In this thread, an anonymous Reddit user said:

“A lady comes screaming into the ER, Now she’s all dressed up, so are her 2 grown daughters. All of them screaming hysterically that their mother is going to die. I go by them and nearly get tackled by the SIL, husband of one of the daughters.”

The family had just come from a wedding, where mom had apparently eaten one too many potatoes. After a shot of pantoprazole, her fart embolism went away.

@TableWallFurance remembers this story well:

“The kid had cruddy green/bloody stuff coming out of his left nostril, and a lot of redness and swelling of only the left side of his nose and the adjacent cheek. Mom was sure he caught a sinus infection and just wanted some antibiotics…Mom was insistent that he NEVER puts things in his nose.”

He found a button battery from a watch stuffed up in there. In another couple of days, it would have started burning a hole through the boy’s nose.

“I had a patient who was a completely non-compliant diabetic, smoker, morbidly, who had his first heart attack at 45. His blood pressure was also super high. And instead of taking his anti-hypertensive medications, he went to the gym. In the gym: he would sit in the sauna for a very long time, and sweat a lot, and lower his blood pressure by becoming dehydrated.”

“Not a Doctor or Nurse, but I used to be a receptionist at a Family Practice. We had a patient call regarding her yeast infection. She was given suppositories for her problem. She told me she took all three and still had the infection. I said “Took? Like you swallowed them?” Yep, that’s what she did. I let the Doctor handle that one.”

@aberdine_8 said:

“So – the patient had low blood pressure – so their self treatment: eating more fatty foods in order to decrease the size of their blood vessels in order to increase the blood pressure within their system…”

@lmao_turkey, who works in the ER, said:

“We had a very pregnant patient come in needing stitches in her vagina. Turns out she was a realtor and didn’t want her water to break while she was showing a house, so she put a glass cup in her pants to catch the water. Instead of using a pad or an adult diaper, she went for a GLASS CUP. She sat down while showing a house and sure enough, it broke and cut her up pretty bad.”

@rawrthesaurus:

“Had a young woman with recurring UTIs that began after a recent partner and with no STDs; went through the standard questions trying to figure out what could be causing them and eventually found out she had been lubricating with jelly. Not KY jelly. The mixup had literally been a joke on House. It took me some effort to keep a straight face, but we eventually resolved the problem and she stopped getting UTIs.”

Here’s how @Frishypharma reacted to this girl’s poor math skills:

“Was working at a clinic. I was speaking with a non-controlled diabetic patient about her sugar intake and she said she drinks a 32 oz soda everyday. I ask her if it’s regular or diet and she replies with “It’s half-regular. I let the ice melt first so there isn’t as much sugar in it”. Sorry but that isn’t how it works.”

@Rdthedo explains why this isn’t a good idea.

“We had a diabetic foot patient a couple weeks ago who thought that wrapping his foot in raw bacon would help get rid of bacteria not too long ago. Not too long ago was also about 4 toes ago….”

“Had a pregnant woman who’s ultrasound showed the baby had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (Half a heart, 100% fatal without surgery) who stopped seeing her OB so she could have the baby in the forest and bathe it is breast milk to cure him. SMDH”

“Patient inquiring about birth control was adamant she wanted an IED.”

Studies have shown that “improvised explosive devices” will prevent pregnancies 100% of the time.

CaptainTheGabe, an optician, had this to say:

“He said that puff machine gives you glaucoma and we weren’t going to pull that on him. He told us his father got an exam, and had glaucoma after using that machine. His uncle and brother also had no signs of glaucoma, and after getting the puff test, both people had been diagnosed with the disease. Glaucoma doesn’t have any outward symptoms before you start going blind…he has a very strong familial disposition to glaucoma, and refused to be tested for it.”

@5123 says:

“I’m a corpsman, not a doctor, but I once had a patient tell me that there was no credible research that smoking was bad for one’s health.”

This particular incident stuck out like a sore ulcer for @jdubs33:

“80+ y.o. patient who was declining with multiple diagnoses and about 3 decubitus ulcers. Daughter was adamant that her father be kept on his strict “paleo” diet because that would “supercharge” his healing. She had a stack of diet books. He simply wasn’t getting enough nutrition to heal the ulcers. He didn’t like the diet at all btw. At some point you kind of have to stop being polite and just tell patients/ family members bluntly that you don’t have time for this shit and what you recommend and they can do what they want and just document everything. It happens a lot but she sticks out.”

