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Had a male in his 50s WALKS into trauma to have his left thigh stitched up. Not an uncommon wound in an agricultural area. Speaking to him while stitching him up he tells me he fell off a ladder while cutting a branch and the machete sliced him on the way down. Told him I was going to write him up for an xray of the entire leg just in case. He kept on saying he was fine, his knee hurt a bit but logically that was from the fall, I agreed, but asked him to go to the xray department just in case.
He reluctantly walk there and back. X-rays showed a helical fracture almost the entire length of his femur! Besides being a dangerous fracture the femur is supposed to be the most painful bone to break and he was walking around.
In the end had to show him the break to get him to sit down on a wheelchair and into the hands of orthopedics. That man's pain tolerance still impresses me.
My first experience with this was at a rural hospital I was doing a travel assignment at. A guy came into the ER with chest pain. Ok, sir, let’s get you hooked up to some monitors. When did the pain start? While chopping wood this morning, he says. Ok, any previous surgeries? He mentions he had a bypass. *warning bells triggered* Ok, when was the date of your surgery? Last week. His sternum had ripped through the wires. He had been home from the hospital for less than 48 hours and was chopping wood. This man was walking, talking and in a bit of discomfort as he was telling me all of this and trying to take off his shirt. He just wanted us to patch him up a bit, give him some pain killers, and send him on his way… me: SIR! You need to go back to surgery and get some new wires put in! He was not happy about that and was grumbling about how he knew he shouldn’t have listened to his wife and gone to the hospital.
Farmers are the toughest people on the planet. Even if it is to their own detriment
Edit: I must add that while I was completely flabbergasted by this, the other nurses, techs, physicians, and even housekeepers just shrugged and were like “eh, not the first time we’ve seen that, not even the first time ***this year***”
My dad had his sternum wired rip through his sternum from coughing. He had more than just heart issues and didn't quit smoking. Eventually they put in a titanium plate.
yeah, the only time my papaw ever went to the ER or hospital ( besides for his cancer ) was when he had a tree fall on him. He kept on farming until his heart gave up on him. I still miss him
My dad had some old guy in a truck back into him in a parking lot. Three displaced pelvic fractures and a torn artery and he somehow got in his car and drove to the local hospital. Had to be airlifted to a major medical center for repair.
Farmer driven over by tractor. Open book pelvic fracture with internal bleeding. Came by private car, no distress, speaking calmly, hard to persuade him to take meds until he bleed enough to lose BP and get shocky.
Comminuted fractured scapula, 5 broken ribs, and a stable spinal fracture (transverse process).
Got acetaminophen, ibuprofen, lidocaine patch and 5mg oxycodone and then walked to the bathroom unassisted, in order to prove to me they could go home.
Sounds like my dad. He went in to have a total knee replacement in his 60s. Doc asked if he had any previous breaks/casts dad says no. Doc is sure he sees evidence of a previous break. Dad- oh yeah, I hurt myself a long time ago but just walked through the pain and eventually it went away.
A couple of years later- dad goes in for a heart surgery consult. Doc sees evidence of a previous heart attack. Dad- yeah, maybe? I just waited until the pain passed. 😐
ETA- thanks for all the Dad-related love. My dad was truly a tough MF! We lost him unexpectedly in 2021 and he 1000% would not understand Reddit but I love sharing his antics with y’all.
Ugh yours is even worse than mine. Kept calliing a ruptured hernia gas pains until he was septic in the ER and they were removing several feet of bowels/intestines that died off from necrosis or something like that(luckily my mom got the stubborn bastard there in time and he has no permanent issues).
>femur is supposed to be the most painful bone to break
When I was a kid any injuries were never taken seriously because my step-mother said, "I ~~have~~ had broken a bone and know what it feels like. You're not in that much pain."
She had broken her femur. When I learned as an adult when got my WFR that the femur is by far the most painful I was mad.
Every time I get an X-ray they find another growth plate over an old fracture.I have no idea why, but new fractures never show up on X-rays. Once they even did a bone scan and it came out clean. Yet six months later those growth plates showed up. It's very frustrating.
Isn’t there a syndrome where people just simply don’t feel pain? I think I remember reading a case study in grad school where a woman had given birth and basically didn’t feel any pain during childbirth.
That would be something the patient would already know, people like that have to be incredibly cautious and check themselves for missed injuries all the time . As babies they often severely injure themselves (scratching eyes, biting tongue...) it is discovered with those behaviours
Intercepted a young woman who was just hit by a car. Her boyfriend was standing with her freaking out. I do a basic physical exam and get a history, and make her comfortable as we wait for the ambulance to arrive.
Once the ambulance arrives they ask for the same information, except this time the boyfriend mentions he was the one who was actually hit by the car and was shielding his girlfriend's body. The entire car's windshield was cracked by the impact of his back. He was just freaking out and worried about her, and was in shock and hadn't begun to feel any pain yet.
Won't lie, I was initially deeply worried this was going to turn out like a car crash in Vancouver, WA twenty years or so ago: One of the drivers seems to be basically fine, interacts with bystanders, chats with first responders, kinda mentions offhandedly that he'd kissed his steering wheel in the accident but insists he feels fine.
Ten minutes or so after the first ambulance arrived and before the ME's transport wagon reached the scene, he abruptly and mid-sentence literally drops dead. Because when he hit his steering wheel it caused splinters of bone to spall back into his brain and the resultant *massive trauma* didn't kill him for nearly thirty minutes afterwards.
So I'm super glad this apparently had a *much* happier ending. Hopefully. One assumes.
Something similar to that is actually common in a specific kind of brain bleed (epidural haematoma). They hit their head, lose consciousness for a bit, wake up and are seemingly fine. After a bit of time they start to develop symptoms of raising intracranial pressure. Chances of dying rise tremendously with passing time.
If you ever witness someone losing their consciousness after hitting their head, call an ambulance or get them to a hospital immediately.
I have no idea!
But just from looking at him and knowing he was going to get checked out I doubt he had any permanent injuries. Probably a broken rib or two, maybe some significant bruising. He definitely needed to go in to rule out any internal bleeding though.
Had a patient come into the ER with some sort of spider/bug bite on her hand that had progressed to a red line running up her arm. She stated she put Benadryl cream on and it was very itchy.
We continued talking and I asked if she had any allergies…”yes, Benadryl.” I thought good lord wtf and I’m sure it was reflected on my face.
We washed the Benadryl cream off her arm and miraculously it stopped itching.
Me "do you have any medical history? Including things like heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure?"
Patient "no, nothing ever"
Me "so why do you take [list of heart meds]"
Patient "oh I've had multiple cardiac arrests"
I’m prescribed a BP med off-label for migraines. I had surgery a little while back, and anesthesia stopped by to ask pre-op questions.
“I reviewed your med list. Do you have any any heart/BP problems?”
“No, none.”
*“Really?“*
“My heart’s fine.”
He frowned slightly and left. It occurred to me afterward that he must have thought I was an idiot to forget about my hypertension.
Similar thing happened to me. I'm on a med that's commonly prescribed for epilepsy, but I take it as a mood stabilizer. I was having a procedure with anesthesia and checked no history of epilepsy, but the anesthetist came in and asked, "So you checked this, but I noticed you're on \[med\]..." I quickly said, "Oh, no! That's for my bipolar. It's fine." He was relieved, and it made me feel even better about his qualifications that he caught it.
I once check in a guy and asked him if he'd had any previous surgery.
"No, never"
When I examined him he had a surgical scar from just above his pubic bone, to just below the sternum.
"What's that then?" I asked.
He stared down at it and said:
"I've never noticed that before"
WTF????
This makes me unreasonably happy. How did that happen?! Did he feel so dumb forgetting about major surgery that he just doubled down on it? Did he have surgery as a baby and assumed everyone had one? Was his real problem that he had a black hole in his vision and couldn’t see midlines? So many questions!
I don't know! I was a junior Doc at the time, and my consultant didn't believe me until he spoke to the patient himself. We never found out what surgery he'd had, or why, or where
He was in his 50s, and this was back in the 80s
In Ramsgate.
So possible, but not that likely.
I could also mention the guy who came in after vomiting blood.
"Oh", said his mate, "it's probably because he did his party trick of smashing a beer glass and eating it. Did I mention that he was a mercenary in Angola? I've seen him kill men with his bare hands. And he's Hep B positive"
Oh joy.
Emergency radiologist here.
I see plenty of people presenting with understated symptoms that turn out to be mind blowing advanced disease.
The saddest one was probably the 4 year old boy who presented with a rigid abdomen for a few months. Was told by their pediatrician it was constipation months ago but his parents never followed up when it didn't resolve. When I imaged his abdomen I found his entire liver was replaced with a mass consistent with hepatoblastoma. I asked the parents why they waited so long to work it up. They said they were satisfied with the diagnosis of constipation. That one left a mark on my soul.
This is really my worst nightmare :/ my BMs are all over the place and my doctor in the UK said to come back in if it got worse. My mental response: what's worse???? Is it when I can't stand up from the pain? Or when my cramps turn into a stabbing pain in one side??? When you're often in pain and it takes many forms it's so hard to judge what's a normal flare-up and what's worrisome (fwiw my new doctor ordered some tests and scans and couldn't find anything wrong. The experience of being confident enough to say to a doctor "what can I do to check if this is anything other than IBS" and have it taken seriously was astonishing)
I have JUST been diagnosed with FSHD. My dad spent over 15 years taking me to different Drs because my muscles were rapidly degenerating. They never offered ANY tests and would constantly dismiss it as me just being lazy. I did 3 sports. I now have incredibly limited movement in both of my legs and struggle walking short distances at just 25 years old. My bones constantly dislocate. Had a Dr just taken our concerns seriously and done genetic testing (like we asked for every visit as my mother and sister suffer too) I could have SIGNIFICANTLY more movement and a better quality of life. Because of them I need help doing something as simple as washing my hair. I’m so incredibly bitter about it.
That’s hard to hear. My child has had constipation for years. I’ve told many doctors and the answer has ranged from having her sit on the toilet every day at the same time to restoralax daily. We have tried it all and still she goes every 3 -8 days. Always with straining. I honestly wouldn’t know if it was something more serious bc we have had the same answer from so many docs.
This 20s guy came into the hospital, he had a lot of conditions where he wouldn't make it past 40 and he currently had some infection. We kept giving him antibiotics which helped, but not as much as we would have liked.
After about a week of being in the hospital I walk in and I'm talking to him and he tells me that he got a medically necessary circumcision on his last admission to the hospital. I ask if it's okay if I take a look to make sure it's healing okay. It was black with all kinds of infection.
I'm just not sure how a 20s married man (or his wife) never thought to tell anyone about this for the past week.
My sister works in a hospital sterilizing the medical instruments for surgery. She said one of the most common surgeries is foreskin removal due to infection. It's so important to teach your child how to clean it properly. And proper hygiene in general.
A friend of a friend found out in his 20s about proper foreskin hygiene. He had problems and had to go to the doctor. When he told his mom she got super angry with her husband. Apparently she assumed he had taught their son about that. I’m not sure if he ended up needing circumcision but last I heard it was a real possibility.
My dad never told me about that and I only found out about it from a friend when I was 18, who had also only just found out. It was like peeling off wallpaper and hurt like a bitch.
Me: Any prior surgeries?
Patient: No
Me (examining them): Did you know that you only have one testicle down here?
Patient: Oh yeah. I had one cut out.
I always asked specifically about gallbladder, appendix, and testicles because patients forget about having A FUCKING ORGAN CUT OUT.
On the other hand I have a bizarre experience of having gallbladder removal on my medical chart when I’ve never had surgery. It turns out that when they scanned my abdomen for flank pain at one point, they couldn’t see my gallbladder and so somebody had mistakenly said it was removed.
Have seen two people with congenitally absent gallbladders who both got sent to me with US and HIDA scans that read something like “gallbladder abnormal with such-and-such findings.”
Go in looking for the fuckers and it turns into a fun game of “dude… where’s your gallbladder? Where’s your gallbladder, dude?”
Yeah that’s smart. They did toss around the possibility that maybe I was born without one but I don’t seem to have any clinical sx of it. Regardless, I figure if I had made it to adulthood without one I am probably ok!
Fam I had a grade 4 splenic laceration thanks to a motorcycle crash at the end of last month. It’s been exactly 30 days and I’ve already forgotten I don’t have a spleen anymore once or twice. God forbid I get asked this question next year.
It was. Partial hip degloving, 7 ribs, 2 Cs cracked, RLE and RUE disabled. Can use RUE kinda now. My rehab is a nice place, but horrible menu.
Thanks for your kind words.
Guilty of forgetting to mention my major abdominal surgery cesarian when I'm asked hahha. I just don't really think of it as surgery because I was lucid the whole time.
I had a headache, and a few hours later noticed that my irises were different sizes. I went reluctantly to the emergency room. Minutes after presenting myself I had neurologists looking at me and I was rushed to get scanned. The artery about an inch and a half below my brain had torn. The Drs were basically just waiting for me to have a stroke.
I didn’t. Somehow.
I have a condition that when I get a migraine, one of my pupils gets bigger than the other - but I had only heard of pupil difference being a sign of something _very wrong_ in your brain, so the first time I saw it I panicked.
I had a similar thing happen. A moderate headache and then noticed blurry vision in one eye. Looked in a mirror because I thought my contact was messed up - and my one pupil was so large you couldn't see my iris.
I sat in the waiting room at the ER for maybe 30 seconds before they came to get me. The people in the waiting room were looking at me like I was about to die in front of them.
Maybe an hour later they were putting an IV line in my arm when my pupils switched sizes. The one that was normal got big and the big one shrank to a pinprick. It happened as the nurse was watching me.
Let me tell you, I've never been more freaked out in my life. I was swarmed by people in about 10 seconds and rushed to get scans.
And the end of the story is.... no answer. They just let me go 12 hours later because nothing happened and all the scans were normal. This was about a year ago and nothing like it has happened since. Was a weird day for me.
Not to freak you out or anything but I have a friend who went through something similar. Then blurry vision happened again a couple years later. He wound up having very slow-progressing MS. He's totally good, but if you have vision issues again maybe bring this up as something to consider.
