of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

That's news to me. I guess she hasn't seen this clip....

 

[peasant]

Man that was hilarious..."what about me" "what" ..go along and sip.

[Chimera]

I once in a while have Lumbar and Thoracic backpain because i train, which can cause muscle strain

 

a good professional massage is the answer