Sometimes, it’s easy to brush off that persistent headache as stress or dismiss unusual fatigue as just being busy. But these seemingly small symptoms can also be your body’s way of sounding an alarm bell. When u/Original_Giraffe_830 asked what signs from your body you should never ignore, the responses revealed just how crucial it is to listen to these internal messages. From subtle changes that saved lives to symptoms that seemed minor but turned out to be medical emergencies, here are some warning signs that deserve your immediate attention:
1.“Heavy imbalance and dizziness, especially when paired with a headache. If some limbs also feel numb, you might already be in the middle of a stroke and part of your brain is dying.”
Johnrob / Getty Images
2.“The way your body smells. Usually you won’t notice because we become kinda numb to our own scent, but if someone tells you you started to smell different (and not in a good way), it’s probably because there’s something wrong. My mom kept saying that my dad smelled like truffle and that it was overwhelming. I personally couldn’t really smell it, so I didn’t understand. Later on, he was diagnosed with diabetes and started taking care of himself — changing his diet and taking the meds he was prescribed — and my mom couldn’t smell that scent anymore.”
“Super Smellers can also detect Parkinson’s. This woman smelled it on her husband before he was diagnosed. Docs set up a clinical trial using her sniffer. She smelled the shirts of people with and without a diagnosis, but she got one ‘wrong,’ and researchers chalked her sniffer up to being bogus. Until, a few months later, the guy she said had it — who the researchers said didn’t — got diagnosed too, meaning she can detect Parkinson’s even before modern screening tools can.”
Related: 17 Actual Texting Conversations People Had With Potential Partners That’ll Straight Up Put You Out
3.“When it hurts to pee. Could be anything, but it’s not nothing…”
“Possibly microbial infections, but yeah — any kind of pain while urinating is a major concern.”
4.“Any kind of lump popping up. I felt a small lump under my armpit that I thought was a raised lymph node, but luckily I went to the doctor anyway. It was a very aggressive breast cancer that I detected very early.”
MihailDechev / Getty Images
5.“Persistent headaches. A family member had headaches that became migraines, then blurry vision, then paralysis on the left side of her body. Brain tumor.”
6.“When I was 31, I just knew something was wrong. The depression hit out of nowhere, the fatigue was crushing, the weight kept falling off, and the pain was constant. Deep down, I knew it was cancer. But no one listened — not at first. It took eight doctors and nine long, terrifying months before I was finally diagnosed with aggressive stage III colon cancer. By then, it had almost cost me my life. Because it took so long to find, I spent the next four years in a brutally painful fight just to stay alive.”
7.“Mucus and blood in stool. I saw white stuff — which was mucus — for the very first time and just chalked it up as part of my stool. I didn’t even know it was mucus until later on. I assumed the slight bleeding was hemorrhoids, because that’s what everyone told me — not to freak out because it will go away on its own. I never had hemorrhoids before and was ignorant enough not to Google it. Well, I started shitting my pants more frequently and had a lot more blood over the next few months. So yeah, it didn’t go away on its own, and I felt worse. Anyway, after a colonoscopy, it turns out it’s ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune disease that requires medication for life.”
Related: A Dad Sexting His Son’s Girlfriend And 50 Other Texts No One Wants To Receive
8.“Pain in your upper back around your shoulder blades, in your jaw area, and/or neck. A lot of people think heart attacks happen as some wild, painful event. But in actuality, sometimes it’s little more than a feeling of pressure, shortness of breath, and/or nausea. This is especially true for women. Never discount these things — especially if you are over 45, even if you are healthy.”
Staras / Getty Images
9.“For women: very painful and heavy periods — to the point where you cannot function normally.”
10.“If you start peeing all the time and sweating through your sheets regularly, go see a doctor. I wish I’d caught my chronic myelogenous leukemia in time before my spleen grew so huge it cracked open in my abdomen.”
11.“A stabbing pain in the head. I’m not talking a headache or migraine. I mean it feels like someone is literally stabbing you. In the head. And it doesn’t go away no matter what you do. You punch walls because it’s so painful. Then the vomiting and confusion start. It was a hemorrhagic stroke. Three brain bleeds. 10 out of 10 do not recommend.”
12.“Shortness of breath. They told me it was pregnancy, but it was a symptom of worsening chronic heart failure.”
Grace Cary / Getty Images
13.“Prolonged fatigue or unexplained weight loss.”
