49 Body Things That Make People Panic But Are Totally Normal, According To Doctors

Lots of people tend to get nervous when they can't eat for several days during an acute illness. "Everything I eat I vomit." Stop eating. You can survive for a long time without food. Let your body heal itself and then introduce bland basic food slowly. When you vomit you are throwing off your pH balance and loosing water. So if you keep vomiting when you eat, stop eating. The most important thing to do is keep drinking. Sip small amounts of water continiously. If you can't keep liquid down then you need to go to the emergency room / a&e asap but don't worry about food.

Some people, including myself, randomly get a sharp pain when breathing in (typically on the left side of the chest). It's really scary at first but it only lasts for a few seconds to a few minutes at most and episodes can happen daily, weekly, or monthly. It's called precordial catch syndrome and is completely harmless aside from the few seconds of pain.

After you eat beets everything comes out red. Looks like blood but really... It's just the beets.

Had a young man come to the ED saying he noticed his heart beating really fast for the last three days. I asked if he had changed anything in his diet or was taking any supplements.
"Yes. Actually I started taking this pre-workout supplement three days ago."
A quick google search showed me that this stuff was giving him about 500mg of caffeine in each serving.

Lesson 1: if something new is bothering you, think about what changed right before your problem started.
Lesson 2: read ingredients.
Lesson 3: 500mg of caffeine is WAY too much.

I always hear people complain about getting a flu shot. Saying "I don't get the flu shot anymore because everytime i get it i end up getting sick right afterwards anyway!" And i must explain, yet again, that the vaccination they recieve is a severely depletex version of the virus, and the "sick " feeling they get is their body recognizing and reacting to it, developing antibodies and inflammatory protiens in order to better react to the virus in the future. It FEELS just like being sick, because that's what happens when you get sick. But you're not sick, your body is just reacting AS IT SHOULD to the attenuated virus.

TL;DR flu shots don't make you sick.

I had a patient who we put on blood pressure medication. When I checked his blood pressure it was 124/78. He started freaking out that it was not right, that it's usually over 140. I then proceeded to explain to him that's why we put him on blood pressure medication and how it works.

Their daughter's first period. Wayyyy more often than you would hope, we have mothers bring their young daughters in with complaints of "abdominal pain and blood in urine" ....didn't you go through the exact same thing yourself at one point?

Infants (newborns especially) commonly have an irregular breathing pattern. We get a lot of ER visits from new parents who are convinced something is wrong with their baby.

I would 110% rather tell parents "your kid is just fine" than the opposite, so I don't mind at all when parents bring their kids in to be seen.

All the things that happen right after having a baby. Yes, you will be bleeding for, on average, a week, with some spotting for up to 6 weeks. No, the cramping doesn't stop when the baby comes out. Your gigantic uterus (dubbed a baby bag by a patient) needs to work it's way back to being the size of a fist. Babies cry. You will not go back to your pre-baby body by the time you are discharged, bring sweatpants and flip flops, especially cause you're gonna be puffy from the fluids. Breastfeeding doesn't magically happen, you gotta do work. Also, it hurts at first, but that goes away.

I've had a few black families bring their child into my dental office worried that their gums are dark and possibly infected. No, that's normal pigmentation...like your skin.

A lot of 45 year old patients come in concerned that they are having trouble reading not realizing that everyone needs reading glasses eventually. That usually makes them feel old.

"My newborn baby wants to feed every 2 or 3 hours"

Even before being a health professional I knew this was normal.

EX-EMT here.

Arrived on the scene, guy says he thinks he is having a heart attack because his left arm is hurting. Vitals all looked great.

He was sore from exercising at the gym. He actually said "yeah but my left arm hurts worse than my right arm." To which the paramedic (basically my boss) was like "Well did you work your left arm more than your right at the gym?"

"Uhh, actually yeah."

"Well that's probably why."

2nd day on the job. As we were leaving he was like "yeah we get a lot of this. And half the time it's right when you're trying to eat dinner.".

A lot of people come to the ER for a cough, scratchy throat or runny nose. I can be sympathetic about this, but I ask them when it started "Just this morning". You probably have a cold, and at most should be in urgent care instead of the ER, but really should just be at home resting. Also a lot of people don't realize that colds last on average about 2 weeks (not 3-5 days like most people seem to think). The first week is when you feel the worst, the 2nd week is when you feel better but your sinuses and airways are still clearing but you feel hella congested, then the cough and draining can continue well into the 3rd week and the scratchy throat is from the cough and sleeping with your mouth open.

Myoclonic jerks: that sudden muscle spasm, especially when you are falling asleep and suddenly your whole body jerks. Absolutely normal as part of your brain realizes you are about to fall asleep and wakes you up.

Ear wax consults. I've said it once, I'll have to say it a million times. Ear wax is NOT your enemy. It protects your ears - it has antibacterial and antifungal properties, and is adsorbent. Not a week goes by without a consult for blood in the ear due to a Q-tip, or a ruptured drum from puncturing it with a foreign object, or a thermal injury from ear candling. It is NOT DIRT.

A couple of years ago I had to get vaccinated for school. Afterward I keep feeling this wetness under the bandage, it's really weird. It wouldn't go away even an hour or so later, so I get slightly worried. Nothing like this had ever happened before and I've never heard about such a reaction, so it has to be something weird. Maybe the vaccine leaked out?

So I go back and ask the nurse is she can check it out. Here's where it gets embarrassing. After she carefully peels off the bandage she informs me they used a non-alcohol based antiseptic that doesn't dry as quickly.

Also, I'm a medical student.

Subconjunctival haemorrhage. It's basically when a small blood vessel bursts in your eye and the white goes partially or completely red. It looks super dramatic but if it's painless and doesn't affect your vision then it's harmless and will eventually go away by itself.

Also, the leaflets in medication often cause a bit of panic. I've had patients who got a sore stomach after taking their antibiotics and were convinced it was liver failure, or that their tiny rash was definitely the beginnings of toxic epidermal necrolysis.

On the other hand there are things that people are less concerned about than they should be, and coming from a pharmaceutical point of view one of the biggies is paracetamol (aka acetaminophen, aka Tylenol). It's very safe if you stick to the max dose, but I have lost count of the number of my patients who have taken like 20 tabs in 24h because they had toothache or a sore head. Straight to hospital for all sorts of blood tests!

This isn't as exciting as the other comments, but it happens so often it's hard not to mention! I am always surprised when patients are very worried about minor constipation. If having a bowel movement once every 2-3 days is normal for you, that's okay! You are not "unhealthy". There are some exceptions, especially in acute situations, but generally if you aren't experiencing any discomfort then there is no reason to stress!

Before I ever went to nursing school I went to the doctor for this strange, firm nodule in my right groin, near my bikini line. It had been there for awhile and I was paranoid... What if it was cancer or something?

He felt it and then asked me if there were any others. (He must have been amused at this point.) I said, "Actually, I can feel another on the other side, too." It turns out, I had located my inguinal lymph nodes. They were perfectly normal, but most people don't notice them unless they happen to be thin and can feel them under the skin.