Is it nothing, or could it kill you?  Posted Feb. 14, 2013, at
1:06 p.m. Erik Steele Erik Steele  If patient symptoms were
bees, a typical day as a family doctor would produce an entire
hive swarming around my head. Bleeding, bloating, belly pain,
back pain, chest pain, chunks of something coughed up,
discomfort, fatigue, fever, limp, lump, ringing, tingling, weird
smell, weird taste, weakness and wonkiness are but a few of the
problems my patients and I must sort through.  The challenge of
distinguishing buzzing that’s a bother from buzzing that’s a
brain tumor is what sometimes makes our work scarier than
crashing a convention of killer bees. Every one of those
complaints could be caused by a problem that’s trivial, or one
that could ultimately kill the patient.  Take dizziness — is it
just an irritated inner ear, or is it the warning sign of an
impending stroke? Diagnostic dilemmas require a decision in the
exam room as to whether it should be pursued, ignored or watched
carefully over time. That requires