Urgent Care Clinic or Emergency Room? Stroke
As far as causes of death go, according to the facts and figures by experts including the subject matter experts over at frontlineer.com, stroke is the 4th leading cause of death currently in the United States. A stroke, in a nutshell, occurs when the flow of blood to part of your brain is interrupted or cut off. Given blood is the medium through which oxygen is transported, when this happens, it means that your brain won’t be able to get oxygen, which implies that brain cells will begin to get damaged within minutes. This, as can be expected, is quite serious and in most cases even if someone survives a stroke, they are left with permanent damage and impairment depending on how serious the stroke was. This includes such things as loss of vision, memory problems as well as paralysis and weakness in one side of the body. This highlights the importance of both fast recognition as well as treatment as far as stroke goes. This article will therefore look to highlight the symptoms to look out for as far as stroke is concerned to ensure that one gets emergency treatment as soon as possible.
Given the serious nature of a stroke, it is advisable that one heads straight to an emergency room and not an urgent care clinic when they begin to present with symptoms of a stroke. This is because an urgent care clinic isn’t equipped both in terms of qualified and experienced personnel as well as in terms of equipment, to deal with cases of stroke. As it is covered over at the ever reliable frontlineer.com by subject matter experts, urgent care clinics shouldn’t be used for any sort of medical emergency that could lead to permanent damage or is life-threatening, a category in which stroke falls squarely in. this applies to cases of transient ischemic attacks, which are also referred to as minor strokes, which should also be handled in an emergency room. This is because these minor strokes can most of the time lead to full-blown strokes if not attended to well and in a timely manner.
Having established that there is no home treatment for a stroke and that strokes are emergencies better handled at an emergency room, with the best option out there being over at frontlineer.com, and not at an urgent care clinic, it is time to highlight some of the symptoms and warning signs as far as strokes are concerned. One of the key signs that you may be suffering from a stroke is that one side of your face droops. You can check of one of your eyelids or one side of your mouth is drooping, if so you should rush to an ER as soon as possible. Another clear red flag that you may be suffering from a stroke is if you are having trouble speaking. If you are slurring your words when you speak or you find your speech strange, then chances are you are having a stroke and should visit an emergency room as soon as possible. If you start experiencing weakness in your arms or legs, on one or both sides of your body, you should head over to an emergency room pronto for stroke. Other symptoms include dizzy spells, issues with coordination, as well as loss of consciousness. A severe, unexplained headache can also be another sign of a stroke given that hemorrhagic strokes can be quite painful. Problems with your vision, where you may be experiencing difficulty seeing in one or both eyes, can also be indicative of a stroke and as such you should head over to an emergency room as soon as possible to get yourself assessed.
The reason why strokes can only be handled in an emergency room and not an urgent care clinic has more to do with just its emergency nature and its implications. It is also because, unlike an urgent care clinic, an emergency room has the staff and equipment to both diagnose and treat a stroke. Some of the diagnostic tests and equipment available and done in an ER for stroke include blood tests to test for your blood’s testing capabilities, use of a CT scan to check for damage to your brain due to stroke, MRI imaging to check for brain hemorrhage as well as brain tissue damage, a carotid ultrasound to check if there is buildup of fatty deposits as well as the flow of blood in your carotid arteries which are on your neck and service the brain. Other equipment used include the cerebral angiogram that will give a detailed view of the arteries in your brain and neck as well as an echocardiogram, otherwise known as an echo, which will enable physicians to pinpoint the source of clots in your heart, clots that may have travelled from your heart to your brain and caused the stroke, with more on all of this tests to be found over at frontlineer.com.
Once tests are done, treatment can start in earnest in order to reduce damage to the brain as much as possible. The modes of treatment depend on the type of stroke with some of them including treatment with medication that busts the clots, emergency endovascular procedures, surgical blood vessel repairs and many others covered in great detail by the experts over at frontlineer.com. All of this can only happen when you visit an ER rather than an urgent care clinic for stroke, something we hope comes out clearly from this article.
