Muscle Aches Fatigue And Shortness Of Breath
Muscle aches, fatigue and shortness of breath are three symptoms that often present themselves concurrently and are common to a variety of disorders or illnesses. The seasonal flu is the most common cause of this triad of symptoms, but the root of the problem may also be a more serious condition such as bronchitis, pneumonia or other viral or bacterial infection.
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Chest Pain Pressure And Discomfort
Most people with heart attacks experience some sort of chest pain or discomfort. But its important to understand that chest pains dont occur in every heart attack.
Chest pain is a common sign of a heart attack. People have described this sensation as feeling like an elephant is standing on their chest.
Some people dont describe chest pain as pain at all. Instead, they may say they felt chest tightness or squeezing. Sometimes this discomfort can seem bad for a few minutes and then go away. Sometimes the discomfort comes back hours or even a day later. These could all be signs your heart muscle isnt getting enough oxygen.
If you experience chest pains or tightness, you or someone around you should call 911 immediately.
Pain and tightness can also radiate in other areas of the body. Most people associate a heart attack with pain working its way down the left arm. That can happen, but pain can also appear in other locations, including:
American Heart Association , some women may even think their heart attack symptoms are flu-like symptoms.
A heart attack can cause exhaustion due to the extra stress on your heart to try to pump while an area of blood flow is blocked. If you often feel tired or exhausted for no reason, it could be a sign that something is wrong.
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Weve all seen the movie scenes where a man gasps, clutches his chest and falls to the ground. In reality, a heart attack victim could easily be a woman, and the scene may not be that dramatic.
Although men and women can experience chest pressure that feels like an elephant sitting across the chest, women can experience a heart attack without chest pressure, said Nieca Goldberg, M.D., medical director for the Joan H. Tisch Center for Womens Health at NYUs Langone Medical Center and an American Heart Association volunteer. Instead they may experience shortness of breath, pressure or pain in the lower chest or upper abdomen, dizziness, lightheadedness or fainting, upper back pressure or extreme fatigue.
Even when the signs are subtle, the consequences can be deadly, especially if the victim doesnt get help right away.
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When To Phone A Doctor
You should phone your GP immediately if you have sudden unexpected shortness of breath, as there may be a problem with your airways or heart.
Your GP will assess you over the phone, and may either visit you at home or admit you to hospital. If your shortness of breath is mild or the result of anxiety, you may be asked to come to the surgery rather than a home visit.
If youve struggled with your breathing for a while, dont ignore it. See your GP as its likely you have a long-term condition, such as obesity, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , which needs to be managed properly.
Your doctor may ask you some questions, such as:
- Did the breathlessness come on suddenly or gradually?
- Did anything trigger it, such as exercise?
- How bad is it? Does it only happen when youve been active, or when youre not doing anything?
- Is there any pain when you breathe?
- Do you have a cough?
- Do certain positions make it worse for example, are you unable to lie down?
Feeling like you cant get enough air can be terrifying, but doctors are well trained in managing this. You may be given extra oxygen to breathe if this is needed.
Stay Hydrated And Eat A Healthy Diet
Drinking water throughout the day will help your body heal. Its best to aim for about eight glasses of water each day.
There may be times you dont have energy to cook a meal or throw together a salad. Its fine to stock up on prepared foods and have a food delivery service on speed dial. Just try to choose nutrient-rich foods that will give your body an energy boost. Good food choices include fruits and vegetables, fish, nuts, beans and cottage cheese. Try to steer clear of foods that are high in fat, sugar and preservatives.
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Flu Symptoms And Prevention
Flu can lead to serious complications, such as pneumonia and even death. What may seem like a cold could actually be the flu.
Symptoms of flu may include:
- Fever or feverish/chills
How to protect yourself from the flu
- Get a flu shotas soon as it is available each year. The CDC recommends infants over the age of 6 months and all children and adults get vaccinated every year.
- Wash your hands before eating and dont put your hands near your face or in your mouth. Wash for at least 20 seconds regular soap will do.
- If someone in your family has the flu, keep surfaces clean of the virus by wiping them with a cleaning solution containing chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, detergents, iodophors or alcohols. Flu viruses are also killed by heat above 167 degrees.
- Raise the humidity in your home or workplace. The flu bug exists in higher quantities in dry nasal and oral passages. By increasing the humidity, your body will be better able to flush out the flu bug.
Coronavirus Symptoms In Adults
Symptoms of coronavirus in adults can include:
- a high temperature or shivering a high temperature means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
- a new, continuous cough this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
- shortness of breath
- a blocked or runny nose
- loss of appetite
- feeling sick or being sick
The symptoms are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses, such as colds and flu.