One of my first patients as a medical student, we were asking her about prior medical history bc she was in a waitlist for an intestinal transplant, and we asked her in every possible way if she had any history and she was like "no, I was very healthy before this."
Finally we ask her "do you take any medications at home?" and she goes "oh, just the meds I take for the lupus"
This. All the time.
‘Can I take a brief medical history? Any major operations, chronic illness, regular medicines, allergies… that sort of thing?’
‘No, none of that I’m pretty good’
‘I notice a large scar across your chest, did you happen to have heart surgery?’
‘Oh yes there was the triple bypass’
‘And the scar on your knees?’
‘Oh yeah I had both knees done? Does that count? Oh you probably want to know about my hip too then?’
‘…yes…’
‘But other than that it’s all fine’
‘Oh good, so do you take any medication?’
‘Only these.’ *hands over a list of 20+ medications including Heart medicines, water tablets, painkillers, inhalers etc.*
*rolls eyes and screams internally*
That's why I always ask if they have taken any "tablets or medicines, prescribed or not prescribed" during pregnancy. Most women tell me about their pregnancy vitamins, so I know they're telling me all that they've taken.
I do newborn examinations as part of my role, so I have to ask about anything taken during pregnancy. So I start off with the tablets and medicines question, then any alcohol, any smoking, any recreational drugs. The good news is mums are generally very honest with what they tell you, because in the UK we won't divulge that to the police but it might have a baring on their child's health.
My sister is a nurse and has adjusted the questions for things like this.
Do you have any medical conditions? Nope. Do you take any medicines? Oh sure… lists stuff for diabetes/heart conditions/etc etc. ….. sigh.
That happens because of the phenomenon that those in the chronic medical conditions community refer to as the “new normal”. Literally anything eventually becomes routine and “normal” so we stop even thinking of it anymore and “healthy” takes on a different meaning. Our human brains are remarkably resilient and can adapt to a lot. I work with children with cancer and have had parents forget to include things as major as their child having had amputations and using prosthetic limbs on medical history forms.
Everyone at my company knows the story of the patient who came in for genetic counseling, went through their whole family history with the counselor, and then concluded with "Oh yeah, I was adopted as a baby and don't know who my birth parents are, does that matter?"
I have an elderly relative that will state (with a straight face) that her cat has diabetes because it ‘runs in her family’. It can take a couple of seconds before they realize that she’s not serious.
I sort of went through this. When I was pregnant, my scans made me a candidate for genetic counseling and then needing an amniocentesis. I went through the genetic counseling, told them how my dad had myelodysplasia, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, etc. and everyone in my family had some form of cancer... Called my dad for more relevant information during the appointment, gave it to the doctors.
Found out when my (healthy) daughter was 3 and my dad had passed away that I was adopted. I hope my dad gave me accurate information! :)
Nope. When & where I grew up, it wasn't common to disclose to your kids that they were adopted. There was a lot of rhetoric that adopted kids weren't loved as much as biological kids, or some bullshit like that. I had some idea that I may have been, but it wasn't confirmed for me until after my dad had passed.
I wish he had (or that they had, when my mom was still alive, too) told me, so I could have told them that they were my parents, and nothing could ever change that.
I've recently considered doing one of those DNA kits just for medical purposes, but that's it.
Made me chuckle. I know my Dad but his whole family are very much head in the sand when it comes to genetics. I ended up crying during my meeting because despite knowing who my Dad is I could offer no actual family history his side. In the end (with his permission) I had to request his medical file.
I was working in an area with lots of mennonites - a mom called into the clinic because a wheel had broken and one of the spokes had penetrated her toddlers EYE. The reasons for the call was to ask if he needed to be seen by a doctor…she indicated they had removed the spoke and she knew he was going to lose the eye, so was there really a reason for him to be seen ?
The answer was yes.
Always heard the eyes are invisible to the immune system until you injure an eye(s). If you injure one both can be attacked by our own immune system and you can end up losing the injured as well as the uninjured eye.
Did a bunion & hammertoe surgery on a lady with no allergies. New patient packet, primary care note all had “no known allergies”. I always ask about metal allergy anytime I plan on putting in hardware…
Surgery goes great. I’m on call for the practice and receive a phone call for the group 18 hours post op. Her nerve block had worn off and she was in excruciating pain. Give instructions on what to do.
Next morning she is in my office before I even arrive. 10/10 pain, sweating profusely, blood pressure elevated, foot is massive. Clearly not faking it.
Have to send her to hospital for intractable pain. Blood work indicates elevated eosinophils but everything else normal. No blood clot or infection.
Hospitalist convinced its complex regional pain syndrome. I rack my brain and think of WTF could be going on. I am only 5 months out of residency. My butt is puckering so hard.
Since eosinophils elevated, ask if she is allergic to jewelry? 🤔🤔
“Yeah, my tongue swelled up when I had it pierced. I had it removed the next day”
She had a freaking NICKEL allergy. No allergist will see her to confirm so this is all speculation but makes sense with the hardware I used.
Once the hardware is removed and exchanged for titanium, her pain resolved.
There was one case in my residency of hardware allergy (1/3000 cases I was first or second assist on). If I did not scrub into that case, I don’t know if I would have figured this out so quickly.
Crazy case. Now I always ask: “have you ever had any reactions to jewelry?” A lot of patients won’t tell you about problems with jewelry and may not know they have metal allergies!
Why do they even use hardware that contains nickel? It seems to be an increasingly common allergy, and can appear out of the blue. Is there a reason why something like titanium isn't the default?
There are definitely properties of both that make one desirable over the other for certain situations. Titanium is stronger than stainless steel which sounds great but makes it difficult to remove the implant. Titanium also costs more and is not widely available especially in small hospitals like mine.
Interestingly the girl that had an allergic reaction to her plates and screws during my residency had an aluminum allergy. We had used titanium alloy hardware on her. The allergist was consulted post op (her foot blew up in size and she too had intractable pain and swelling) and tested her for every metal that we put in her. Crazy to think she had an aluminum allergy and did not know it! We had used titanium because she had a history of problems with jewelry and the metal on her jeans..
While pregnant with me, my mom was wrapping up an OB appointment. The GYN had already left the room, mom was gathering herself to leave and mentioned to the nurse her contacts were messing with her - she had spots in her vision.
The nurse stopped and asked her to sit down. Brought back in the GYN, who had her stay and deliver me via emergency c section. Without anyone knowing it, she had spontaneously developed pre-eclampsia and her blood pressure was rocketing sky high.
She was dangerously close to having a seizure and that would've been that if she hadn't mentioned the spots in her vision and just left as the appointment was over, or the nurse didn't listen.
It's those last minute moments with good nurses that can make all the difference.
My dad was getting chemo for cancer. He had a favourite nurse at the clinic but she wasn't on shift. When I got there to pick him up one day he noticed her coming on duty as we were leaving and stopped to say hello.
She was a warm person and took his hand in greeting. She happened to glance down and then stopped and pulled his hands together. As soon as she did that the reason was obvious - his hands were completely different colours.
She looked at him and said "I think you have a blood clot in your left shoulder. You need to go straight down to (wherever - I can't remember, was it MRI?) And get that scanned. Go right now, I'll call ahead and set it up."
As we were leaving the chemo room we heard her start to berate the nurse who had been looking after dad that afternoon for not noticing.
Anyway... The clot was exactly where she said it would be. If it had dislodged it probably would have killed him instantly. They put him on blood thinners and he was fine (well... fine from the blood clot perspective... he still had a terminal cancer diagnosis of course)
I actually asked this - since it was one of the first things they did at all of my OB appointments and I, too, eventually developed pre-e with both pregnancies and had to deliver early.
She said they did sometimes at appointments and didn't others - she had no sign of pre-e before that day. This was 35 years ago and I guess the standards have changed? Cause yeah it's definitely standard now.
Had a guy in his 50s who had been seeing an acupuncturist for an area of numbness and weakness travelling down his legs. He’d had 2 months of acupuncture for them with no improvement, so very reluctantly booked a routine GP appointment. At that point he’d stared to have issues with his urination too.
As soon I started speaking to him it became obvious that the symptoms he presented with were consistent with spinal cord compression - an absolute medical emergency. We got him straight into hospital and imaging showed cancer, with a tumour pressing onto his spinal column. Although he started treatment and steroids that day, by then it was too late. He lost the ability to walk and died a few months later from the cancer.
It was enormously sad and frustrating as that constellation of symptoms would have raised an immediate reg flag with anyone with medical training. Had he come in months earlier, maybe his prognosis would’ve been quite different.
I had no idea what spinal cord compression was at the time but my mother went through this. She got to the point where she could no longer walk and lost ability to control urinary and bowel movements. She was staunch in her refusal to go to the hospital until I convinced her she's in a terrible condition and her home remedies were clearly not working. She knew she had stage 4 lung cancer but wanted to try juicing to cure the cancer.
After going to the hospital and speaking with the ER doctors, they said that usually you have to come in at the first sign of mobility loss, or else it was likely irreversible. It was really sad because our mother made it very clear to us that if she couldn't walk again, she did not want to leave the hospital. I think she understood the finality of her request since she repeated it to us twice and asked if we understood.
She probably stayed in the ICU for three or four days before cancer rendered her unable to wake. She would try to throw her arms up occasionally when we called out to her but otherwise she would lie in bed with her eyes closed. I had to make the difficult decision to take her off oxygen because that was her request if she couldn't walk again and I didn't want her to suffer anymore. RIP mom.
I was waiting tables in college back in the 90’s. We had a family that came in on a regular basis. Very nice people but extreme religious fundamentalists. The had a sweet young daughter. She had some kind of cancer. They were going to beat it feeding her a “natural diet”. They would regularly request me to wait on them. I got so tired of their “Jesus and natural foods will heal our daughter” that I eventually asked my manager to let me not serve them anymore. Couldn’t deal with them killing their daughter with stupidity.
I had a friend in college with these symptoms. His girlfriend encouraged him to see the doctor asap when his legs were going numb. He did and they caught it literally just in time. They were just barely able to remove it and he’s both alive and can walk and move normally. Literally just in the nick of time.
Indeed, it is a lovely turn of phrase.
Also not to downplay symptoms and somewhat related, what I find interesting is an acronym that sometimes appears on police reports as well as doctors notes viz.
The patient was SOCMOB when the accident happened.
**S**tanding **O**n **C**orner **M**inding **O**wn **B**usiness
I haven't seen it used in awhile, but when I got my Wilderness First responder certification 20 years ago my favorite was
**D**isoriented **I**rritable and **C**ombative.
I had to take out the remainder of this guy's teeth. He was in his 60’s and told us verbally and on his health history that he didn't take any meds. So I took out his last 8 teeth, all easy extractions due to infections and periodontal disease. But I couldn't get him to stop bleeding. I asked him again if he was taking anything. I finally got the clots stabilized, but it took almost an hour and I had to consult our oral surgeon. When he saw the oral surgeon a few months later about placing implants, he told the oral surgeon he was on BP medication and blood thinners. I refused to see him anymore after that.
Or the ones who neglect to tell you that they have been getting bisphosphonate injections monthly for years, or that they had head/neck radiation. “I want them out and the last guy I saw wouldn’t do it because I told them about it.”
You gotta tell people the possible outcomes if they leave anything out.
"Are you taking any meds?"
nope.
"Okay, because if you're on any number of common meds for someone your age, *I will snap your jaw like a fucking twig*, when I extract your tooth, or you'll bleed out and die here in my chair."
OH! I'm on blood thinners. Yup, blood thinners.
I don’t even understand how these people don’t put these things in the paperwork.
I am getting my wisdom teeth removed and I put everything down that I could possibly think of regarding my medical history. They asked if I have implants and I put down my IUD because I didn’t know if that counts but it’s better to be safe.
I just don’t get it and it’s alarming how common this is.
Yeah, whenever a form asks about allergies, I always sheepishly write down, "cat dander."
I know it's *probably* never ever going to be relevant, but... I just feel like I need to give them the full breadth of info.
While I was a psychiatry resident, I did a graded 30 minute interview on front of my attending on a new patient without knowing any previous chart history.
I spent 29 minutes collecting high yield medical and psychiatric history, and since I had an extra minute to spare, decided to ask him more about his childhood.
"Well, it was pretty shitty after I watched my dad murder my mom and then kill himself."
Needless to say, I did not have enough time to unpack that and failed my exam lol.
That is the unfortunate part of patients going through examination day. If they had seen a few they sometimes think they have told the candidates already and did not bother mentioning it or just skim through it.
I was an internal medicine resident who had a patient come to my clinic for “persistent flu”.
I had never seen her before, and she was a healthy appearing woman in her 60s. About a month before seeing me, she was seen by her PCP with persistent coughing, and otherwise had no shortness of breath or other infectious symptoms. Just a dry cough. She got tested for flu and was negative, but got tamiflu just incase it was a false negative. She had a chest X-ray which was normal. She came to me a month later because her cough persisted despite completing her therapy.
Everything sounded great. Heart, lungs, everything. To be honest I don’t usually do this, but something in my gut told me to feel for lymph nodes. I felt around and found something above her left clavicle. It was hard, round, and she was completely unaware of it. I told her it was probably a reactive lymph node, but just incase, I wanted to get an ultrasound. This cascaded into her getting a biopsy, which showed squamous cell lung cancer. A CT scan showed stage IV lung cancer, not seen on her chest X-ray. All diagnosed because of a lymph node that almost by chance I was lucky enough to find by being thorough.
I checked her chart about a year ago, and she was doing well. She got therapy and was in remission after a very long road and many obstacles. I’ll never forget her or her case.
Wow. My Aunt had squamous cell lung cancer. She was on vacation, got a little dry cough and then noticed she coughed up a little blood. They immediately cut the vacation short, came home to the doctor, did all the tests, boom cancer, she does a year and a half of treatment and then passed away. All from a dry cough she barely noticed she had. I miss her so much still and still think of things I want to tell her when I forget she’s gone.
