Common health-related complaints

Patients visit medical or dental practitioners seeking diagnosis and treatment for their symptoms and signs of ill health. Based on a patient's presenting complaint, the clinician should be able to form an opinion on the underlying cause of the health problem. In this chapter, some commonly reported complaints are briefly discussed. These include headache, nasal discharge and stuffiness, chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath and breathlessness (dyspnoea), cough, difficulty in swallowing (dysphagia), indigestion, nausea and vomiting, bloody stools (melaena), constipation, diarrhoea, jaundice, burning sensation on urination, blood in the urine (haematuria), fever, fatigue or tiredness, dizziness/vertigo, hearing loss, significant increase in the volume of urine (polyuria), seizures and tremors, blood stained sputum (haemoptysis) and vomiting blood (haemetemesis).