Medical Professionals Reveal Their Most Bizarre And Stomach-Churning Encounters With Patients
No one really likes having to go to the doctor. Most often, doctor visits only arise when something is seriously wrong or that dreaded yearly check-up comes around. Some doctors have even revealed the most bizarre ways patients have tried treating themselves in lieu of going to the doctor. While most patients hope to hear only good news from their doctor, we rarely ask ourselves, What's the craziest thing a doctor has ever seen or heard from a patient?
In the below list, a group of doctors and nurses on Reddit shared both humorous and horrifying stories about tending to patients in the ER or at standard checkups. The number of people who forget to mention they're on medication or fail to admit they have a diagnosed illness may be shocking. This will make you think twice about being dishonest with your doctor, to say the least.
The Man With Smelly Feet Whose Big Toe Fell Off In The Doctor's Office
From Redditor /u/Gregorian_R*nts:
My aunt is a family doctor so patients come to her with symptoms and she directs them towards a specialist based on her diagnosis. One day an elderly husband and wife came into her office and when asked why they had come in, the wife responded, 'his foot has been smelling for a while and I finally convinced him to come have it looked at.'
My aunt, not hard of smelling, concurred that his foot stunk. She asked him to remove his shoe and sock. When he removed his sock, the bone from his big toe fell out of his toe and onto the ground. Turned out he had a very bad case of gangrene that had eaten away the flesh of his toe. He knew something was wrong but was stubborn and didn't get it checked sooner. And my big toe hurts now after typing this.
The Woman Who Superglued Her Privates Shut
From Redditor /u/Raincoats_George:
Female patient presented to the emergency department with severe vaginal pain. The patient informed the nurse she had wanted to get 'one of those IUDs' so she couldn't get pregnant but couldn't afford it. So she did the next best thing. She put superglue into her [lady parts] and tried to seal off her cervix. Oddly enough it was causing significant irritation.
The Patient Who Thought He Had Dynamite Inside Him
From Redditor /u/Nitrous737:
Not a doctor, but when I was working as a med tech in the ER, We had a male patient ~75yo come in with an extraordinarily low blood pressure (think 70/40) and a ton of facial and upper body [discoloration]. He was brought in via EMS after the nurses at his nursing home found him on the floor in his room, where notably there was some blood on the wall. The guy wouldn't talk to us regarding why he was there, but was very talkative in terms of pretty much anything else (sports, the news, etc). We couldn't for the life of us figure out what happened since we couldn't find any bleeding internally, his fluid levels were fine, and he had not left the nursing home (so there was nothing available for a high mechanism of [ailment]).
We eventually were able to get him talking (after 4 hours), and he confessed that he had wanted to [end his life] and had taken the remaining amount of his prescribed nitroglycerin (used for chest pain; lowers your blood pressure rather quickly. Nitro is also the active ingredient in dynamite, but the amount in the pills is minuscule compared to what's in dynamite) and had tried to blow himself up by running into the wall repeatedly. He was a really nice guy that sent a card to us after everything; he was just extremely lonely.
The Guy Who Took Crack Before Swearing He'd Never Done Drugs
From Redditor /u/glumapple:
I admitted a guy for pneumonia, which was odd because he was young and strapping, no other medical issues, X-ray didn't look quite right. The pieces just didn't add up and so I started questioning him more closely.
Me: Do you use any drugs?
Patient: Drugs! That's disgusting. I'm no f*cking [addict]! I've never touched [them] in my life.I move on to other questions and suddenly:
Patient: Look, doc, I just want you to know I may have used [coke] once or twice years and years ago. I just snorted it though. That wouldn't cause this, right?
Me: How long ago?
Patient: Like ten years, maybe longer.
Me: It shouldn't be affecting you after this long.
Patient: More like five.
Me: Years?
Patient: Uh, like five months ago.This goes on forever, until he admits he just got off a massive crack binge the day before, where he spent the past three days in a hotel with some 'loose women' [lighting up] crack non-stop. He finishes with: 'But I don't want you to think I'm one of those dirty dr*ggies.'
No, I think you're the idiot who lied and was getting treated for pneumonia instead of getting the proper treatment for crack lung, which is what he had.
Here's a tip: I genuinely don't care. I'm not your momma, your spouse, or your priest. Don't waste my time and endanger your health spewing bullsh*t. Whatever horrible twisted thing you think is too shameful to talk about, I promise you, I've seen worse.
The Woman With A Deceased Turtle Inside Of Her Privates
From Redditor /u/Cmonster194:
This is probably the weirdest one I've ever heard: An old woman came into the ER with a high fever, abdominal pain, dizziness, etc. She's showing signs of toxic shock syndrome (like when you leave a tampon in too long) so the doctor decides to check the woman to make sure nothing got stuck up there.
Sure enough, she looks up there and half sh*ts her pants when she sees two beady little eyes staring back at her! The doctor begins to pull it out to which the old woman responds, 'put it back!' Turns out the old woman (well past menopause) had gone to a bad witch doctor to help her get pregnant. Her recommendation: put a (now [deceased]) turtle up there for a few days and she'd regain the ability to get pregnant.
The Teen Girl Who Was 9 Months Pregnant But Swore She Was A Virgin
From a deleted Redditor:
My mother (the medical professional of our family) had a 13-year-old girl who was 9 months pregnant, in the midst of labor, dilated to 10cm and crowning in the emergency triage swearing until she was black and blue that she was a virgin and that nobody knew what they were talking about. Her mother stood on the sidelines causing a commotion demanding a real doctor make an appearance. Let's just say when the twins made an appearance ten minutes later they were all singing a different tune.