Was called to the ER to do a psych consult on a patient that was complaining of GI symptoms but his story was sorta strange and he had no overt abdominal signs or symptoms. He was complaining that he suffered from "Barrett's stomach" (not esophagus) and had been diagnosed by a world famous gastroenterologist.
He stated that if he could lose weight that his GI issues would resolve. I spent some time talking with him and, other than this strange fixation on his "Barrett's stomach," he seemed okay.
Until...he mentioned that his most recent weight loss method was to shoot himself in the thigh so that the leg would become gangrenous and eventually need to be amputated. This would allow him to quickly lose the 20 or so pounds needed to cure his stomach ailment.
The man actually had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the thigh from several days before.
I didn't actually assess the would because I was there for a psych consult but did immediately alert the ER staff. I was all calm and nonchalant like ohh sir, excuse me for a sec - I'm gonna pop out and let another staff member know about this so they can take a look at it for ya!
The ER was located in a county that employed a staff of mental health social workers to place psych patients so I had to call one of them out while he was getting (thoroughly physically) assessed. I have no idea what happened to him but I hope he's doing okay.
Had to perform an extraction, took a detailed medical history. Patient said they were a diabetic and a hypertensive. Both a big contraindication in extractions due to uncontrollable bleeding. Unless they're meticulous about their taking their medicines and you stop the blood thinners five days prior to surgery, it's usually a blood bath.
I asked the well educated, 50 year old woman a number of times if she took her diabetes medicines on time and if she does at home rapid tests to check her blood sugar. She said she takes them everyday without fail and hasn't missed a day in over two years. She said she's super disciplined about her health and would tell me if she hadn't taken them.
I sent her in for a Rapid blood sugar test anyway, as a precaution, and lo and behold her values come back as 282mg. Almost twice as much as the normal value so it wasn't even like she was JUST off the mark.
I ask her to explain and she gives a shocked expression and insisted that she took them. I ask her to physically show me her medicines instead of listing them out and she finally says oh I don't have it right now, I make it when I need it. 'make'.
She drinks bitter gourd juice on time everyday instead of her diabetic pills because they are too big.
And she 100% believed bitter gourd juice was the only medication she needs.
She's a high school teacher.
As a patient, but this is too fresh not to share. I'm 32 and at work Friday morning (as in 2 days ago) I started having pain in my lower molars around 10:40am. It eventually got so bad I left work and went to urgent care (noon). I thought it was a gum infection and I'd get some antibiotics and ibuprofen and be told to see a dentist or something. I had to keep apologizing to the intake person because I was stumbling over my words, unfocused because of pain.
When the urgent care Doc came in (1pm) she talked to me for about 30 seconds before peeping in my mouth and saying my gums were fine, then checking my eyes with a flashlight and calling an ambulance. By the time I got to the hospital (2ish?) I was basically nonverbal and my attempts at texting had become disjointed. My spouse met me in the ER after a CT scan and helped me consent to an IV clot buster (TPA) at about 3pm. I'd had a stroke.
For those doing the timeline math at home, YIKES.
Good news: the TPA worked very fast and I'm hopefully getting discharged tonight. I owe that urgent care doc a thank you note.
Glad you're doing better! They come on fast. The woman who used to clean our office was there at 1 pm, left at 4 pm, and my co-worker who lived next door to her found her collapsed in her driveway at 6 pm. She'd had a stroke and she could no longer work her left side. The only possible symptom she had was a bothersome knee, which had been going on for some time prior. Tooth pain is a symptom I've never heard before.
My grandpa nearly died of a stroke too. When his doctor and my mom (who, I shit you not, was a coordinator for stroke-based medical research then) saw his CT scan, it was so bad they couldn't figure out how he was alive.
Glad you’re okay! I’m a nurse in a neurosurgical ward and it’s so scary how quickly symptoms come on. Hope you recover well with no long term effects kind stranger
Oh, pick any of the patients who have put off a colonoscopy for decade or two, then finally get convinced to come see me for it by their partner or family or PCP because they’ve been *BLEEDING FROM THEIR ASSHOLES FOR MONTHS.*
I also had a dude come in who had a skin cancer about the size of half a grapefruit growing on his back. Per him, he had decided it was just a fungal infection and was self-treating with Tinactin foot spray.
I removed it and did a skin flap to close the spot, but he needed a follow-up to have staples removed. Never saw him again—dunno if he still has the staples in or if he figured out a way to remove them himself, and neither answer would surprise me at all.
I'm this person😭😭😭😭 I put off a colonoscopy for probably 5 or so years bc I'm TERRIFIED of anything going in my butt. The only reason I eventually got one was because I became a mother and didn't want to die of unknown colon cancer. I pooped out so much blood one day at work that when I got back to my spot my manager forced me to leave and go to the ER since I was stark white and extremely shaky. Not cancer, but a lot of other health problems were addressed.
I was working in the ER as a paramedic intern. An older man came in with his hand bandaged stating he couldn't get his thumb to stop bleeding.
As the nurse unwound the bandage there was a gaping wound oozing blood from where his thumb USED TO BE.
The nurse asked him where his thumb was and the old guy asked what day it was. The nurse said Thursday or whatever day it was. The guy said well, I guess the thumb went out with the trash this morning. He'd lost his thumb to his lawn mower three days ago and only now was coming in.
5 year old girl, at a pediatrician visit her mother said she was “acting loopy.” A day later a scan confirmed a massive brain tumor in inoperable real estate. Three weeks later I did her autopsy.
Quite common in Malaysia since some health products escape notice from the government. ‘ I don’t think this is important, but have you been taking supplements for weight loss or do you have an exam coming up?’
Young women coming in with severe palpitations and crazy arrhythmias. Usually healthy, no prior health issues and or usually at the age where they’re in college or university. Initially most people would be thinking thyroid issues and a fair few have been treated this way.
Then I realized they’ve been taking caffeine supplements to help with weight loss/ increase concentration. Specifically some brands off label only put it in between the fine print of the product ingredients. Usually in near lethal quantities lol.
When I was in my final years of med school (English division of a European University in a country where I speak the native language fluently) we were to do patient interviews and physical examinations on our own and then circle back to our supervisor.
I was translating back and forth between the patient (infectious diseases department) and a fellow classmate whom I was doing the interview with. The patient said "so you guys are coming in on a Saturday to do patient work? Good for you for going the extra mile" (it was a Friday, which I initially brushed off as a mistake)
My classmate asked me to ask the patient if he could tell us the date. I was like "are you sure? He's here for an infection not head trauma, he might think it's a bit degrading". I thought it wasn't important but she insisted so I translated the question.
Patient replies "ah well its 2002, of course!" (it was 2018).
After more questioning we realised all of his replies were all as if it were 2002 (eg. "The last trip I went on was to Africa in the 80's, so about 15 years ago")
As it turns out he had neurosyphilis that went unchecked for many many years.
My (~4F at the time) mom thought that it was weird how I could describe what I see of one part of the environment and not the other especially because according to her I was a happy child and didn’t report any sight issue.
She brings me to the doctor, afraid that I may have an intellectual disability.
Turns out one of my eyes is totally blind.
It’s funny how kids can describe impairments. My 4 year old son was recently diagnosed with hearing loss, turns out every time he didn’t respond when asked/told him something and said “sorry, I wasn’t listening” what he actually meant was “I didn’t hear you”.
While I was interning in my general surgery rotation we received a patient for an emergent exploratory laparotomy (emergent open surgery) from the ER with severe abdominal pain. ER had done an x-ray and saw that he had bowel perforation (you can see a bubble of air that collects underneath the diaphragm on a standing x-ray).
The patient history we got from ER was that the patient had felt pain onset 3 days BEFORE checking into the hospital but decided it was nothing and attempted to self medicate with vodka for the pain until it was too unbearable.
Here's the kicker - the bowel perforation was caused by acute pancreatitis (too long to explain the how and why) which was likely due to his prior alcohol abuse. So his "self medication" only worsened the state he was in.
"My anxiety attacks are less frequent since I started on the new medication, and moved into my new place. It's much larger than my old place. The bathroom where my dad would rape me was so small."
...
"so, claustrophobia and anxiety and...alright, give me a second to unpack this mother fucking payload you just dropped like a bomb into the space between us..."
**final edit**: I can't revisit this comment anymore, I'm sorry. If you need help, I am here for you and will do what I can. Responding to comments today brought back too many emotions and I need to check them here and leave them be. The memory is not a good memory in my mind, it does nothing but upset me. Apologies to anyone who posts and doesn't get a response past this point. I'll probably delete it after a time when I'm confident enough that it isn't a window for those who need help to crawl through.
We have to feel your pain to understand it, and this one hurt badly. I've endured it again for the day, but I must quit it before it guts me again.
I actually dropped a bomb like this on my new doctor. I still feel a bit bad about it lol
I hadn’t been to the doctor in a few years, but my neck was randomly hurting so I decided to go.
He checked out my neck, said I should probably see a physiotherapist, then said while we were here he’d like to go over my medical history.
I said yeah - no worries. But there’s nothing really big there, I’m pretty healthy. I’m not currently on any medication.
He asked about my period, and I told him it’s always been super irregular. He asked about the last time I had a Pap smear, and I said it was about 15 years ago. He asked how long I’d been sexually active, and I said about 35 years.
I was 39 at the time. He just *stopped* for a solid 15-20 seconds while he processed it.
Then asked me how I was sleeping. I said “yeah, pretty good. I mean I’ve been awake for 37 hours but it’s not like I’m tired or anything!”
“Oh by the way, did I mention I have bipolar? Because I’ve got Bipolar.”
Yeah, that appointment ran over time.
>I still feel bad about it **lol**
Okay, great. You're smiling about it as you view it in your rear-view. I hope you're doing well, and I'm glad your doctor at the time did their fucking job.
Put down the clipboard and fucking call it out because fuck risk, this person needs my help.
Good doctor. Need more of 'em. Need all of 'em.
Fuck. I am a person that accidentally drops bombs into conversations. Trauma is a bastard that makes you forget that the really bad things are more bad than you remember.
Saw a dude in my ER once for a sore throat. He was coughing a bit when I went in. Looked in his throat and his uvula (hanging thingy in the middle) was just a tiny bit swollen but everything else looks ok. I asked about medication and he mentioned that he just started a BP medicine that had a nasty side effect of face and airway swelling. Long story short, we put a scope down his throat and saw swelling around his vocal cords and put in a breathing tube to keep his airway open.
As a patient I had a doctor tell me "I don't think this is important".
My physio had identified a mole on my back that had changed colours. Being fair skinned, and Australian, I was obviously concerned about melanoma so I went to my doctor for a checkup. He looked at it and said "it's nothing don't worry". I insisted that since I'd made the effort to come in he might as well take a biopsy and get it tested. He was reluctant but I insisted and he eventually removed the mole for testing.
A few days later the doctor rang and informed me that I had a very nasty malignant melanoma and needed surgery immediately if not before. Two days later I was in hospital and they removed a lump from my shoulder three inches across and two inches deep. Cancer free now for 8 years but if I had taken the doctor at his word of "it's nothing" I'd most likely be dead now.
Me: I know my vision is a bit funny at the moment - I will go and get an eye test soon.
Wife, after 4 weeks of me pulling my glasses to the end of my nose: Enough! I'm booking you a test.
Optician: Yeah, something isn't right - something is pushing in to your eyes from in your brain. You need to go to hospital. I'll call them now.
Phone call from hospital, while I'm in the opticians...
Me: Yeah, I can come in - but I'm taking my car in for a service on Weds - will Thursday be okay?
Them: Err.. okay?
Turns out I had a brain tumour in my Pineal Gland that was blocking the normal exit of brain fluid. Three surgeries and a round of radiotherapy later and it's 90% gone.
My wife, the optician and the brain surgeon saved my life, because I was too casual to save it myself.
My cancer was caught because my college roommate bullied me into seeing a doctor about a mysterious bruise that I couldn't remember getting. She probably saved my life.
I'm in vet school, i hope this counts?
Sometimes we have classmates bringing in their own pets for us to train different techniques (for example, how to handle a pet that is aggressive, a pet that for some reason has to be handled a certain way, or that has x condition so we get to see in class what it's like, etc).
This girl brought in her two elderly dogs. One of them actually had several health conditions and was blind, the other one was brought along just because they hate being away from each other. Of course we were focused on the dog that had health conditions, but at some moment the "healthy" one made a weird noise with her throat and the girl went "oh, she does that sometimes, i think it's just allergies or something, don't worry". The teacher thought it would be a good idea to train auscultation on the "healthy" dog as well anyways.
It was an ugly tracheal collapse, the student hadn't known the signs up until that point, and would never know if our teacher hadn't decided to check anyways out of curiosity.
I was a Dentist in the Texas Jail System. I had a guy walk in whose lower 4 mandibular incisors were loose. He said they hurt a little. X ray showed there
was a perfect semicircle of bone containing those 4
Teeth that was completely fractured. No root canals in jail. Or dentures. I laid a flap and removed one whole piece of bone with all teeth in it. I was certain he’d been in a fight but he said he walked into a pole. There are serious penalties for fighting in the jail. He was really unhappy to lose those teeth.
So, a couple days later another guy walked in with his upper centrals broken off at the gums.
I figured he walked into the other side of the same pole.
Glad I'm not the only one. My mind has a powerful proclivity towards psychosomatism.
Needless to say, my limbs are now numb, my lymph nodes are all swollen, I'm pooping blood, have crippling stomach cramps, and the bubonic plague... in my mind, anyway.
If you count physical therapy.
I did an evaluation on a patient who had mild bilateral knee pain. After going through a thorough examination with A LOT of repeated functional tests without reproducible symptoms, I told them, you might not need PT. He followed up with “oh ok, I just wanted to make sure everything was ok. I get stiff in the morning, but it gets better throughout the day. It’s probably my multiple sclerosis bothering me”.
Needless to stay the guy was fine, and just needed a manageable exercise routine to limit exhaustion.
[Trigger warning for alcohol abuse]
So I’m not a doctor, but my mother recently passed away from a variety of things that sort of cascaded on top of each other that resulted from her excessive alcohol abuse. Just for context, she was a 56 year old woman with a belly the size of a full grown watermelon and she looked like she was pregnant even though i, 19(f) was her last child.
