8 Phrases That Will Instantly Get Your Doctor’s Attention

Doctors don’t just examine bodies—they also decode language. And some words and phrases make them lean in, ask more questions, and rethink what might be going on.

A clear, detailed conversation with a patient “gets you 80% there on a diagnosis,” says Dr. Robert Biernbaum, chief medical officer at WellNow Urgent Care, which has locations in five states. “That’s how important words are. They’re the most important thing we do in adult medicine.”

There’s no need to use medical jargon you picked up while Googling your symptoms, he adds. If a patient informs him they think they have pneumococcal pneumonia, for example, that sets the diagnostic process back: He has to start over and ask them why they think that. The most helpful language is honest and specific, and focuses on change over time and day-to-day impact, Biernbaum adds.

We asked doctors which phrases always catch their attention—and why.

“This has been going on for months”

When you’re describing symptoms to your doctor, it’s key to include how long they’ve been going on. You might use a word like “persistent,” says Dr. James Tacci, president-elect of the American College of Preventive Medicine. His patients commonly phrase things like this: “I thought it was going to go away but it didn’t,” or “I didn’t want to bother you at first, but it’s still here.”

“The fact that any abnormality is persistent makes it more than trivial,” he says. “It makes it more than transient. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad, or that it’s going to be significant clinical findings, but it means it’s something that needs to be addressed.”

“My symptoms are getting worse”

If doctors hear words like “worsening” or “progressive,” they’re going to flag it. Both terms signal that a condition isn’t stabilizing or improving—and may require faster intervention or a different approach.

Read More: 10 Questions You Should Always Ask at Doctors’ Appointments

“Modern life has trained people to downplay their symptoms,” says Dr. Nicholas Cozzi, an emergency physician and EMS medical director at Rush University Medical Center. “Social media frames illness as weakness or inconvenience.” But minimizing how you feel can delay care. Being honest about worsening symptoms helps clinicians gauge urgency and respond appropriately, he says.

“I had to stop doing X”

One of the most important things doctors want to know is how much symptoms are changing your daily life. Biernbaum is especially alert to phrases like “interfering with sleep,” “can’t work,” “can’t eat,” “can’t walk,” and “I had to stop doing X.”

“When people start saying things like, ‘I haven’t missed a day of work in five years and I had to call in because I can’t work because the pain is too bad,’ you listen,” he says. It’s a powerful way of assessing severity, he adds, and often triggers a more thorough evaluation.

“This is more severe than the last migraine I had”

Doctors often ask patients to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 10—but those numbers don’t always tell the whole story. “Everyone’s pain threshold is different,” says Dr. Adam Stracher, chief medical officer and director of primary care at Weill Cornell Medicine. Instead, he wants patients to describe how this pain stacks up against what they’ve felt before. “If patients have headaches all the time, but usually they’re a 4 or 5, and this is a 10,” that’s a more meaningful comparison, he says. It signals a change from the baseline—and raises concern that something different may be going on.

“I had a sudden change in strength”

The word “sudden” signals that the timeline has shifted in an important way, often prompting more urgent questions and testing. Stracher pays particular attention to phrases like these: “sudden loss of vision,” “sudden shortness of breath,” “sudden change in strength,” and “sudden abdominal pain.” 

“The sudden, acute onset of anything gives us a higher level of suspicion” that something urgent is wrong, he says.

“I’m short of breath”

There’s a set of symptoms that immediately register as warning signs in Biernbaum’s mind. Among them: “short of breath,” “fainting,” “weakness,” “numbness,” “vision changes,” “unintentional weight loss,” and “blood.” These elevate concern because they’re linked to high-risk diagnoses, he says, which means they often call for faster work-ups or referrals.

When he hears this kind of complaint, Biernbaum asks targeted follow-ups: “You’ve been complaining your foot is numb. When does that happen? Is it all the time? Has it gotten progressively worse?” Or: “Are you short of breath now? How did you get here? Were you able to walk in?”

“We have to ask those questions because when people bring out those red-flag symptoms, we really need to understand what it means to them,” he says. Someone who says they’re short of breath and had to be helped into the clinic, for example, raises a very different level of concern than someone who parked three blocks away and still managed to breeze in.

“I have sharp chest pain that worsens with exertion and improves with rest”

A helpful rule of thumb: Precision beats vagueness. Providers respond most strongly to clear, concrete descriptions, Biernbaum says, rather than broad statements like you’ve never felt worse in your life.

“When people don’t feel good—including myself—we can bring drama into the conversation,” he says. But doctors need specifics about timing, triggers, and symptoms to make the best decisions. For example, telling your provider that your fever jumped to 103.4 overnight and you have a deep cough immediately changes how they think about what could be going on. “Now it’s going from a cold to, could this be pneumonia?” he says. “Very precise descriptions are so important for us to get to the bottom of something.”

“I have a family history of X.”

Your family medical history might be recorded in your patient portal. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your doctor read every line—or that he remembers your dad had a heart attack at 52 or your grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 40s.