The 10 most common reasons for visiting a doctor

Ever wonder why the doctor's office or urgent care is always so busy?  I thought it would be interesting to look at the most common chief complaints that patients present with at their doctor's visit.  I left out things such as "physical exam" and "prenatal exam" because those will obviously be significantly more common than medical problems.  According to the CDC, the most common chief complaints for which individuals saw a physician in 2008 were:

• Cough
• Symptoms referable to sore throat
• High blood pressure
• Knee symptoms
• Fever
• Skin Rash
• Abdominal pain
• Back symptoms
• Visual problems
• Earaches

To put the first two symptoms in perspective, it's interesting to look at the total number of visits for those complaints.  Cough accounted for over 26 million visits and sore throat accounted for over 17 million visits.  Of course these two conditions can also be attributed to things such as acid reflux, emphysema, smoker's cough, etc.  However, the majority of them are due to the common cold.  We also know that 90% of all colds are caused by viruses and resolve by themselves with symptomatic treatment that does not involve antibiotics.  So the next time you catch a cold, give it some time to resolve.  The guy with high blood pressure and knee pain thanks you.