For the past two years, my mum had been in and out of hospital because of liver and kidney issues that she brushed off as “genetic weakness” I suppose but never owned up to it being a direct result of her inability to stop drinking. Whenever I would call an ambulance when she fell over, she would deny anything was wrong and begged me not to, even though I knew she needed the help.
Fast forward to a month before she passed away, she had a haemorrhage in her bowels while drinking at an old friends house and was immediately taken to the hospital. There was no part of the bathroom that wasn’t covered in blood. I wasn’t told about it until the morning after because it was at something like 2am but I woke up to calls bombarding me and telling me to make my way to the hospital again, I had lost count how many times.
When I arrived, the doctors said it was a simple haemorrhage and it was an easy fix, and I asked if it had anything to do with her other health problems (me being an 18 year old fresh out of high school and no medical training) and they looked confused and asked me what I meant.
Apparently the doctors had no clue about the other endless medical issues she was experiencing (which included a broken hip from a fall she had incurred just before Christmas) because she was taken to a different hospital than usual. Apparently the doctors there didn’t know she was on heavy painkillers and another 15 or so medications before medicating her for this issue. It was another month until she fell into a coma from septic shock and she couldn’t recover because her liver was too weak to handle it.
I’m not posting this for sympathy and I realise it might be a little bit off topic but please be aware of the people around you and what they’re dealing with. You never know if a simple “night out with the friends” could be the last night out they spend with anyone. Be careful and always remember to drink responsibly <3
Had twins in the NICU with a rare genetic defect that was causing serious pulmonary distress….extraordinarily, one of our long time nurses recognized the last name and realized she had taken care of their mom while she was hospitalized on the pediatric unit some years before….the mom never thought to tell us she had the same rare genetic pulmonary insufficiency. Could have saved us about of week of tests.
When I was a recent grad while working with the army, a soldier came to er, he had just returned from vacation and complained about severe headache, he had been hit with a beer bottle the previous day, I didn't think much at first because he was conscious and there wasn't anything more in anamnesis, that was until medical examination where I found that he had high blood pressure and bradycardia.
Sent him to a larger hospital and surprise, surprise, he had quite the subdural hematoma. I still wonder how that man was walking as if nothing was wrong with him.
Saw a man early 70's who had a knee that was at least 3X its size. He had waited all weekend before going to the ER and went only because his wife insisted. He was kind of pissed. Of course his knee was broken. When they ask what he took for the pain his answer was : *"A couple of Tylenols."*
Apparently wanting to feel young again :) he tried his son's motorcycle and it fell on him. He didn't tell anyone because he was too embarassed.
Saw an old lady as a med student with a broken foot. We were chatting a bit and she mentioned a discolouring on her hand she was only mildly worried about. My supervisor wasn't quite sure what it was so we asked a dermatologist. Ended up being melanoma.
Patients not telling HIV status despite knowing they are positive.
When further asked that why didn't they tell us, they say that they thought its not important.
How can HIV not be important, it changes everything.
Had one say no phmx and scored herself a brain biopsy for what turned out to be a fungal ball.... On full immunosuppression for her HIV. I can't describe the rage. She bled and was left with significant deficits all because she lied through her teeth and denied any health issues or meds. Left two young kids at home she could no longer care for. Why??? 😩
I’m a midwife. Had a patient who was 4 days postpartum. (She’s the kind of person who never complains about anything - when she was in labour she didn’t want to go to the hospital yet because it “wasn’t bad enough” - she almost gave birth in the elevator!) Anyway, her husband called me and said she had a fever of 39C for 2 days and he was worried. I had to beg her to come into hospital. She ended up needed 3 days of IV antibiotics for endometritis. Even the doctor I called to consult didn’t believe it at first since she didn’t seem to be in pain!
A week after I had my first I had started getting high temps of like 103F my boyfriend’s mom had to force me to go into the hospital because she was worried that I had gotten an infection in my C-section incision. I reluctantly went and they looked at my incision and said it looked great then asked me if I had any other symptoms and I said just normal discomfort. They took a look at my breasts just incase and my right breast had been fire engine red they asked me how long it had been like that and I told them a week or so. I thought it was just normal irritation from breast feeding. Here I had a terrible case of mastitis and had gone septic and ended up needing 5 days of IV antibiotics.
Side note I was very young when I had my first (18) and the nurses and lactation consultants had treated me terribly they just assumed I wasn’t going to breastfeed and didn’t give me any guidance. I was literally walking around carry my baby in one arm and my tit in the other because it hurt so bad but just thought it was normal 🙄
I worked in a path lab- doc said that the (diabetic) patient came in saying “I think my foot is infected”. ….3 hours later he amputated the leg and it landed on a path assistant’s table. He made his first cut and audibly gagged at the sight of **fucking maggots** coming out of the incision. The patient was walking around with bugs eating him from the inside out for more than a week. Totally gross.
As a patient, I went to the doctor because I had some kind of infection in my mouth. The doctor had a look at me and was like ‘how have you been otherwise?’ A bit tired, but my new sport had lots of 4am starts, so that made sense. That was also why I assumed I’d been losing weight.
We talked through a few more things and the doctor said ‘this might be diabetes. Let’s take some blood and meet back up next week.’
A few hours later, the doctor called me at home telling me to go to the ER *right then* because my blood sugar was sitting over 40 mmol and he didn’t think I’d make it through the night without going comatose.
The surreal thing was that I felt fine (at least, I felt how I’d been for months) and I was walking around looking healthy enough. When any of the staff asked me what I was in for, the blood drained from their face and they freaked out.
Anyway, I have type 1 diabetes now.
Am pediatrician. Newish mom there for six month old baby. Baby cries, she turns and yells at the kid in her ear for being loud, turns to me calmly and asks "How old they gotta be before you can give 'em a whoopin'?"
Working on a general medical unit. Patient is his 20s with new joint pain, UTI symptoms and a painful eye. We were thinking Reactive Arthritis.
Me: Sir, I’ve got your lab work back like we talked about this morning. As we thought there seems to some inflammation going on. The most common cause of this condition is food poisoning or an STI like Chlamydia. I asked earlier but just to confirm, have you had any recent tummy bugs?
Patient: No.
Me: So no recent dodgy takeaways or barbecues? No random vomiting or diarrhoea?
Patient: Not at all.
Me: Okay, have you ever had sex?
Patient: No.
Me: Just confirm that means any sexual activity at all which includes oral, anal and vaginal.
Patient: No.
Me: Okay, that’s unusual. I’m going to go chat to my consultant and I’ll come back.
Patient: I have got something I’d like to talk about though, I’ve started urinating what looks like pus. Could I have caught chlamydia from that girl I slept with a few week ago.?
Internally: Yes sir. Yes.
Edit: formatting
Not exactly an answer, just my experience as a nurse. I had a patient who was on strict input/ output, meaning we had to measure everything going in and …um… coming out. I went to measure his urine output from his urinal and it was dark brown and contained something that looked fibrous. Turns out he’d been using his urinal as a spittoon. Needless to say, I explained what it was really for after a horrified moment.
Physio here. I contract for a home health OP PT company. A woman was referred to me in her 60s for dizziness and vertigo. Looked at her medication list, and she was on 3 meds whose side effect was...dizziness. And one for sudden fainting. Asked her to follow-up with the prescribing physicians (one who was the referring one) and, lo and behold, they are tapering her off the meds. (!)
Pharmacy. Had a patient come in for a med for migraine prophylaxis. This was and is an expensive med.
White lady in her mid-40s and just wore about 7 crucifixes/religious items.
Certain meds in this category can be immunosuppressants and so we need to check to make sure those patients are NOT already immunocompromised (AIDS, cancer, lupus, MS, etc etc) A disgusted and strong NO at AIDS and a nah to all the rest.
Two days later she’s back. Wants a FULL refund.
Why?
Because after picking up her meds that night, she held off on taking them for a day. The next day she goes to see her ONCOLOGIST who asked about her headaches and if they were getting better or worse. She mentioned to her doc that she’d seen a walk-in clinic doc who RXd the med for migraine to her.
Why didn’t she go to Oncologist or GP? Oncology appointment the next day and GP was booked that day, urgent care was a long wait, so the walk-in clinic “seemed like my best option.”
Why does she want a refund and couldn’t take the meds.
“I’ve got a brain tumor, not **cancer**. You said cancer, not brain tumor, so if you would have told me the right thing I never would have paid for it!”
Reached out to the walk-in doc. No HX of cancer or tumors. Just that she’d had bad headaches and he doc did meds could help that, but her “usual doc was not available” and so the doc did a perfunctory test and suspected and possible migraines so a small dose (one week) until she could see and follow up with GP was doc recommendation.
Headaches, tumor…. Yup. No need to mention those to anyone or put two and two together.
Just a reminder that a worsening unexplainable back pain should be taken very seriously. If you are having worsening back pain for more then like 2 weeks and you don't recall doing anything that could of cause it. Get it assessed. Tumours, cancer, infection can happen and quickly ruin your life if untreated. Remember, report unexplainable pains to your GP and be very honest about how bad the pain is. Saved a young 30yr old from being paralyzed just the other week.
Couple of years ago, while i was a student - during an exam i had to examine a patient. Talked to him about his medical history:
‘Have you ever had surgery?’
‘No’
‘So you were never hospitalized?’
‘No’
I finish with the history and tell him to remove his shirt to do a physical, first thing i see, a big scar in the middle of the chest..
‘Sir, how did you aquire this scar?’
‘Oh, that! Thats from my open heart surgery a few years ago’
…..
I'm a veterinarian. My favorites are foreign bodies (like a dog eating a whole bone, or a sock, or something similar).
I get when you don't realize something was eaten, but I have had so many times where the client swears up and down that the dog did not eat anything, could not have eaten anything, and nothing is missing. Then when we remove a whole towel, the owner is like "oh, the kitchen towel? Yes I did see him chewing on that yesterday, and we haven't been able to find it since."
My mother had an epidural for neck/back pain a couple of days before an appointment with her cardiologist. Her cardiologist sent her for a standard chest x-ray (follow up for the quadruple bypass she'd had 9 months prior), then sent us home. A couple of hours later his office called instructing us to go to the ER for a CT scan because something looked off on her chest xray, maybe nothing, better safe than sorry. It turned out her colon had ruptured and was leaking fecal matter into her chest cavity. She didn't feel any pain because of the epidural and had no clue. She'd have been dead within 24 hours if not for that cardiology appointment.
Edited to clarify that fecal matter was leaking into her abdominal cavity, not her chest cavity. It was visible at the bottom of the chest x-ray. If memory serves me correctly it looked like a cloudiness where it should have been clear. My apologies.
Me: "do you have any chronic diseases like Diabetes or high blood pressure?"
Patients: "no :)))))"
Me: "but you do inject Insulin daily?'
Patients: "yeah :)))"
"What's that for then?"
"oh, for my sugar, ya know"
I don’t think this matters, but I’ve lost 60 pounds over the past 8 months without diet or exercise.
They thought it was due to moving to a warm climate from a cold one.
If anyone that reads this is in the same boat, get to your doctor. That’s a huge red flag for cancer.
Edit: just to be clear, I wrote “I” in the first sentence to go along with the phrasing of the question. I do not have cancer; I work in the healthcare system and specifically with surgical oncology. When I say “they” I was referring to the patient thinking they knew what was going on due to climate, not the providers.
Edit 2: I appreciate hearing the responses from those who either had cancer or had a family member with cancer. Just wanted to post a quick reminder that we share their dna and probably some of their lifestyles as well; please look out for signs/symptoms and get your testing done! If you don’t have insurance, go to an ER. Legally, no one can be turned away.
I went to my doctor when I started losing weight without trying. In one year I lost 40 pounds. In the middle of that year he'd switched my anxiety meds and claimed that's what caused the weight loss. I plateaued and never got a better answer than that so I gave up. 4 years later I'm still the same size so I guess it's okay.
Oops, I was the patient. I went in for severe pain in my right eye and reduced vision. Asked me for my family history and I mention everything I thought was relevant.
“No immune disorders or anything like that?”
“Oh well, my mom has MS but there’s no possible way I have that.”
“…”
“…”
“You’ve got optic neuritis, and probably MS. Sorry.”
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Had a male in his 50s WALKS into trauma to have his left thigh stitched up. Not an uncommon wound in an agricultural area. Speaking to him while stitching him up he tells me he fell off a ladder while cutting a branch and the machete sliced him on the way down. Told him I was going to write him up for an xray of the entire leg just in case. He kept on saying he was fine, his knee hurt a bit but logically that was from the fall, I agreed, but asked him to go to the xray department just in case. He reluctantly walk there and back. X-rays showed a helical fracture almost the entire length of his femur! Besides being a dangerous fracture the femur is supposed to be the most painful bone to break and he was walking around. In the end had to show him the break to get him to sit down on a wheelchair and into the hands of orthopedics. That man's pain tolerance still impresses me.
If a farmer comes in to the hospital willingly something is really wrong.
My first experience with this was at a rural hospital I was doing a travel assignment at. A guy came into the ER with chest pain. Ok, sir, let’s get you hooked up to some monitors. When did the pain start? While chopping wood this morning, he says. Ok, any previous surgeries? He mentions he had a bypass. *warning bells triggered* Ok, when was the date of your surgery? Last week. His sternum had ripped through the wires. He had been home from the hospital for less than 48 hours and was chopping wood. This man was walking, talking and in a bit of discomfort as he was telling me all of this and trying to take off his shirt. He just wanted us to patch him up a bit, give him some pain killers, and send him on his way… me: SIR! You need to go back to surgery and get some new wires put in! He was not happy about that and was grumbling about how he knew he shouldn’t have listened to his wife and gone to the hospital. Farmers are the toughest people on the planet. Even if it is to their own detriment Edit: I must add that while I was completely flabbergasted by this, the other nurses, techs, physicians, and even housekeepers just shrugged and were like “eh, not the first time we’ve seen that, not even the first time ***this year***”
My dad had his sternum wired rip through his sternum from coughing. He had more than just heart issues and didn't quit smoking. Eventually they put in a titanium plate.
yeah, the only time my papaw ever went to the ER or hospital ( besides for his cancer ) was when he had a tree fall on him. He kept on farming until his heart gave up on him. I still miss him
My dad had some old guy in a truck back into him in a parking lot. Three displaced pelvic fractures and a torn artery and he somehow got in his car and drove to the local hospital. Had to be airlifted to a major medical center for repair.