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When To Seek Emergency Medical Attention
Look for emergency warning signs* for COVID 19:
- Trouble breathing
- Persistent pain or pressure in the chest
- Inability to wake or stay awake
- Pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips, or nail beds, depending on skin tone
If someone is showing any of these signs, call 911 or call ahead to your local emergency facility. Notify the operator that you are seeking care for someone who has or may have COVID-19.
*This list is not all possible symptoms. Please call your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning to you.
Influenza and COVID-19 are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. COVID-19 is caused by infection with a coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, and flu is caused by infection with influenza viruses. You cannot tell the difference between flu and COVID-19 by symptoms alone because some of the symptoms are the same. Some PCR tests can differentiate between flu and COVID-19 at the same time. If one of these tests is not available, many testing locations provide flu and COVID-19 tests separately. Talk to a healthcare provider about getting tested for both flu and COVID-19 if you have symptoms.
Who Needs To Do A Covid
Free testing for COVID-19 from the NHS has ended for most people in England.
If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you are no longer required to do a rapid lateral flow or PCR test.
If you still want to get tested and you’re not eligible for a free NHS test, you must pay for a COVID-19 test yourself.
You can buy a COVID-19 test from some pharmacies and retailers, in person or online.
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Persistent Leg Pain On One Side May Be A Blood Clot
Swelling and pain in one leg that doesn’t go away may signal that you have a blood clot inside a vein, known as deep vein thrombosis . These signs should be tended to at once, particularly if youre at higher risk for DVT. Risk factors that make DVT blood clots more likely get riskier with age. These include smoking, having surgery, being on estrogen-containing pills or hormone therapy, being immobile for a long period of time , being pregnant, and recently giving birth. A life-threatening pulmonary embolism can occur when a blood clot moves from one part of your body to your lungs and blocks a vital artery there. According to Dr. Simmons, about 70 percent of blood clots that travel to the lungs begin in the legs.
What Should Someone Who’s Experiencing Post
For those who experienced only a mild illness and self-treated at home but are now dealing with post-COVID syndrome symptoms, Dr. Lahoti recommends scheduling an appointment with your primary care physician.
“Your doctor can diagnose the severity of your lingering symptoms, helping to treat the ones that are mild and referring you to a specialist for any that are more advanced,” explains Dr. Lahoti.
If you were hospitalized for more severe symptoms during your illness, you may already have a cardiologist you can follow up with about any heart issues, such as chest pain, or a pulmonologist you can check in with to address any lung issues, such as difficulty breathing.
“Because the symptoms of post-COVID syndrome are diverse and because this condition is so new and unique, we’ve created the Houston Methodist COVID-19 Recovery Clinic an entire clinic dedicated to helping people manage post-COVID syndrome,” Dr. Lahoti adds. “The purpose of this clinic is to bring together a range of specialists who have been on the front lines during this pandemic.”
The clinic will have a team of doctors specializing in:
- Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
The clinic will also focus on performing impactful research, as well as providing doctors with access to tools that can help tailor care to the specific treatments someone previously received or the particular strain of the virus he or she was infected with.
Next Steps:
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Stay Away From Refined Or Processed Foods
You should focus on eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Avoid eating processed and packaged snack foods, which contain food additives that are often not rigorously tested enough to determine safety of long-term consumption. Some food additives are classified as excitotoxins, which may trigger or perpetuate fibromyalgia symptoms. Its also a good idea to limit white carbohydrates such as white bread, pasta, and rice, as well as sugary foods, sweets, and sweetened beverages. These refined carbohydrates cause an increase in blood sugar with a resulting insulin spike that may also exacerbate symptoms. Focus on whole grains and complex carbohydrates that provide fiber, minerals, and vitamins.
It can be challenging to find the energy necessary to cook and prepare healthy foods when you have fibromyalgia. But its important to eat well to keep your body healthy and your energy levels up. Look for steamer bags of vegetables in the produce and freezer sections of grocery stores, and bagged salads. These options help to cut down on the time required to wash, prep, and prepare produce, and may help you consume it more often.
Last medically reviewed on March 4, 2016
Chest Pain Under Strain Get It Checked Out
In older white males, we know chest pain may be a sign of heart attack. But we havent gotten that same sort of education with women, Baechler says. Women fear breast cancer more than heart disease, but they are more likely to have heart disease. In fact, heart disease is the No.1 killer of women in America today, causing more deaths than all types of cancer combined.
