10 Medical Symptoms Women Shouldn't Ignore (But Probably Are)

It can be all too easy to ignore or put off caring for our own needs. Women are remarkably skilled at this particular form of self-neglect—we'll cancel doctor's appointments to attend parent-teacher conferences, ignore concerning symptoms until they interfere with our ability to perform for others, and dismiss physical discomfort as "probably nothing" until it becomes categorically undeniable.

But here's the thing about your body: it's not being dramatic. When something feels wrong, it usually is wrong. The question is whether you're willing to acknowledge it before it graduates from "fixable inconvenience" to "why didn't you come in sooner?"

As an integrative functional medicine physician and medical director at SF Advanced Health in San Francisco, Dr. Payal Bhandari has identified the symptoms women most commonly try to ignore—and the potentially serious conditions they might indicate. Some are obvious (dangerously high fever, constant vomiting, excruciating pain). Others are easier to rationalize away, especially when they're embarrassing to discuss or seem too vague to warrant medical attention.

If you're experiencing any of these symptoms, consider this your permission slip to take them seriously. Your body is communicating. The least you can do is listen.

1. Changes in Bowel Movements or Habits

Everyone has their own digestive rhythm. Maybe you're a coffee-triggers-everything person, or you operate on a precise schedule you could set a clock by. Whatever your normal is, you know when it shifts.

The changes worth worrying about: unusual and persistent constipation, ongoing diarrhea, the feeling that you can never fully empty your bowels, or seeing blood in your stool.¹ These aren't just inconvenient—they're your digestive system waving a red flag.

Why We Ignore It

Because talking about bowel movements feels awkward, even with doctors who've literally seen everything. We wait until symptoms impact our daily lives or cause major discomfort before admitting something might be wrong.

What It Could Mean

Changes in bowel patterns can indicate dehydration, underlying digestive issues like IBS or IBD, food intolerances, or a buildup of toxic waste in the colon.² They can also signal referred pain from a urinary tract infection, anatomical changes like a cystocele (when your bladder drops into your vagina), or uterine fibroids applying pressure on your colon.³

Sudden weight fluctuations can also indicate digestive dysfunction—when your stomach, liver, or colon are struggling, they can't properly digest proteins and starches, leading to toxic metabolite buildup that affects everything from brain function to disease risk.⁴

2. Unexplained Weight Fluctuations

If you suddenly find yourself losing or gaining weight without changing your diet or activity level, pay attention. Our bodies are designed to use food for energy and burn extra calories through daily activities—major fluctuations aren't "just how bodies work."⁵

The Gradual Creep

Sometimes weight changes happen slowly over weeks and months. You might only notice when your clothes fit differently. This can be normal if you've gradually shifted eating patterns or activity levels without conscious effort.

But other times, sudden weight changes indicate your digestive system is no longer functioning properly. When your stomach, liver, or colon are compromised, they can't digest nutrients correctly—and those toxic metabolites can trigger serious conditions including cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, or autoimmune disorders.⁶

3. Chronic Fatigue or Tiredness

An overloaded schedule might be the first thing you blame when exhaustion hits, but severe tiredness—especially sudden-onset or prolonged—can signal something more serious than needing better time management.⁷

How It Creeps Up

Fatigue often develops so gradually that even people who see you daily might not notice. You lose interest in things, become more withdrawn, focus only on bare-minimum tasks. You crave sugar, caffeine, processed carbs, and meat—anything to provide that extra push to keep functioning.

What's Really Happening

Gradual fatigue can indicate poor vascular circulation or lymphatic congestion tied to inadequate toxin clearance. Possible culprits include liver or kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, or cancer.⁸

Acute fatigue often signals immune or digestive system distress—your body working overtime to compensate for major microbiome imbalances, nutrient deficiencies (iron, B12, folate), hormonal imbalances, or sympathetic nervous system overstimulation.⁹

Fatigue can also be the only symptom of a UTI, which is why so many women miss the connection between exhaustion and bladder infection.¹⁰

4. Shortness of Breath

By itself, shortness of breath doesn't usually drive people to seek medical attention unless it's severe. We assume it's due to lack of exercise. But when you're unusually winded going up stairs or carrying out the trash, that's worth investigating.¹¹

The Mistake We Make

We think we need another symptom paired with shortness of breath before visiting a doctor—chest pain, persistent cough, something definitive. But shortness of breath alone deserves attention, especially because it develops so slowly that we adjust to it without recognizing the problem.¹²

What Could Be Wrong

Shortness of breath can indicate cardiovascular or lung disease. Smokers often dismiss it because they know smoking causes breathing issues—and so we rationalize symptoms instead of addressing them.