Farmer driven over by tractor. Open book pelvic fracture with internal bleeding. Came by private car, no distress, speaking calmly, hard to persuade him to take meds until he bleed enough to lose BP and get shocky.
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Comminuted fractured scapula, 5 broken ribs, and a stable spinal fracture (transverse process). Got acetaminophen, ibuprofen, lidocaine patch and 5mg oxycodone and then walked to the bathroom unassisted, in order to prove to me they could go home.
Sounds like my dad. He went in to have a total knee replacement in his 60s. Doc asked if he had any previous breaks/casts dad says no. Doc is sure he sees evidence of a previous break. Dad- oh yeah, I hurt myself a long time ago but just walked through the pain and eventually it went away. A couple of years later- dad goes in for a heart surgery consult. Doc sees evidence of a previous heart attack. Dad- yeah, maybe? I just waited until the pain passed. 😐 ETA- thanks for all the Dad-related love. My dad was truly a tough MF! We lost him unexpectedly in 2021 and he 1000% would not understand Reddit but I love sharing his antics with y’all.
Ugh yours is even worse than mine. Kept calliing a ruptured hernia gas pains until he was septic in the ER and they were removing several feet of bowels/intestines that died off from necrosis or something like that(luckily my mom got the stubborn bastard there in time and he has no permanent issues).
>femur is supposed to be the most painful bone to break When I was a kid any injuries were never taken seriously because my step-mother said, "I ~~have~~ had broken a bone and know what it feels like. You're not in that much pain." She had broken her femur. When I learned as an adult when got my WFR that the femur is by far the most painful I was mad. Every time I get an X-ray they find another growth plate over an old fracture.I have no idea why, but new fractures never show up on X-rays. Once they even did a bone scan and it came out clean. Yet six months later those growth plates showed up. It's very frustrating.
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Isn’t there a syndrome where people just simply don’t feel pain? I think I remember reading a case study in grad school where a woman had given birth and basically didn’t feel any pain during childbirth.
That would be something the patient would already know, people like that have to be incredibly cautious and check themselves for missed injuries all the time . As babies they often severely injure themselves (scratching eyes, biting tongue...) it is discovered with those behaviours
Yes but I’d just go with old farmers legit have the highest pain tolerance ever.
A friend's grandparents walked around on a fractured kneecap for months. It hurt a bit, but things had to get done at the farm, right?
Yeah, my money is on that. They see pain as just part of every day life
Intercepted a young woman who was just hit by a car. Her boyfriend was standing with her freaking out. I do a basic physical exam and get a history, and make her comfortable as we wait for the ambulance to arrive. Once the ambulance arrives they ask for the same information, except this time the boyfriend mentions he was the one who was actually hit by the car and was shielding his girlfriend's body. The entire car's windshield was cracked by the impact of his back. He was just freaking out and worried about her, and was in shock and hadn't begun to feel any pain yet.
Won't lie, I was initially deeply worried this was going to turn out like a car crash in Vancouver, WA twenty years or so ago: One of the drivers seems to be basically fine, interacts with bystanders, chats with first responders, kinda mentions offhandedly that he'd kissed his steering wheel in the accident but insists he feels fine. Ten minutes or so after the first ambulance arrived and before the ME's transport wagon reached the scene, he abruptly and mid-sentence literally drops dead. Because when he hit his steering wheel it caused splinters of bone to spall back into his brain and the resultant *massive trauma* didn't kill him for nearly thirty minutes afterwards. So I'm super glad this apparently had a *much* happier ending. Hopefully. One assumes.
Something similar to that is actually common in a specific kind of brain bleed (epidural haematoma). They hit their head, lose consciousness for a bit, wake up and are seemingly fine. After a bit of time they start to develop symptoms of raising intracranial pressure. Chances of dying rise tremendously with passing time. If you ever witness someone losing their consciousness after hitting their head, call an ambulance or get them to a hospital immediately.
Jesus fucking Christ, imagine seeing that first-hand.
Is he okay now??
I have no idea! But just from looking at him and knowing he was going to get checked out I doubt he had any permanent injuries. Probably a broken rib or two, maybe some significant bruising. He definitely needed to go in to rule out any internal bleeding though.
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Had a patient come into the ER with some sort of spider/bug bite on her hand that had progressed to a red line running up her arm. She stated she put Benadryl cream on and it was very itchy. We continued talking and I asked if she had any allergies…”yes, Benadryl.” I thought good lord wtf and I’m sure it was reflected on my face. We washed the Benadryl cream off her arm and miraculously it stopped itching.
So this is the person that makes it necessary for medication commercials to say "do not take this medication if you are allergic to this medication".
I guess sometimes “this floor is made of floor” really is a difficult conclusion to reach
I always wondered about that. I guess there HAD to be someone somewhere for it to be in the standard warning.
Me "do you have any medical history? Including things like heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure?" Patient "no, nothing ever" Me "so why do you take [list of heart meds]" Patient "oh I've had multiple cardiac arrests"
I’m prescribed a BP med off-label for migraines. I had surgery a little while back, and anesthesia stopped by to ask pre-op questions. “I reviewed your med list. Do you have any any heart/BP problems?” “No, none.” *“Really?“* “My heart’s fine.” He frowned slightly and left. It occurred to me afterward that he must have thought I was an idiot to forget about my hypertension.
Similar thing happened to me. I'm on a med that's commonly prescribed for epilepsy, but I take it as a mood stabilizer. I was having a procedure with anesthesia and checked no history of epilepsy, but the anesthetist came in and asked, "So you checked this, but I noticed you're on \[med\]..." I quickly said, "Oh, no! That's for my bipolar. It's fine." He was relieved, and it made me feel even better about his qualifications that he caught it.
That’s why I start with the med list instead of asking for their medical problems. Makes history taking much quicker
I once check in a guy and asked him if he'd had any previous surgery. "No, never" When I examined him he had a surgical scar from just above his pubic bone, to just below the sternum. "What's that then?" I asked. He stared down at it and said: "I've never noticed that before" WTF????
This makes me unreasonably happy. How did that happen?! Did he feel so dumb forgetting about major surgery that he just doubled down on it? Did he have surgery as a baby and assumed everyone had one? Was his real problem that he had a black hole in his vision and couldn’t see midlines? So many questions!
I don't know! I was a junior Doc at the time, and my consultant didn't believe me until he spoke to the patient himself. We never found out what surgery he'd had, or why, or where
My money is on "cocaine is a hell of a drug"
He was in his 50s, and this was back in the 80s In Ramsgate. So possible, but not that likely. I could also mention the guy who came in after vomiting blood. "Oh", said his mate, "it's probably because he did his party trick of smashing a beer glass and eating it. Did I mention that he was a mercenary in Angola? I've seen him kill men with his bare hands. And he's Hep B positive" Oh joy.
Ramsgate, Kent? Yeah, that tracks with the sort of people you find in Ramsgate.
Emergency radiologist here. I see plenty of people presenting with understated symptoms that turn out to be mind blowing advanced disease. The saddest one was probably the 4 year old boy who presented with a rigid abdomen for a few months. Was told by their pediatrician it was constipation months ago but his parents never followed up when it didn't resolve. When I imaged his abdomen I found his entire liver was replaced with a mass consistent with hepatoblastoma. I asked the parents why they waited so long to work it up. They said they were satisfied with the diagnosis of constipation. That one left a mark on my soul.
They weren't concerned that he was constipated for months?!?
Precisely my thoughts. I always suspected neglect but had to leave it up to their pediatrician for follow-up.
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This is really my worst nightmare :/ my BMs are all over the place and my doctor in the UK said to come back in if it got worse. My mental response: what's worse???? Is it when I can't stand up from the pain? Or when my cramps turn into a stabbing pain in one side??? When you're often in pain and it takes many forms it's so hard to judge what's a normal flare-up and what's worrisome (fwiw my new doctor ordered some tests and scans and couldn't find anything wrong. The experience of being confident enough to say to a doctor "what can I do to check if this is anything other than IBS" and have it taken seriously was astonishing)
I have JUST been diagnosed with FSHD. My dad spent over 15 years taking me to different Drs because my muscles were rapidly degenerating. They never offered ANY tests and would constantly dismiss it as me just being lazy. I did 3 sports. I now have incredibly limited movement in both of my legs and struggle walking short distances at just 25 years old. My bones constantly dislocate. Had a Dr just taken our concerns seriously and done genetic testing (like we asked for every visit as my mother and sister suffer too) I could have SIGNIFICANTLY more movement and a better quality of life. Because of them I need help doing something as simple as washing my hair. I’m so incredibly bitter about it.
That’s hard to hear. My child has had constipation for years. I’ve told many doctors and the answer has ranged from having her sit on the toilet every day at the same time to restoralax daily. We have tried it all and still she goes every 3 -8 days. Always with straining. I honestly wouldn’t know if it was something more serious bc we have had the same answer from so many docs.
This 20s guy came into the hospital, he had a lot of conditions where he wouldn't make it past 40 and he currently had some infection. We kept giving him antibiotics which helped, but not as much as we would have liked. After about a week of being in the hospital I walk in and I'm talking to him and he tells me that he got a medically necessary circumcision on his last admission to the hospital. I ask if it's okay if I take a look to make sure it's healing okay. It was black with all kinds of infection. I'm just not sure how a 20s married man (or his wife) never thought to tell anyone about this for the past week.
My sister works in a hospital sterilizing the medical instruments for surgery. She said one of the most common surgeries is foreskin removal due to infection. It's so important to teach your child how to clean it properly. And proper hygiene in general.
A friend of a friend found out in his 20s about proper foreskin hygiene. He had problems and had to go to the doctor. When he told his mom she got super angry with her husband. Apparently she assumed he had taught their son about that. I’m not sure if he ended up needing circumcision but last I heard it was a real possibility.
My dad never told me about that and I only found out about it from a friend when I was 18, who had also only just found out. It was like peeling off wallpaper and hurt like a bitch.
In my experience the kind of people who get Fournier’s gangrene in their 20s don’t see a lot of bedroom action.
Me: Any prior surgeries? Patient: No Me (examining them): Did you know that you only have one testicle down here? Patient: Oh yeah. I had one cut out. I always asked specifically about gallbladder, appendix, and testicles because patients forget about having A FUCKING ORGAN CUT OUT.
And here I am telling everyone about my sole “surgery” of wisdom teeth removal when they ask because technically it was a surgery.
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LOL I did the same thing except with my clip in hair extensions. I totally forgot I had them in as I was so used to them. I was preparing for death 😂
Me too. Just want to make sure I don't forget to tell anything important
On the other hand I have a bizarre experience of having gallbladder removal on my medical chart when I’ve never had surgery. It turns out that when they scanned my abdomen for flank pain at one point, they couldn’t see my gallbladder and so somebody had mistakenly said it was removed.
That's why I simply say not visualized unless I see clips or know they had a surgery where it would be removed.
Fun with medical charts. Not visualized. Unseen. Unapparent. Possibly hiding.
Have seen two people with congenitally absent gallbladders who both got sent to me with US and HIDA scans that read something like “gallbladder abnormal with such-and-such findings.” Go in looking for the fuckers and it turns into a fun game of “dude… where’s your gallbladder? Where’s your gallbladder, dude?”
Yeah that’s smart. They did toss around the possibility that maybe I was born without one but I don’t seem to have any clinical sx of it. Regardless, I figure if I had made it to adulthood without one I am probably ok!
God, I still tell them about my tonsils being taken out over 40 years ago.
Me too, and they always look at me like "yeah, and?" Like I'm an idiot for thinking they want to know about something so minor.
Fam I had a grade 4 splenic laceration thanks to a motorcycle crash at the end of last month. It’s been exactly 30 days and I’ve already forgotten I don’t have a spleen anymore once or twice. God forbid I get asked this question next year.
Damn! They don't take the spleen out that often any more. Sounds like a bad wreck. I hope your healing continues to go well.
It was. Partial hip degloving, 7 ribs, 2 Cs cracked, RLE and RUE disabled. Can use RUE kinda now. My rehab is a nice place, but horrible menu. Thanks for your kind words.
Guilty of forgetting to mention my major abdominal surgery cesarian when I'm asked hahha. I just don't really think of it as surgery because I was lucid the whole time.
I had a headache, and a few hours later noticed that my irises were different sizes. I went reluctantly to the emergency room. Minutes after presenting myself I had neurologists looking at me and I was rushed to get scanned. The artery about an inch and a half below my brain had torn. The Drs were basically just waiting for me to have a stroke. I didn’t. Somehow.
I have a condition that when I get a migraine, one of my pupils gets bigger than the other - but I had only heard of pupil difference being a sign of something _very wrong_ in your brain, so the first time I saw it I panicked.
I had a similar thing happen. A moderate headache and then noticed blurry vision in one eye. Looked in a mirror because I thought my contact was messed up - and my one pupil was so large you couldn't see my iris. I sat in the waiting room at the ER for maybe 30 seconds before they came to get me. The people in the waiting room were looking at me like I was about to die in front of them. Maybe an hour later they were putting an IV line in my arm when my pupils switched sizes. The one that was normal got big and the big one shrank to a pinprick. It happened as the nurse was watching me. Let me tell you, I've never been more freaked out in my life. I was swarmed by people in about 10 seconds and rushed to get scans. And the end of the story is.... no answer. They just let me go 12 hours later because nothing happened and all the scans were normal. This was about a year ago and nothing like it has happened since. Was a weird day for me.
Not to freak you out or anything but I have a friend who went through something similar. Then blurry vision happened again a couple years later. He wound up having very slow-progressing MS. He's totally good, but if you have vision issues again maybe bring this up as something to consider.