If you lift something and have chest pain that youve never had before, get it checked out. You should also see your doctor about any new chest pain when you walk upstairs or exert yourself in some way. This is particularly important if the pain goes away after a short period of rest. Women are more likely than men to have atypical symptoms of a heart attack: shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, extreme fatigue, a cold sweat, or pain in the arms, back, neck, or stomach, Baechler says. Get these, and any of the more traditional symptoms, checked out.
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Rsv Symptoms And Prevention
With RSV, symptoms usually show within four to six days after getting infected.
Symptoms of RSV infection usually include:
These symptoms usually appear in stages and not all at once. In very young infants with RSV, the only symptoms may be irritability, decreased activity and breathing difficulties.
How to prevent RSV
- Avoid close contact with sick people.
- Avoid touching your nose or eyes, especially while around sick people.
- Clean surfaces with disinfectants that kill viruses to halt the spread of colds.
In addition, people with cold-like symptoms should not interact with children who are at high risk for severe RSV disease. Those at high risk include premature infants, children younger than age 2 who have chronic lung or heart conditions and children with weakened immune systems or neuromuscular disorders.
What Are The Signs And Symptoms Associated With Fatigue
Fatigue is a symptom that usually has some underlying cause. Fatigue may be described by people in different ways, and may include some combination include weakness, lack of energy, constantly tired or exhausted, lack of motivation, difficulty concentrating, and/or difficulty starting and completing tasks.
Other symptoms such as fainting or loss of consciousness , near-syncope, rapid heartbeat , dizziness or vertigo may also be described as part of the fatigue experienced by the affected individual. The presence of these symptoms may actually help lead a health care practitioner to discover the underlying cause of the fatigue.
The potential causes of fatigue are numerous. The majority of diseases known to man often list fatigue or malaise as possible associated symptoms. This is complicated by the fact that fatigue can occur in normal healthy individuals as a normal response to physical and mental exertion. However, normal fatigue may begin to become abnormal if it becomes chronic, extreme or prolonged fatigue usually this occurs when a person experiences chronic or prolonged physical or mental exertion. For example, unusually hard physical or mental exertion for one day can result in normal fatigue that may last about a day or sometimes more, depending on the exertion level, while daily unusually hard physical or mental exertion may result in prolonged fatigue . This latter situation may develop into abnormal fatigue.
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Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Can Help Reveal Unusual Reasons For These Common Symptoms And Also Shed Light On Long Covid
One of the vexing things about certain common health complaints is the range of possible underlying causes. For example, feeling short of breath is perfectly normal after a burst of vigorous exercise. But for some people, even mild exertion can trigger a sensation of breathlessness, or what doctors call dyspnea. Its often accompanied by symptoms such as fatigue and lightheadedness.
Most of the time, heart or lung issues are to blame. In many cases, routine tests including a chest x-ray, echocardiogram , lung function tests, and blood tests can uncover the underlying reason for a persons breathlessness.
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What Does Shortness Of Breath Feel Like
Shortness of breath can make it hard to breathe. It can leave you gasping for air.
Your chest may feel too tight to inhale or exhale fully. Each shallow breath takes greater effort and leaves you feeling winded. It can feel like youre breathing through a straw.
It may happen when youre active or resting. It can come on gradually or suddenly.
High intensity or strenuous workouts, extreme temperatures, and high altitudes can all cause shortness of breath. Anxiety can also lead to changes in your breathing rate and pattern.
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When To See Your Doctor
If your shortness of breath is accompanied by fever, chest pain, tightness in the throat, and wheezing, then you could be experiencing angina or a heart attack. These combinations of symptoms require immediate attention.
In general, if you are experiencing shortness of breath for no obvious reason like exercise, or it is on-going and frequent, speak with your doctor right away. Uncovering and treating the underlying cause will be the only way to correct the shortness of breath.
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What Can I Expect While Recovering From Covid
Everyone will have a different experience in their recovery from COVID-19. Some people may recover in days, some in weeks. But for others, it could be months. Although each case is unique, people recovering from more severe symptoms are likely to face a longer recovery period.
Schedule regular appointments with your GP to discuss your symptoms and how best to manage them. Your GP will tell you about any medicines that might suit your needs.
Common symptoms you may experience during your recovery:
- change in sense of taste or smell
- anxiety and/or low mood
If you have any of the following symptoms, immediately for an ambulance and tell the phone operator you’ve previously been diagnosed with COVID-19:
- severe shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- severe chest pain or pressure
- a new or returning fever
- worsening ability to concentrate and increased confusion
- difficulty waking up
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has also created a guide for patients on managing mild post COVID-19 symptoms. This includes advice on managing fatigue, easing muscle and joint pain, and managing a cough or any breathlessness.
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