Pay special attention if you also experience chest pressure, back or jaw pain, temperature intolerance, or persistent nausea. These could signal a pending heart attack or stroke—the leading cause of death in women.¹³

Shortness of breath can also accompany gastroesophageal reflux, where the only symptom is an unrelenting cough or mild breathlessness. Left untreated, this can damage bronchial tubes and lungs, increasing cancer risk.¹⁴

5. Recurring Headaches

If you're not typically a headache person and suddenly start having them regularly, something's wrong. We tend not to seek care until headaches interrupt daily life—but why wait?¹⁵

The Real Issue

Headaches literally mean your cellular mitochondria (the power generators inside cells) can't produce sufficient energy relative to demand. Common causes include poor oxygen and water delivery to cells, blood acidity, dehydration, and excess cellular death.¹⁶

The Food Connection

Over 85% of headaches are associated with underlying food sensitivities.¹⁷ The biggest offenders:

• Caffeinated beverages (coffee, black tea, soda, hot chocolate)
• Cheese and dairy products (sour cream, buttermilk, yogurt)
• Meat, poultry, fish
• Alcohol (red wine, beer, whiskey, scotch, champagne)
• Wheat and yeast-containing items (fresh bread, donuts, rolls)
• MSG-containing products (soy sauce, meat tenderizer, processed Asian foods)—often disguised as monopotassium glutamate, autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed protein, or sodium caseinate
• Aspartame and artificial sweeteners

Long-term consumption of these insulters can eventually kill brain and nerve cells, creating full-blown toxic inflammatory reactions in the central and peripheral nervous systems. This damages cognitive function and vision while increasing risk for brain tumors, seizures, MS, ALS, Parkinson's, and dementia.¹⁸

Other major triggers include chronic intracellular dehydration, shallow breathing patterns, insufficient mental rest, chronic sleep deprivation, and excessive screen time causing overtired, overwired brains.

6. Pain During Sex

Is intimacy no longer enjoyable? Pain during sex can stem from multiple issues, but one major culprit is chronic intracellular dehydration causing vaginal dryness—especially common during hormonal shifts like ovulation, menopause, pregnancy, and postpartum.¹⁹

When Dryness Becomes Damage

Long-term dryness can lead to localized ulcers, cracks, burning, or intense itching that interferes with intercourse. Other causes include yeast infections, UTIs secondary to microbiome imbalances, or localized trauma from childbirth, accidents, or surgery.²⁰

Stress and psychological distress can also cause spontaneous tightening of vaginal wall muscles and prevent adequate lubrication—a physical response to emotional states that deserves acknowledgment and treatment, not dismissal.²¹

7. Strong, Persistent Urge to Urinate

If you're accustomed to holding your bladder comfortably and suddenly feel a strong, persistent urge to urinate, something's changed.²²

The Obvious vs. The Concerning

Sometimes this is simple: you drank a ton of fluids and your bladder is full. But other times, it indicates an underlying UTI, anatomical changes to the genitourinary tract (cystocele, fibroids), weakened pelvic floor muscles linked to poor posture and breathing, or a damaged parasympathetic nervous system unable to control bladder function properly.²³

This can signal infection anywhere throughout the genitourinary tract triggering an intense inflammatory response—which is why it's important to seek care if you're experiencing any type of associated pain or discomfort.²⁴

8. Burning Sensation When Urinating

When the urethra (the tube running from bladder to vaginal opening) becomes irritated, it causes a burning sensation during urination—medically called urethritis.²⁵ This can indicate infection anywhere in the genitourinary tract, triggering intense inflammation. The acidic urine passing through may contain damaged red blood cells from bladder and urethral walls, appearing as bright red droplets in urine.