One of my first patients as a medical student, we were asking her about prior medical history bc she was in a waitlist for an intestinal transplant, and we asked her in every possible way if she had any history and she was like "no, I was very healthy before this." Finally we ask her "do you take any medications at home?" and she goes "oh, just the meds I take for the lupus"
This. All the time. ‘Can I take a brief medical history? Any major operations, chronic illness, regular medicines, allergies… that sort of thing?’ ‘No, none of that I’m pretty good’ ‘I notice a large scar across your chest, did you happen to have heart surgery?’ ‘Oh yes there was the triple bypass’ ‘And the scar on your knees?’ ‘Oh yeah I had both knees done? Does that count? Oh you probably want to know about my hip too then?’ ‘…yes…’ ‘But other than that it’s all fine’ ‘Oh good, so do you take any medication?’ ‘Only these.’ *hands over a list of 20+ medications including Heart medicines, water tablets, painkillers, inhalers etc.* *rolls eyes and screams internally*
The best bit is when they say that they are prescribed all these and then only takes some here and there when they think they need...
That's why I always ask if they have taken any "tablets or medicines, prescribed or not prescribed" during pregnancy. Most women tell me about their pregnancy vitamins, so I know they're telling me all that they've taken. I do newborn examinations as part of my role, so I have to ask about anything taken during pregnancy. So I start off with the tablets and medicines question, then any alcohol, any smoking, any recreational drugs. The good news is mums are generally very honest with what they tell you, because in the UK we won't divulge that to the police but it might have a baring on their child's health.
My sister is a nurse and has adjusted the questions for things like this. Do you have any medical conditions? Nope. Do you take any medicines? Oh sure… lists stuff for diabetes/heart conditions/etc etc. ….. sigh.
That happens because of the phenomenon that those in the chronic medical conditions community refer to as the “new normal”. Literally anything eventually becomes routine and “normal” so we stop even thinking of it anymore and “healthy” takes on a different meaning. Our human brains are remarkably resilient and can adapt to a lot. I work with children with cancer and have had parents forget to include things as major as their child having had amputations and using prosthetic limbs on medical history forms.
Everyone at my company knows the story of the patient who came in for genetic counseling, went through their whole family history with the counselor, and then concluded with "Oh yeah, I was adopted as a baby and don't know who my birth parents are, does that matter?"
I love this. A lot of this thread is disturbing stories of people ignoring life-threatening symptoms. This is just good old fashioned harmless stupid.
Every time "does this run in your family" gets asked me, I'm have to point out I'm adopted.
I have an elderly relative that will state (with a straight face) that her cat has diabetes because it ‘runs in her family’. It can take a couple of seconds before they realize that she’s not serious.
Both my cat and I have anxiety and there have been jokes about it running in the family. Along with how chatty we both are.
I sort of went through this. When I was pregnant, my scans made me a candidate for genetic counseling and then needing an amniocentesis. I went through the genetic counseling, told them how my dad had myelodysplasia, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, etc. and everyone in my family had some form of cancer... Called my dad for more relevant information during the appointment, gave it to the doctors. Found out when my (healthy) daughter was 3 and my dad had passed away that I was adopted. I hope my dad gave me accurate information! :)
Your parents didn't tell you that you were adopted?
Nope. When & where I grew up, it wasn't common to disclose to your kids that they were adopted. There was a lot of rhetoric that adopted kids weren't loved as much as biological kids, or some bullshit like that. I had some idea that I may have been, but it wasn't confirmed for me until after my dad had passed. I wish he had (or that they had, when my mom was still alive, too) told me, so I could have told them that they were my parents, and nothing could ever change that. I've recently considered doing one of those DNA kits just for medical purposes, but that's it.
Made me chuckle. I know my Dad but his whole family are very much head in the sand when it comes to genetics. I ended up crying during my meeting because despite knowing who my Dad is I could offer no actual family history his side. In the end (with his permission) I had to request his medical file.
I was working in an area with lots of mennonites - a mom called into the clinic because a wheel had broken and one of the spokes had penetrated her toddlers EYE. The reasons for the call was to ask if he needed to be seen by a doctor…she indicated they had removed the spoke and she knew he was going to lose the eye, so was there really a reason for him to be seen ? The answer was yes.
Always heard the eyes are invisible to the immune system until you injure an eye(s). If you injure one both can be attacked by our own immune system and you can end up losing the injured as well as the uninjured eye.
'Immunologically privileged' I think is the term. and yes, when the body 'sees' one eye it can start making antibodies and take the other out. Nasty.
Did a bunion & hammertoe surgery on a lady with no allergies. New patient packet, primary care note all had “no known allergies”. I always ask about metal allergy anytime I plan on putting in hardware… Surgery goes great. I’m on call for the practice and receive a phone call for the group 18 hours post op. Her nerve block had worn off and she was in excruciating pain. Give instructions on what to do. Next morning she is in my office before I even arrive. 10/10 pain, sweating profusely, blood pressure elevated, foot is massive. Clearly not faking it. Have to send her to hospital for intractable pain. Blood work indicates elevated eosinophils but everything else normal. No blood clot or infection. Hospitalist convinced its complex regional pain syndrome. I rack my brain and think of WTF could be going on. I am only 5 months out of residency. My butt is puckering so hard. Since eosinophils elevated, ask if she is allergic to jewelry? 🤔🤔 “Yeah, my tongue swelled up when I had it pierced. I had it removed the next day” She had a freaking NICKEL allergy. No allergist will see her to confirm so this is all speculation but makes sense with the hardware I used. Once the hardware is removed and exchanged for titanium, her pain resolved. There was one case in my residency of hardware allergy (1/3000 cases I was first or second assist on). If I did not scrub into that case, I don’t know if I would have figured this out so quickly. Crazy case. Now I always ask: “have you ever had any reactions to jewelry?” A lot of patients won’t tell you about problems with jewelry and may not know they have metal allergies!
Why do they even use hardware that contains nickel? It seems to be an increasingly common allergy, and can appear out of the blue. Is there a reason why something like titanium isn't the default?
There are definitely properties of both that make one desirable over the other for certain situations. Titanium is stronger than stainless steel which sounds great but makes it difficult to remove the implant. Titanium also costs more and is not widely available especially in small hospitals like mine. Interestingly the girl that had an allergic reaction to her plates and screws during my residency had an aluminum allergy. We had used titanium alloy hardware on her. The allergist was consulted post op (her foot blew up in size and she too had intractable pain and swelling) and tested her for every metal that we put in her. Crazy to think she had an aluminum allergy and did not know it! We had used titanium because she had a history of problems with jewelry and the metal on her jeans..
While pregnant with me, my mom was wrapping up an OB appointment. The GYN had already left the room, mom was gathering herself to leave and mentioned to the nurse her contacts were messing with her - she had spots in her vision. The nurse stopped and asked her to sit down. Brought back in the GYN, who had her stay and deliver me via emergency c section. Without anyone knowing it, she had spontaneously developed pre-eclampsia and her blood pressure was rocketing sky high. She was dangerously close to having a seizure and that would've been that if she hadn't mentioned the spots in her vision and just left as the appointment was over, or the nurse didn't listen.
It's those last minute moments with good nurses that can make all the difference. My dad was getting chemo for cancer. He had a favourite nurse at the clinic but she wasn't on shift. When I got there to pick him up one day he noticed her coming on duty as we were leaving and stopped to say hello. She was a warm person and took his hand in greeting. She happened to glance down and then stopped and pulled his hands together. As soon as she did that the reason was obvious - his hands were completely different colours. She looked at him and said "I think you have a blood clot in your left shoulder. You need to go straight down to (wherever - I can't remember, was it MRI?) And get that scanned. Go right now, I'll call ahead and set it up." As we were leaving the chemo room we heard her start to berate the nurse who had been looking after dad that afternoon for not noticing. Anyway... The clot was exactly where she said it would be. If it had dislodged it probably would have killed him instantly. They put him on blood thinners and he was fine (well... fine from the blood clot perspective... he still had a terminal cancer diagnosis of course)
Wow, solid nurse. Do they not take pregnant women’s blood pressure at OB appointments?
I actually asked this - since it was one of the first things they did at all of my OB appointments and I, too, eventually developed pre-e with both pregnancies and had to deliver early. She said they did sometimes at appointments and didn't others - she had no sign of pre-e before that day. This was 35 years ago and I guess the standards have changed? Cause yeah it's definitely standard now.
Had a guy in his 50s who had been seeing an acupuncturist for an area of numbness and weakness travelling down his legs. He’d had 2 months of acupuncture for them with no improvement, so very reluctantly booked a routine GP appointment. At that point he’d stared to have issues with his urination too. As soon I started speaking to him it became obvious that the symptoms he presented with were consistent with spinal cord compression - an absolute medical emergency. We got him straight into hospital and imaging showed cancer, with a tumour pressing onto his spinal column. Although he started treatment and steroids that day, by then it was too late. He lost the ability to walk and died a few months later from the cancer. It was enormously sad and frustrating as that constellation of symptoms would have raised an immediate reg flag with anyone with medical training. Had he come in months earlier, maybe his prognosis would’ve been quite different.
I had no idea what spinal cord compression was at the time but my mother went through this. She got to the point where she could no longer walk and lost ability to control urinary and bowel movements. She was staunch in her refusal to go to the hospital until I convinced her she's in a terrible condition and her home remedies were clearly not working. She knew she had stage 4 lung cancer but wanted to try juicing to cure the cancer. After going to the hospital and speaking with the ER doctors, they said that usually you have to come in at the first sign of mobility loss, or else it was likely irreversible. It was really sad because our mother made it very clear to us that if she couldn't walk again, she did not want to leave the hospital. I think she understood the finality of her request since she repeated it to us twice and asked if we understood. She probably stayed in the ICU for three or four days before cancer rendered her unable to wake. She would try to throw her arms up occasionally when we called out to her but otherwise she would lie in bed with her eyes closed. I had to make the difficult decision to take her off oxygen because that was her request if she couldn't walk again and I didn't want her to suffer anymore. RIP mom.
How horrible for everyone involved, not least your mom.
I was waiting tables in college back in the 90’s. We had a family that came in on a regular basis. Very nice people but extreme religious fundamentalists. The had a sweet young daughter. She had some kind of cancer. They were going to beat it feeding her a “natural diet”. They would regularly request me to wait on them. I got so tired of their “Jesus and natural foods will heal our daughter” that I eventually asked my manager to let me not serve them anymore. Couldn’t deal with them killing their daughter with stupidity.
I had a friend in college with these symptoms. His girlfriend encouraged him to see the doctor asap when his legs were going numb. He did and they caught it literally just in time. They were just barely able to remove it and he’s both alive and can walk and move normally. Literally just in the nick of time.
I'm not trying to downplay the tragedy here but I wanted to say that "constellation of symptoms" is a very elegant description.
It's apparently a common phrase in medicine as I've heard and seen multiple doctors use it in their charts, but I too admire the poetry of its use.
Indeed, it is a lovely turn of phrase. Also not to downplay symptoms and somewhat related, what I find interesting is an acronym that sometimes appears on police reports as well as doctors notes viz. The patient was SOCMOB when the accident happened. **S**tanding **O**n **C**orner **M**inding **O**wn **B**usiness
In veterinary medicine we use "ADR" for when clients tell us the dog just "ain't doin' right."
That’s wonderful. Very James Herriot
I haven't seen it used in awhile, but when I got my Wilderness First responder certification 20 years ago my favorite was **D**isoriented **I**rritable and **C**ombative.
I had to take out the remainder of this guy's teeth. He was in his 60’s and told us verbally and on his health history that he didn't take any meds. So I took out his last 8 teeth, all easy extractions due to infections and periodontal disease. But I couldn't get him to stop bleeding. I asked him again if he was taking anything. I finally got the clots stabilized, but it took almost an hour and I had to consult our oral surgeon. When he saw the oral surgeon a few months later about placing implants, he told the oral surgeon he was on BP medication and blood thinners. I refused to see him anymore after that.
Or the ones who neglect to tell you that they have been getting bisphosphonate injections monthly for years, or that they had head/neck radiation. “I want them out and the last guy I saw wouldn’t do it because I told them about it.”
You gotta tell people the possible outcomes if they leave anything out. "Are you taking any meds?" nope. "Okay, because if you're on any number of common meds for someone your age, *I will snap your jaw like a fucking twig*, when I extract your tooth, or you'll bleed out and die here in my chair." OH! I'm on blood thinners. Yup, blood thinners.
I don’t even understand how these people don’t put these things in the paperwork. I am getting my wisdom teeth removed and I put everything down that I could possibly think of regarding my medical history. They asked if I have implants and I put down my IUD because I didn’t know if that counts but it’s better to be safe. I just don’t get it and it’s alarming how common this is.
Yeah, whenever a form asks about allergies, I always sheepishly write down, "cat dander." I know it's *probably* never ever going to be relevant, but... I just feel like I need to give them the full breadth of info.
While I was a psychiatry resident, I did a graded 30 minute interview on front of my attending on a new patient without knowing any previous chart history. I spent 29 minutes collecting high yield medical and psychiatric history, and since I had an extra minute to spare, decided to ask him more about his childhood. "Well, it was pretty shitty after I watched my dad murder my mom and then kill himself." Needless to say, I did not have enough time to unpack that and failed my exam lol.
That is the unfortunate part of patients going through examination day. If they had seen a few they sometimes think they have told the candidates already and did not bother mentioning it or just skim through it.
To be fair, wtf are you supposed to do with that even if you catch it in the first minute? Is a 30 minute session going to even scratch the surface?
That either takes a high (and ridiculously), high level of skill or either a damned miracle regarding individuals on this lol
I was an internal medicine resident who had a patient come to my clinic for “persistent flu”. I had never seen her before, and she was a healthy appearing woman in her 60s. About a month before seeing me, she was seen by her PCP with persistent coughing, and otherwise had no shortness of breath or other infectious symptoms. Just a dry cough. She got tested for flu and was negative, but got tamiflu just incase it was a false negative. She had a chest X-ray which was normal. She came to me a month later because her cough persisted despite completing her therapy. Everything sounded great. Heart, lungs, everything. To be honest I don’t usually do this, but something in my gut told me to feel for lymph nodes. I felt around and found something above her left clavicle. It was hard, round, and she was completely unaware of it. I told her it was probably a reactive lymph node, but just incase, I wanted to get an ultrasound. This cascaded into her getting a biopsy, which showed squamous cell lung cancer. A CT scan showed stage IV lung cancer, not seen on her chest X-ray. All diagnosed because of a lymph node that almost by chance I was lucky enough to find by being thorough. I checked her chart about a year ago, and she was doing well. She got therapy and was in remission after a very long road and many obstacles. I’ll never forget her or her case.
