Urgent Care Clinic or Emergency Room? Stomach Pain
At one point or the other, everyone has experienced stomach pain, which is also referred to as abdominal pain in other circles. Most of the time stomach pain may just be uncomfortable while other instances it may be quite severe. This wide spectrum when it comes to stomach pain means that while stomach pain caused by minor things such as bloating, constipation among others may be uncomfortable, they aren’t what may be termed as medical emergencies and as such they can be treated at home through the help of over-the-counter medications and home remedies. On the flip side, there are instances of stomach pain that ought to be taken seriously as it is usually indicative of something more sinister. Such cases require medical attention, either at an urgent care clinic, or at an emergency room for the medical emergencies, with frontlineer.com being the best around as far as this is concerned. To ensure that you receive the medical attention the condition you are in that is causing the stomach pain deserves, it is important you know when to head over to an urgent care clinic and when to visit an emergency room, something this article will look to assist with by highlighting when one should visit either of the two for stomach pain.
Let us first take a look at the scenarios where a visit to an urgent care clinic will suffice as stomach pain is concerned. Urinary tract infections, UTIs, are quite common and are known to cause stomach pain as one of the symptoms. if you have a urinary tract infection, then you should head to an urgent care clinic where you should be able to be diagnosed and treated by being prescribed antibiotics that should help clear it up. If the stomach pain is due to menstrual cramps, then if they are severe you can head over to an urgent care clinic where you can be prescribed pain medication to help with the pain. There are additional conditions that can be comfortably be handled at an urgent care clinic, and they include gastroenteritis, indigestion, acid reflux, food poisoning among others, all of which are covered in great detail over at the ever reliable frontlineer.com. Most of the time, the stomach pain is accompanied by other symptoms, and as a rule of thumb it is recommended that only cases with minor symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting be handled in an urgent care clinic, with the more serious symptoms being a sign you should head to an emergency room.
Some of these more serious additional symptoms is if your stomach pain is accompanied by tightness in the chest and difficulty breathing. It is always recommended that if you exhibit any symptoms that are affecting your breathing, then you should head over to an emergency room as soon as you can. Pregnant women should also be on the lookout for stomach pain and should treat it as a matter of urgency, and head to an emergency room, if they are experiencing stomach pain as well as vaginal bleeding. Blood in you stool accompanied by stomach pain, with the stool having a tarry or black appearance or if it has blood in it, then you should also head over to an emergency room as soon as you can. Other red flags include if the stomach pain comes on suddenly, is unexplained and severe as well as if you are experiencing high fever with it, as per the experts over at frontlineer.com. Those who have undergone certain medical procedure like an endoscopy, abdomen surgery as well as those with a history of certain medical conditions such as heart attacks, heart diseases, stroke or gastric bypass surgery should also head over to an emergency room as soon as they can if they start experiencing stomach pain.
There are a number of reasons where most cases of stomach pain, apart from the minor ones as discussed above are treated in an emergency room and not an urgent care clinic. One of the reasons is that one can get treated with IV fluids in an ER, something that isn’t available in an urgent care clinic. IV fluids are important as far as stomach pain is concerned as they can be used to treat dehydration in cases where the stomach pain is accompanied by severe vomiting and diarrhea. They can also be a means to administer antibiotics. Emergency rooms also have testing facilities to carry out testing such as blood testing and imaging testing such as an ultrasound and CAT scan that help with diagnosis, something lacking in urgent care clinics. This are some of the reasons why the more severe cases of stomach pain should be taken to an emergency room, with frontlineer.com being the cream of the crop, rather than an urgent care clinic.
Hopefully, this article can come in handy when deciding when to visit an urgent care clinic and when to head over to an emergency room for stomach pain, with more on the same to be found over at frontlineer.com.
