What may increase your risk of developing a problem from a nervous system symptom?
Many conditions, lifestyle choices, medicines, and diseases interfere with your ability to heal or fight infection. You may be at risk for a more serious problem from your symptoms if you have any of the following. Be sure to tell your health professional.
Conditions
- Age older than 60
- Anxiety
- Depression
- History of repeated concussions or head injuries, such as with football or boxing
- Pregnancy
- Previous brain surgery
- Previous serious head injury that required hospital admission or caused unconsciousness for longer than 5 minutes
- Problem that has been present since birth (congenital problem)
Lifestyle choices
- Alcohol abuse or withdrawal
- Drug abuse or withdrawal
- Smoking or other tobacco use
Medicines
- Blood-thinning medicines, such as warfarin (Coumadin), enoxaparin (Lovenox), heparin, and ASA
- Corticosteroids, such as prednisone or dexamethasone
- Medicines to prevent organ transplant rejection
- Medicines used to treat cancer (chemotherapy)
- Radiation therapy
Diseases
- Alzheimer's disease
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
- Anemia
- Brain tumour
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Heart disease
- Hemophilia
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection
- Huntington's disease
- Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP)
- Kidney disease
- Liver disease
- Lupus
- Ménière's disease or other diseases of the ear
- Multiple sclerosis
- Parkinson's disease
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Seizure disorder
- Stroke or transient ischemia attack (TIA)
- Thyroid disease
- Vascular disease
| Author: | Jan Nissl, RN, BS | Last Updated: February 7, 2008 |
| Medical Review: | William M. Green, MD - Emergency Medicine H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine | |
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