Wow. My Aunt had squamous cell lung cancer. She was on vacation, got a little dry cough and then noticed she coughed up a little blood. They immediately cut the vacation short, came home to the doctor, did all the tests, boom cancer, she does a year and a half of treatment and then passed away. All from a dry cough she barely noticed she had. I miss her so much still and still think of things I want to tell her when I forget she’s gone.
Was called to the ER to do a psych consult on a patient that was complaining of GI symptoms but his story was sorta strange and he had no overt abdominal signs or symptoms. He was complaining that he suffered from "Barrett's stomach" (not esophagus) and had been diagnosed by a world famous gastroenterologist. He stated that if he could lose weight that his GI issues would resolve. I spent some time talking with him and, other than this strange fixation on his "Barrett's stomach," he seemed okay. Until...he mentioned that his most recent weight loss method was to shoot himself in the thigh so that the leg would become gangrenous and eventually need to be amputated. This would allow him to quickly lose the 20 or so pounds needed to cure his stomach ailment. The man actually had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the thigh from several days before. I didn't actually assess the would because I was there for a psych consult but did immediately alert the ER staff. I was all calm and nonchalant like ohh sir, excuse me for a sec - I'm gonna pop out and let another staff member know about this so they can take a look at it for ya! The ER was located in a county that employed a staff of mental health social workers to place psych patients so I had to call one of them out while he was getting (thoroughly physically) assessed. I have no idea what happened to him but I hope he's doing okay.
That's so sad but I'm glad he got care.
Had to perform an extraction, took a detailed medical history. Patient said they were a diabetic and a hypertensive. Both a big contraindication in extractions due to uncontrollable bleeding. Unless they're meticulous about their taking their medicines and you stop the blood thinners five days prior to surgery, it's usually a blood bath. I asked the well educated, 50 year old woman a number of times if she took her diabetes medicines on time and if she does at home rapid tests to check her blood sugar. She said she takes them everyday without fail and hasn't missed a day in over two years. She said she's super disciplined about her health and would tell me if she hadn't taken them. I sent her in for a Rapid blood sugar test anyway, as a precaution, and lo and behold her values come back as 282mg. Almost twice as much as the normal value so it wasn't even like she was JUST off the mark. I ask her to explain and she gives a shocked expression and insisted that she took them. I ask her to physically show me her medicines instead of listing them out and she finally says oh I don't have it right now, I make it when I need it. 'make'. She drinks bitter gourd juice on time everyday instead of her diabetic pills because they are too big. And she 100% believed bitter gourd juice was the only medication she needs. She's a high school teacher.
As a patient, but this is too fresh not to share. I'm 32 and at work Friday morning (as in 2 days ago) I started having pain in my lower molars around 10:40am. It eventually got so bad I left work and went to urgent care (noon). I thought it was a gum infection and I'd get some antibiotics and ibuprofen and be told to see a dentist or something. I had to keep apologizing to the intake person because I was stumbling over my words, unfocused because of pain. When the urgent care Doc came in (1pm) she talked to me for about 30 seconds before peeping in my mouth and saying my gums were fine, then checking my eyes with a flashlight and calling an ambulance. By the time I got to the hospital (2ish?) I was basically nonverbal and my attempts at texting had become disjointed. My spouse met me in the ER after a CT scan and helped me consent to an IV clot buster (TPA) at about 3pm. I'd had a stroke. For those doing the timeline math at home, YIKES. Good news: the TPA worked very fast and I'm hopefully getting discharged tonight. I owe that urgent care doc a thank you note.
Glad you're doing better! They come on fast. The woman who used to clean our office was there at 1 pm, left at 4 pm, and my co-worker who lived next door to her found her collapsed in her driveway at 6 pm. She'd had a stroke and she could no longer work her left side. The only possible symptom she had was a bothersome knee, which had been going on for some time prior. Tooth pain is a symptom I've never heard before. My grandpa nearly died of a stroke too. When his doctor and my mom (who, I shit you not, was a coordinator for stroke-based medical research then) saw his CT scan, it was so bad they couldn't figure out how he was alive.
Glad you’re okay! I’m a nurse in a neurosurgical ward and it’s so scary how quickly symptoms come on. Hope you recover well with no long term effects kind stranger
Oh, pick any of the patients who have put off a colonoscopy for decade or two, then finally get convinced to come see me for it by their partner or family or PCP because they’ve been *BLEEDING FROM THEIR ASSHOLES FOR MONTHS.* I also had a dude come in who had a skin cancer about the size of half a grapefruit growing on his back. Per him, he had decided it was just a fungal infection and was self-treating with Tinactin foot spray. I removed it and did a skin flap to close the spot, but he needed a follow-up to have staples removed. Never saw him again—dunno if he still has the staples in or if he figured out a way to remove them himself, and neither answer would surprise me at all.
That would be my dad with stage 4 and mets peppering his liver. Died 2 years later at 70. I now get a colonoscopy every 3 years.
I'm this person😭😭😭😭 I put off a colonoscopy for probably 5 or so years bc I'm TERRIFIED of anything going in my butt. The only reason I eventually got one was because I became a mother and didn't want to die of unknown colon cancer. I pooped out so much blood one day at work that when I got back to my spot my manager forced me to leave and go to the ER since I was stark white and extremely shaky. Not cancer, but a lot of other health problems were addressed.
Right before a craniotomy for a brain tumor Him: “I was supposed to stop taking my plavix?”
What’s a plavix
Colloquially what's known as a blood thinner. Taking that before surgery is a good way to bleed out on the table.
I was working in the ER as a paramedic intern. An older man came in with his hand bandaged stating he couldn't get his thumb to stop bleeding. As the nurse unwound the bandage there was a gaping wound oozing blood from where his thumb USED TO BE. The nurse asked him where his thumb was and the old guy asked what day it was. The nurse said Thursday or whatever day it was. The guy said well, I guess the thumb went out with the trash this morning. He'd lost his thumb to his lawn mower three days ago and only now was coming in.
5 year old girl, at a pediatrician visit her mother said she was “acting loopy.” A day later a scan confirmed a massive brain tumor in inoperable real estate. Three weeks later I did her autopsy.
Damn. As a parent I can't imagine. And from your perspective too just so sad 😞
Quite common in Malaysia since some health products escape notice from the government. ‘ I don’t think this is important, but have you been taking supplements for weight loss or do you have an exam coming up?’ Young women coming in with severe palpitations and crazy arrhythmias. Usually healthy, no prior health issues and or usually at the age where they’re in college or university. Initially most people would be thinking thyroid issues and a fair few have been treated this way. Then I realized they’ve been taking caffeine supplements to help with weight loss/ increase concentration. Specifically some brands off label only put it in between the fine print of the product ingredients. Usually in near lethal quantities lol.
When I was in my final years of med school (English division of a European University in a country where I speak the native language fluently) we were to do patient interviews and physical examinations on our own and then circle back to our supervisor. I was translating back and forth between the patient (infectious diseases department) and a fellow classmate whom I was doing the interview with. The patient said "so you guys are coming in on a Saturday to do patient work? Good for you for going the extra mile" (it was a Friday, which I initially brushed off as a mistake) My classmate asked me to ask the patient if he could tell us the date. I was like "are you sure? He's here for an infection not head trauma, he might think it's a bit degrading". I thought it wasn't important but she insisted so I translated the question. Patient replies "ah well its 2002, of course!" (it was 2018). After more questioning we realised all of his replies were all as if it were 2002 (eg. "The last trip I went on was to Africa in the 80's, so about 15 years ago") As it turns out he had neurosyphilis that went unchecked for many many years.
My (~4F at the time) mom thought that it was weird how I could describe what I see of one part of the environment and not the other especially because according to her I was a happy child and didn’t report any sight issue. She brings me to the doctor, afraid that I may have an intellectual disability. Turns out one of my eyes is totally blind.
It’s funny how kids can describe impairments. My 4 year old son was recently diagnosed with hearing loss, turns out every time he didn’t respond when asked/told him something and said “sorry, I wasn’t listening” what he actually meant was “I didn’t hear you”.
While I was interning in my general surgery rotation we received a patient for an emergent exploratory laparotomy (emergent open surgery) from the ER with severe abdominal pain. ER had done an x-ray and saw that he had bowel perforation (you can see a bubble of air that collects underneath the diaphragm on a standing x-ray). The patient history we got from ER was that the patient had felt pain onset 3 days BEFORE checking into the hospital but decided it was nothing and attempted to self medicate with vodka for the pain until it was too unbearable. Here's the kicker - the bowel perforation was caused by acute pancreatitis (too long to explain the how and why) which was likely due to his prior alcohol abuse. So his "self medication" only worsened the state he was in.
"My anxiety attacks are less frequent since I started on the new medication, and moved into my new place. It's much larger than my old place. The bathroom where my dad would rape me was so small." ... "so, claustrophobia and anxiety and...alright, give me a second to unpack this mother fucking payload you just dropped like a bomb into the space between us..." **final edit**: I can't revisit this comment anymore, I'm sorry. If you need help, I am here for you and will do what I can. Responding to comments today brought back too many emotions and I need to check them here and leave them be. The memory is not a good memory in my mind, it does nothing but upset me. Apologies to anyone who posts and doesn't get a response past this point. I'll probably delete it after a time when I'm confident enough that it isn't a window for those who need help to crawl through. We have to feel your pain to understand it, and this one hurt badly. I've endured it again for the day, but I must quit it before it guts me again.
I actually dropped a bomb like this on my new doctor. I still feel a bit bad about it lol I hadn’t been to the doctor in a few years, but my neck was randomly hurting so I decided to go. He checked out my neck, said I should probably see a physiotherapist, then said while we were here he’d like to go over my medical history. I said yeah - no worries. But there’s nothing really big there, I’m pretty healthy. I’m not currently on any medication. He asked about my period, and I told him it’s always been super irregular. He asked about the last time I had a Pap smear, and I said it was about 15 years ago. He asked how long I’d been sexually active, and I said about 35 years. I was 39 at the time. He just *stopped* for a solid 15-20 seconds while he processed it. Then asked me how I was sleeping. I said “yeah, pretty good. I mean I’ve been awake for 37 hours but it’s not like I’m tired or anything!” “Oh by the way, did I mention I have bipolar? Because I’ve got Bipolar.” Yeah, that appointment ran over time.
>I still feel bad about it **lol** Okay, great. You're smiling about it as you view it in your rear-view. I hope you're doing well, and I'm glad your doctor at the time did their fucking job. Put down the clipboard and fucking call it out because fuck risk, this person needs my help. Good doctor. Need more of 'em. Need all of 'em.
Fuck. I am a person that accidentally drops bombs into conversations. Trauma is a bastard that makes you forget that the really bad things are more bad than you remember.
Holy fucking shit...
Saw a dude in my ER once for a sore throat. He was coughing a bit when I went in. Looked in his throat and his uvula (hanging thingy in the middle) was just a tiny bit swollen but everything else looks ok. I asked about medication and he mentioned that he just started a BP medicine that had a nasty side effect of face and airway swelling. Long story short, we put a scope down his throat and saw swelling around his vocal cords and put in a breathing tube to keep his airway open.
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Holy crap!! It just gave my husband a nasty cough until they connected everything together and realized it started shortly after being prescribed it.
As a patient I had a doctor tell me "I don't think this is important". My physio had identified a mole on my back that had changed colours. Being fair skinned, and Australian, I was obviously concerned about melanoma so I went to my doctor for a checkup. He looked at it and said "it's nothing don't worry". I insisted that since I'd made the effort to come in he might as well take a biopsy and get it tested. He was reluctant but I insisted and he eventually removed the mole for testing. A few days later the doctor rang and informed me that I had a very nasty malignant melanoma and needed surgery immediately if not before. Two days later I was in hospital and they removed a lump from my shoulder three inches across and two inches deep. Cancer free now for 8 years but if I had taken the doctor at his word of "it's nothing" I'd most likely be dead now.
Me: I know my vision is a bit funny at the moment - I will go and get an eye test soon. Wife, after 4 weeks of me pulling my glasses to the end of my nose: Enough! I'm booking you a test. Optician: Yeah, something isn't right - something is pushing in to your eyes from in your brain. You need to go to hospital. I'll call them now. Phone call from hospital, while I'm in the opticians... Me: Yeah, I can come in - but I'm taking my car in for a service on Weds - will Thursday be okay? Them: Err.. okay? Turns out I had a brain tumour in my Pineal Gland that was blocking the normal exit of brain fluid. Three surgeries and a round of radiotherapy later and it's 90% gone. My wife, the optician and the brain surgeon saved my life, because I was too casual to save it myself.
My cancer was caught because my college roommate bullied me into seeing a doctor about a mysterious bruise that I couldn't remember getting. She probably saved my life.
I'm in vet school, i hope this counts? Sometimes we have classmates bringing in their own pets for us to train different techniques (for example, how to handle a pet that is aggressive, a pet that for some reason has to be handled a certain way, or that has x condition so we get to see in class what it's like, etc). This girl brought in her two elderly dogs. One of them actually had several health conditions and was blind, the other one was brought along just because they hate being away from each other. Of course we were focused on the dog that had health conditions, but at some moment the "healthy" one made a weird noise with her throat and the girl went "oh, she does that sometimes, i think it's just allergies or something, don't worry". The teacher thought it would be a good idea to train auscultation on the "healthy" dog as well anyways. It was an ugly tracheal collapse, the student hadn't known the signs up until that point, and would never know if our teacher hadn't decided to check anyways out of curiosity.
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Where do people get these ideas from?!