14.“I was tired all the time no matter how much I slept. I’d wake up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all, would doze off literally everywhere, and I needed three-hour naps after work. I’d skip workouts (I love lifting weights) and would wake up with cotton mouth, headaches, and chest pains every day for 10 years. Turns out I had the worst sleep apnea my doctor — with 27 years of practice — had ever seen. I was waking up over FIVE HUNDRED times a night. She practically threw a CPAP machine at my face right then and there.”
“It’s almost a year later. I lift weights five or six days a week, and have more energy than anyone I know. I’ve lost 35 pounds, and I sleep so soundly that I can place a marble on my chest and wake up with it in the same spot in the morning. Blood pressure and LDL cholesterol dropped, and I never have headaches or chest pains anymore. All these years, I kept thinking I was lazy, but I was just exhausted to hell.”
15.“A couple of years back, I had trouble breathing. I sat up and Googled my symptoms. Google said if you’re having trouble breathing, go to your emergency room immediately. I waited four hours for my partner to wake up. He drove me to the ER. I was triaged and immediately sent to resuscitation. Breathing. Never ignore it when you can’t do it. It was a full-on asthma attack, but I had never been diagnosed with asthma before. I always thought that how I breathed was how everyone breathed, but looking back, this attack was a long time coming.”
16.“No one has said dry eyes yet. This affects all ages. The abundance of screen time and TV means we are not blinking enough, causing dry eyes. Dry eyes could lead to astigmatism, myopia, infections, and blurry vision. Kids nowadays are more and more myopic because their iPads cause dry eye, which causes eye strain and leads to glasses wear.”
Alistair Berg / Getty Images
17.“Your nails suddenly looking weird. Turns out they’re a window into your body. Got anemia, low oxygen, liver disease, heart problems? It will show up on your nails. For me, I was in a ton of pain and no one could figure it out because I’m relatively young. But it was awful stomach pain and terrible joint pain with apparently no rhyme or reason. As a side note to this, I noticed some weird tiny holes showing up on my otherwise healthy nails. A specialist, after hearing what I had to say, took my hand, looked at my nails and — without needing the results from bloods he’d just taken — diagnosed me then and there. It turns out I have a severe type of arthritis called PsA. So if your nails suddenly change color, shape, texture, or start getting weird dots or lines you’ve never seen before, go check it out. It could be nothing, or it could save your life.”
18.“Extreme thirst.”
Related: 18 People Who Took A Picture Of Something That — Oops — Is Super Dangerous
19.“Sudden, unexplained anxiety. If you are scared for no reason, there is a reason. Your body is trying to tell you something. I woke up one day at 25 years old and just knew something was wrong. I had no idea what or why — there was no pain or any other indicator — but I knew with every fiber of my being that my life was in danger. After countless tests and dismissals from several doctors, I was finally sent to a neurologist who discovered I had multiple sclerosis. If I hadn’t stood up for myself and been insistent, I would not have started the treatments I needed and I would be in a much worse state than I am now.”
20.“If your period returns after complete menopause, it is almost certainly cancer.”
Hazal Ak / Getty Images
21.“I knew someone who ignored chronic back pain. Cancer. Died eight months later. Stop pretending you’re all Superman. If it hurts, go seek medical attention.”
22.“A small mole — a very tiny small spot — on my foot turned out to be melanoma in situ. I’m not light-skinned, so the chances of melanoma for me were very unlikely. My doctors were surprised that I found it and asked for a biopsy.”
23.“A persistent dry cough.”
“Yep. My friend in elementary school had a cough all year. Fifth grade rolls around and they found out he had cancer. By the middle of sixth grade, he was gone. I’m 30 and I still think about him.”
Have you ever experienced a symptom that you initially ignored but later realized was significant? Maybe you’ve had that nagging feeling that something wasn’t right, even when everything seemed normal on the surface? Share your experiences in the comments — your story might help someone else recognize an important warning sign in their own body.
These are personal experiences shared by individuals, not professional medical advice. Symptoms can have many different causes, and everyone’s health situation is unique. If you’re experiencing concerning symptoms, please consult with your doctor or seek appropriate medical care. This content is meant to encourage awareness and self-advocacy, not replace professional medical guidance.
24.
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
Also in Internet Finds: Women Took Twitter By Storm This Week, And My Sides Still Hurt From These Hilarious Gems
Also in Internet Finds: 29 “F—ed Around And Found Out” Stories That Have Me Simultaneously Laughing My A*** Off And Worried About The Intelligence Of Those Around Me
Also in Internet Finds: “I Did It To Myself”: These 37 Hysterical Fails From Last Week Have Me Laughing So Hard I Think I’ve Formed A Single Ab
