Call your doctor or visit urgent care if your temperature is over 103 °F (39 °C). [5] X Trustworthy Source Cleveland Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source
You may just feel a general achiness across your body, or you may feel a specific ache in a specific muscle.
This symptom can indicate a number of conditions, but you should visit the doctor anyway if you notice you’re losing weight without wanting to.
For instance, maybe you feel like you’ve just been dragging your feet around for weeks, like you don’t have any energy at all.
Purpura can be small, purple pinpricks or large patches. While “burst blood vessels” may sound disconcerting, the spots themselves usually aren’t harmful. Mouth ulcers are small sore spots that usually appear on your gums or cheeks. [12] X Trustworthy Source National Health Service (UK) Public healthcare system of the UK Go to source Blood spots may also appear in your urine.
If you’re having severe trouble breathing, definitely go to the emergency room. You may even cough up blood. [14] X Research source If you do, call your doctor. If the bleeding won’t stop, visit the emergency room. [15] X Trustworthy Source Cleveland Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source
In addition, you may feel shooting pains in your limbs.
Bring a list of your symptoms with you. Note when you experience them and how often. That way, you have the list on hand when your doctor asks about symptoms, and you won’t forget anything.
The doctor will be looking for unusual levels of blood cells and/or protein in your urine.
Typically, the doctor will be checking if you have enough red blood cells, as well as look for certain antibodies that indicate different types of vasculitis. Your doctor may also run a blood culture, check kidney function, screen for drug use, and look for conditions like Lyme disease and hepatitis.
A skin biopsy is a relatively simple outpatient procedure. The doctor will give you local anesthesia and apply a couple of stitches when done. Other biopsies, such as kidney, sural nerve, and temporal artery, are still done under local anesthesia, but they may require a short hospital stay. The most complicated biopsies are the lungs and brain, which will almost definitely involve a hospital stay if you need them done. Your doctor will only order a biopsy of these organs if they think you have a type of vasculitis that warrants it. They may also use these biopsies to rule out other diseases.
Common imaging tests for this condition include an abdominal ultrasound, chest x-ray, and a full-body MRI or CAT scan. [23] X Trustworthy Source National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Research and education center within the National Institutes of Health Go to source Generally, these tests are external, meaning they don’t require anesthesia or incisions.
Doctors perform echocardiograms in different ways, depending on the technology they’re using, such as Doppler or ultrasound. Typically, these procedures are non-invasive, though you may need a transesophageal echocardiogram. In that case, a flexible tube will be fed down your throat so that doctors can get a more direct image of your heart. [25] X Trustworthy Source Cleveland Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source
This process gives the doctor a complete picture of your blood vessels. Typically, they are looking for aneurysms, where a small part of your blood vessel pouches out a little. The presence of aneurysms can indicate Polyarteritis Nodosa, a type of vasculitis.