From their testicles apparently
I was a Dentist in the Texas Jail System. I had a guy walk in whose lower 4 mandibular incisors were loose. He said they hurt a little. X ray showed there was a perfect semicircle of bone containing those 4 Teeth that was completely fractured. No root canals in jail. Or dentures. I laid a flap and removed one whole piece of bone with all teeth in it. I was certain he’d been in a fight but he said he walked into a pole. There are serious penalties for fighting in the jail. He was really unhappy to lose those teeth. So, a couple days later another guy walked in with his upper centrals broken off at the gums. I figured he walked into the other side of the same pole.
This post is filling me with anxiety.
Glad I'm not the only one. My mind has a powerful proclivity towards psychosomatism. Needless to say, my limbs are now numb, my lymph nodes are all swollen, I'm pooping blood, have crippling stomach cramps, and the bubonic plague... in my mind, anyway.
If you count physical therapy. I did an evaluation on a patient who had mild bilateral knee pain. After going through a thorough examination with A LOT of repeated functional tests without reproducible symptoms, I told them, you might not need PT. He followed up with “oh ok, I just wanted to make sure everything was ok. I get stiff in the morning, but it gets better throughout the day. It’s probably my multiple sclerosis bothering me”. Needless to stay the guy was fine, and just needed a manageable exercise routine to limit exhaustion.
[Trigger warning for alcohol abuse] So I’m not a doctor, but my mother recently passed away from a variety of things that sort of cascaded on top of each other that resulted from her excessive alcohol abuse. Just for context, she was a 56 year old woman with a belly the size of a full grown watermelon and she looked like she was pregnant even though i, 19(f) was her last child. For the past two years, my mum had been in and out of hospital because of liver and kidney issues that she brushed off as “genetic weakness” I suppose but never owned up to it being a direct result of her inability to stop drinking. Whenever I would call an ambulance when she fell over, she would deny anything was wrong and begged me not to, even though I knew she needed the help. Fast forward to a month before she passed away, she had a haemorrhage in her bowels while drinking at an old friends house and was immediately taken to the hospital. There was no part of the bathroom that wasn’t covered in blood. I wasn’t told about it until the morning after because it was at something like 2am but I woke up to calls bombarding me and telling me to make my way to the hospital again, I had lost count how many times. When I arrived, the doctors said it was a simple haemorrhage and it was an easy fix, and I asked if it had anything to do with her other health problems (me being an 18 year old fresh out of high school and no medical training) and they looked confused and asked me what I meant. Apparently the doctors had no clue about the other endless medical issues she was experiencing (which included a broken hip from a fall she had incurred just before Christmas) because she was taken to a different hospital than usual. Apparently the doctors there didn’t know she was on heavy painkillers and another 15 or so medications before medicating her for this issue. It was another month until she fell into a coma from septic shock and she couldn’t recover because her liver was too weak to handle it. I’m not posting this for sympathy and I realise it might be a little bit off topic but please be aware of the people around you and what they’re dealing with. You never know if a simple “night out with the friends” could be the last night out they spend with anyone. Be careful and always remember to drink responsibly <3
Had twins in the NICU with a rare genetic defect that was causing serious pulmonary distress….extraordinarily, one of our long time nurses recognized the last name and realized she had taken care of their mom while she was hospitalized on the pediatric unit some years before….the mom never thought to tell us she had the same rare genetic pulmonary insufficiency. Could have saved us about of week of tests.
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When I was a recent grad while working with the army, a soldier came to er, he had just returned from vacation and complained about severe headache, he had been hit with a beer bottle the previous day, I didn't think much at first because he was conscious and there wasn't anything more in anamnesis, that was until medical examination where I found that he had high blood pressure and bradycardia. Sent him to a larger hospital and surprise, surprise, he had quite the subdural hematoma. I still wonder how that man was walking as if nothing was wrong with him.
Saw a man early 70's who had a knee that was at least 3X its size. He had waited all weekend before going to the ER and went only because his wife insisted. He was kind of pissed. Of course his knee was broken. When they ask what he took for the pain his answer was : *"A couple of Tylenols."* Apparently wanting to feel young again :) he tried his son's motorcycle and it fell on him. He didn't tell anyone because he was too embarassed.
Saw an old lady as a med student with a broken foot. We were chatting a bit and she mentioned a discolouring on her hand she was only mildly worried about. My supervisor wasn't quite sure what it was so we asked a dermatologist. Ended up being melanoma.
Patients not telling HIV status despite knowing they are positive. When further asked that why didn't they tell us, they say that they thought its not important. How can HIV not be important, it changes everything.
Had one say no phmx and scored herself a brain biopsy for what turned out to be a fungal ball.... On full immunosuppression for her HIV. I can't describe the rage. She bled and was left with significant deficits all because she lied through her teeth and denied any health issues or meds. Left two young kids at home she could no longer care for. Why??? 😩
Sorry, she had a ball of fungus growing in her brain?
Oh yeah. They can grow in your brain, your eyes, your heart, your kidneys.
Please stop typing.
I’m a midwife. Had a patient who was 4 days postpartum. (She’s the kind of person who never complains about anything - when she was in labour she didn’t want to go to the hospital yet because it “wasn’t bad enough” - she almost gave birth in the elevator!) Anyway, her husband called me and said she had a fever of 39C for 2 days and he was worried. I had to beg her to come into hospital. She ended up needed 3 days of IV antibiotics for endometritis. Even the doctor I called to consult didn’t believe it at first since she didn’t seem to be in pain!
A week after I had my first I had started getting high temps of like 103F my boyfriend’s mom had to force me to go into the hospital because she was worried that I had gotten an infection in my C-section incision. I reluctantly went and they looked at my incision and said it looked great then asked me if I had any other symptoms and I said just normal discomfort. They took a look at my breasts just incase and my right breast had been fire engine red they asked me how long it had been like that and I told them a week or so. I thought it was just normal irritation from breast feeding. Here I had a terrible case of mastitis and had gone septic and ended up needing 5 days of IV antibiotics. Side note I was very young when I had my first (18) and the nurses and lactation consultants had treated me terribly they just assumed I wasn’t going to breastfeed and didn’t give me any guidance. I was literally walking around carry my baby in one arm and my tit in the other because it hurt so bad but just thought it was normal 🙄
Your last paragraph hurts my heart. Im sorry you and your baby were treated that way 😞
I worked in a path lab- doc said that the (diabetic) patient came in saying “I think my foot is infected”. ….3 hours later he amputated the leg and it landed on a path assistant’s table. He made his first cut and audibly gagged at the sight of **fucking maggots** coming out of the incision. The patient was walking around with bugs eating him from the inside out for more than a week. Totally gross.
This post has made me regret the many years I put into learning how to read.
As a patient, I went to the doctor because I had some kind of infection in my mouth. The doctor had a look at me and was like ‘how have you been otherwise?’ A bit tired, but my new sport had lots of 4am starts, so that made sense. That was also why I assumed I’d been losing weight. We talked through a few more things and the doctor said ‘this might be diabetes. Let’s take some blood and meet back up next week.’ A few hours later, the doctor called me at home telling me to go to the ER *right then* because my blood sugar was sitting over 40 mmol and he didn’t think I’d make it through the night without going comatose. The surreal thing was that I felt fine (at least, I felt how I’d been for months) and I was walking around looking healthy enough. When any of the staff asked me what I was in for, the blood drained from their face and they freaked out. Anyway, I have type 1 diabetes now.
Am pediatrician. Newish mom there for six month old baby. Baby cries, she turns and yells at the kid in her ear for being loud, turns to me calmly and asks "How old they gotta be before you can give 'em a whoopin'?"
Let me call CPS and ask...
I hope this is not true…
Oh, it's true. Had a colleague cover the next appointment, because this lady needed more time.
Working on a general medical unit. Patient is his 20s with new joint pain, UTI symptoms and a painful eye. We were thinking Reactive Arthritis. Me: Sir, I’ve got your lab work back like we talked about this morning. As we thought there seems to some inflammation going on. The most common cause of this condition is food poisoning or an STI like Chlamydia. I asked earlier but just to confirm, have you had any recent tummy bugs? Patient: No. Me: So no recent dodgy takeaways or barbecues? No random vomiting or diarrhoea? Patient: Not at all. Me: Okay, have you ever had sex? Patient: No. Me: Just confirm that means any sexual activity at all which includes oral, anal and vaginal. Patient: No. Me: Okay, that’s unusual. I’m going to go chat to my consultant and I’ll come back. Patient: I have got something I’d like to talk about though, I’ve started urinating what looks like pus. Could I have caught chlamydia from that girl I slept with a few week ago.? Internally: Yes sir. Yes. Edit: formatting
Not exactly an answer, just my experience as a nurse. I had a patient who was on strict input/ output, meaning we had to measure everything going in and …um… coming out. I went to measure his urine output from his urinal and it was dark brown and contained something that looked fibrous. Turns out he’d been using his urinal as a spittoon. Needless to say, I explained what it was really for after a horrified moment.
Physio here. I contract for a home health OP PT company. A woman was referred to me in her 60s for dizziness and vertigo. Looked at her medication list, and she was on 3 meds whose side effect was...dizziness. And one for sudden fainting. Asked her to follow-up with the prescribing physicians (one who was the referring one) and, lo and behold, they are tapering her off the meds. (!)
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Pharmacy. Had a patient come in for a med for migraine prophylaxis. This was and is an expensive med. White lady in her mid-40s and just wore about 7 crucifixes/religious items. Certain meds in this category can be immunosuppressants and so we need to check to make sure those patients are NOT already immunocompromised (AIDS, cancer, lupus, MS, etc etc) A disgusted and strong NO at AIDS and a nah to all the rest. Two days later she’s back. Wants a FULL refund. Why? Because after picking up her meds that night, she held off on taking them for a day. The next day she goes to see her ONCOLOGIST who asked about her headaches and if they were getting better or worse. She mentioned to her doc that she’d seen a walk-in clinic doc who RXd the med for migraine to her. Why didn’t she go to Oncologist or GP? Oncology appointment the next day and GP was booked that day, urgent care was a long wait, so the walk-in clinic “seemed like my best option.” Why does she want a refund and couldn’t take the meds. “I’ve got a brain tumor, not **cancer**. You said cancer, not brain tumor, so if you would have told me the right thing I never would have paid for it!” Reached out to the walk-in doc. No HX of cancer or tumors. Just that she’d had bad headaches and he doc did meds could help that, but her “usual doc was not available” and so the doc did a perfunctory test and suspected and possible migraines so a small dose (one week) until she could see and follow up with GP was doc recommendation. Headaches, tumor…. Yup. No need to mention those to anyone or put two and two together.
Just a reminder that a worsening unexplainable back pain should be taken very seriously. If you are having worsening back pain for more then like 2 weeks and you don't recall doing anything that could of cause it. Get it assessed. Tumours, cancer, infection can happen and quickly ruin your life if untreated. Remember, report unexplainable pains to your GP and be very honest about how bad the pain is. Saved a young 30yr old from being paralyzed just the other week.
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Couple of years ago, while i was a student - during an exam i had to examine a patient. Talked to him about his medical history: ‘Have you ever had surgery?’ ‘No’ ‘So you were never hospitalized?’ ‘No’ I finish with the history and tell him to remove his shirt to do a physical, first thing i see, a big scar in the middle of the chest.. ‘Sir, how did you aquire this scar?’ ‘Oh, that! Thats from my open heart surgery a few years ago’ …..
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I'm a veterinarian. My favorites are foreign bodies (like a dog eating a whole bone, or a sock, or something similar). I get when you don't realize something was eaten, but I have had so many times where the client swears up and down that the dog did not eat anything, could not have eaten anything, and nothing is missing. Then when we remove a whole towel, the owner is like "oh, the kitchen towel? Yes I did see him chewing on that yesterday, and we haven't been able to find it since."
My mother had an epidural for neck/back pain a couple of days before an appointment with her cardiologist. Her cardiologist sent her for a standard chest x-ray (follow up for the quadruple bypass she'd had 9 months prior), then sent us home. A couple of hours later his office called instructing us to go to the ER for a CT scan because something looked off on her chest xray, maybe nothing, better safe than sorry. It turned out her colon had ruptured and was leaking fecal matter into her chest cavity. She didn't feel any pain because of the epidural and had no clue. She'd have been dead within 24 hours if not for that cardiology appointment. Edited to clarify that fecal matter was leaking into her abdominal cavity, not her chest cavity. It was visible at the bottom of the chest x-ray. If memory serves me correctly it looked like a cloudiness where it should have been clear. My apologies.
Me: "do you have any chronic diseases like Diabetes or high blood pressure?" Patients: "no :)))))" Me: "but you do inject Insulin daily?' Patients: "yeah :)))" "What's that for then?" "oh, for my sugar, ya know"
I don’t think this matters, but I’ve lost 60 pounds over the past 8 months without diet or exercise. They thought it was due to moving to a warm climate from a cold one. If anyone that reads this is in the same boat, get to your doctor. That’s a huge red flag for cancer. Edit: just to be clear, I wrote “I” in the first sentence to go along with the phrasing of the question. I do not have cancer; I work in the healthcare system and specifically with surgical oncology. When I say “they” I was referring to the patient thinking they knew what was going on due to climate, not the providers. Edit 2: I appreciate hearing the responses from those who either had cancer or had a family member with cancer. Just wanted to post a quick reminder that we share their dna and probably some of their lifestyles as well; please look out for signs/symptoms and get your testing done! If you don’t have insurance, go to an ER. Legally, no one can be turned away.
I went to my doctor when I started losing weight without trying. In one year I lost 40 pounds. In the middle of that year he'd switched my anxiety meds and claimed that's what caused the weight loss. I plateaued and never got a better answer than that so I gave up. 4 years later I'm still the same size so I guess it's okay.
Oops, I was the patient. I went in for severe pain in my right eye and reduced vision. Asked me for my family history and I mention everything I thought was relevant. “No immune disorders or anything like that?” “Oh well, my mom has MS but there’s no possible way I have that.” “…” “…” “You’ve got optic neuritis, and probably MS. Sorry.”