The Non-Infectious Causes

Urethritis can also result from exposure to irritants like scented soaps, lotions, douching, and spermicides—or from physical damage due to vigorous sex, masturbation, or medical procedures like catheter insertion.²⁶

Either way, burning during urination isn't something to "wait out" or assume will resolve on its own. It's your body's alarm system, and it's functioning exactly as designed.

9. Incomplete Bladder Emptying

If you've thought you completely emptied your bladder only to find yourself trickling more urine afterward, something's wrong.²⁷

Acute vs. Chronic

In acute settings, incomplete emptying often indicates UTI—especially if accompanied by cloudy urine or pink, red, or cola-colored urine suggesting blood. In chronic cases, it might be caused by kidney stones, nerve damage to the genitourinary tract, urethral strictures, or anatomical pelvic floor changes leading to dysfunction.²⁸

The seriousness correlates with persistence. Occasional incomplete emptying after drinking large amounts of fluid is different from daily struggles to fully void your bladder.

10. Strong-Smelling Urine

If your urine suddenly has a peculiarly strong smell, the most common cause is simple dehydration. When you haven't been drinking enough water, urine appears dark yellow and smells foul.²⁹

The Dietary Offenders

Other times, smelly urine results from consuming what Dr. Bhandari calls "the top kidney offenders": asparagus (contains asparagusic acid causing sulfur smell), fish (full of chemical compounds that damage kidney cells), and garlic and onions (overstimulate the nervous system and are difficult for the colon to digest).³⁰

Medical Causes

Certain medications cause smelly urine, particularly sulfa-containing drugs like:

• Sulfonamide antibiotics (Bactrim, commonly used for UTIs)
• Diabetes medications (Diabeta, Glynase)
• Rheumatoid arthritis medications (Azulfidine)

Medical conditions associated with foul-smelling urine include vaginal, urethral, or bladder infections (UTIs, yeast infections, STDs). Major microbiome imbalances—especially between beneficial and pathogenic gut bacteria—lead to toxic methane gas overproduction, shifting microbial balance throughout your body.³¹

In the genitourinary tract, this imbalance causes poor toxin clearance, decreased urine pH (increased acidity), and localized irritation presenting as foul-smelling urine, urinary frequency, discomfort, urgency, pain, or excess vaginal discharge.³²

Listen to Your Intuition (Yes, Really)

If you're experiencing symptoms that don't feel quite right, trust that instinct. You know your body better than anyone else, including well-meaning doctors who see you for seven minutes twice a year. You can sense when something's wrong, even if you can't articulate exactly what or why.

Seeking care early ensures the best possible outcome. Serious illness doesn't spontaneously resolve—the sooner you get treatment, the better your chances for positive outcomes.³³

So if you've been experiencing any of these symptoms for too long and they seem to be escalating or refusing to resolve, contact your doctor. Not next month. Not when it becomes "bad enough" to justify the appointment. Now.

A Note on UTIs and When to Seek Immediate Care

At Good Kitty, we need to be crystal clear: if you suspect you have a UTI or any medical concern, speak with a medical professional immediately. UTIs can escalate quickly and even become life-threatening if bacteria travel to your kidneys.³⁴

While we're passionate about UTI prevention and supporting your body's natural defenses, we're not doctors—and we legally can't advise anything other than seeking professional medical care for active infections or concerning symptoms.

Prevention is our specialty. Treatment is your doctor's. Both matter.

The Good Kitty Approach to Prevention

We created Good Kitty because women deserve products that work with their bodies' natural defenses—supplements that support your microbiome, bladder health, and urinary tract ecosystem before problems develop.

Because the best time to address recurring UTIs isn't during the infection. It's during the months between them, when you have the opportunity to strengthen your body's natural resistance and break the cycle entirely.

Your body isn't trying to sabotage you. It's trying to protect you. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is listen.

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