It’s never a fun thing to be sick. If you’ve got a fever for example, chances are you feel disoriented, uncomfortable and just not like your normal self. If you’ve got something more serious going on, you’re probably scared and wondering how you can make things better.
When you’re dealing with a medical issue, you might automatically think of heading to the emergency room. But before you try and seek emergency room care, consider the following medical aliments and whether or not any of them apply to you.
- Feelings of fainting or dizziness
- Feelings of sudden numbness or weakness
- Bleeding that you’re not able to stop
- Bloody urine or bloody diarrhea
- A severe headache which can’t be relieved with over-the-counter aspirin
- Coughing or vomiting blood
- Chest pains
- Any sort of breathing difficulty such as wheezing or shortness of breath
- Intense, localized abdominal pain
- Confusion or any severe changes in your mental status
If any of these apply to you, don’t hesitate to visit the ER. When it comes to your health, you don’t want to take chances. If something doesn’t feel right, get in immediately before the problem escalates.
The symptoms and conditions mentioned above are just a few of the scenarios in which you could find yourself in need of an ER trip. If any of them apply, go to the ER without a second thought. But be mindful when you’re self-diagnosing. If you’ve got an easily remedied issue and decide to make a trip to the ER, you could be in for a long wait and a big bill, all while still being uncomfortable.
So what happens if you’ve got a less severe problem that requires medical attention? Instead of making a trip to the ER or emergency room care, you can visit an urgent care location.
An urgent care clinic is a type of walk-in clinic that will get you in to see a doctor faster and can treat many types of non life-threatening aliments. That’s a big reason why more than three million people visit urgent care locations around the United States each week for a variety of treatments.
The list of symptoms the average urgent care facility can treat continues to grow by the year. These days, it’s hard to find something that the average urgent care location doesn’t treat. As of now, an urgent care location can treat people for sexually transmitted diseases, muscle strain, dizziness, ear inflections, sprains, common sports injuries and many other things.
Some of them might vary in the services they offer, but when it comes to urgent care facilities what all of them offer is a quicker and more cost-effective way to treat a number of common, everyday medical ailments much faster than if you visited an ER. This saves you time, money and a great deal of hassle.
You’ll also get in a lot faster to see a doctor when you go to an urgent care location. More than half of urgent care facilities around the United States have a wait time of less than 15 minutes and most of them have a physician on site at all times to treat patients.
Urgent care centers stay open longer too. Most are open until at least 7 p.m. on weekdays and some are even open until 9 p.m. or later. Depending on where you live, you may find urgent care facilities that open prior to 9 a.m. and are open on weekends, which works better for a busy schedule.
If you’ve got a life-threatening issue, please do what’s best for your health and visit the emergency room. You don’t roll the dice on your health just to save money or time. Emergency room doctors play an important role in medical care and if you’re suffering from a severe injury or something like food poisoning, they’re the ones you need to see. Don’t wait.
But for non life-threatening injuries and common, easily-treatable symptoms and conditions, an urgent care clinic can save you time and money while getting rid of your discomfort much faster.