Dental student @Macabalony hears baloney all the time from patients:

“One patient in particular is pathological liar. During one visit, they claimed to have gone to medical school. Next visit was that they did dental Army. Last visit was that they had a PhD. The patient will say things like “Hey doc do you need me to move my head mesial or distal?” No. I need you to move your head right. “Hey doc, are these cavities being cause by the anaerobic pathology microbes?” No. They are cause by you eating snacks all day and not brushing.”

This optician, who shall remain anonymous, said:

“Had a patient put EAR DROPS in one eye. White part of eye (conjunctiva) scarred over entire cornea and was left with no light perception. Asked me if he should have come in sooner. It had been 4 months. He needs a cornea transplant…”

Nurse @GrumpyMare says:

“As a labor and delivery nurse. I have had to give the “3 hole speech” multiple times. I explain to the patient that I am going to insert a urinary catheter because they have an epidural and can’t void properly. Then they ask how is the baby going to come out. I want to bust out a diagram and show that there is a urethra, vagina and anus. Big arrow to the vagina where the baby comes out.”

“Had a patient come to the emergency department at 3am because she woke up 20 minutes prior with itchy/watery eyes and nasal congestion. It was spring. She literally came in for seasonal allergies. I asked what medications she tried to relieve the symptoms. She said “my husband told me to take some allergy medicine he has at home, but I didn’t take it.” So, you’re going to pay a hospital bill for the same antihistamines that you have at home?”

“Nurse here. The number of American 20-something males who don’t know what circumcision is is ridiculously high. They think that boys are “born circumcised.” Evidence: New fathers (and mothers) asking me what’s wrong with their newborn son’s penis. “Ummm… He still has his foreskin. Many parents choose to have it removed when the baby is a couple days old. It’s called circumcision.” Often followed by a parent’s question: “What’s circumcision?” That’s when I face palm.”

“Im ashamed to say I have a story that fits here. I have a ganglion cyst on the inside of my wrist, when it starts getting large I smash my wrist down on a hard table and it goes away. I developed a similar bump on the top of my foot. I couldn’t smash it down like my wrist so I tried hitting it with a hammer. Didn’t do anything and it was getting bigger and interfering with my shoes so I got it investigated. Not a cyst, but arthritis in the joint. No wonder my hammer trick didn’t work. The radiologist did find my treatment method amusing, but advised me to get any more lumps checked out rather than randomly hitting things with a hammer.”

“My aunt (who has varicose veins, pretty obvious to anyone who sees it) once asked me why her legs hurt and what those bluish lines under her skin were. I almost went on to explain to her about dilated veins when she interrupts and decides for herself that those are her nerves. Dying nerves. And the blue stuff was blood clots inside the nerves. I’m a med student.”

Another story from @SomeYorkTown:

“I was doing a respiratory system examination on this guy who frequently(about once a month) gets admitted in the general ward with complaints of breathlessness. He’s had COPD for a couple of years. Quite bad. And he tells me that he isn’t going to quit smoking because ‘God’ told him not to. When asked why, he tells me that the people who are relying on him for their daily livelihood won’t survive if he stopped. I went on to ask him if he meant the people at the cigarette factory or the health industry. He didn’t get the sarcasm though.”

@SomeYorkTown says:

“Patient comes to the surgery clinic with complaints of mass per rectum. (Now I wasn’t there the first time he came). But the surgeon wanted to do a couple of investigations and advised him to get admitted. The guy decided he doesn’t want to. Couple of months later, he comes back to the clinic. Apparently he went to one of these alternative medicine places or whatever and they had tied this metal wire(not exactly sure why) around the mass. By then, this mass has eroded through it and was bleeding and had gotten much bigger. Turned out to be a cancerous growth.”

Here’s a scary warning from@chickenpants80:

“I was a unit secretary and nurse aide on a radiation oncology unit in the early 2000’s. We had a patient show up through the ER and was admitted for emergency radiation treatment. She had a massive fungating mass in her mouth that had consumed half her head. When the RadOnc doc tried to examine her and open her mouth, her remaining teeth fell out into his hand. It had eaten through the bones of her face, invaded her eye socket, everything. Doc said it was the worst case of mouth cancer he’d seen. According to her husband, she had a small lesion on her hard palate, and upon receiving the diagnosis of an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, she decided to treat with essential oils and things like frankincense because chemo was poison. Her husband said he had tried to reason with her but she was adamant about the ‘natural’ treatment. She died in agony shortly after.”

From medical tech @EarthwormJane:

“Did a fingerstick for a patient, ensured the little cut stopped bleeding, and then put a band-aid on it. Told her to collect a urine sample for testing. Test came back strongly positive (4+ reading) for blood. She complained to the doctor that there is NO WAY she has blood in her urine, and that the blood from her fingerstick must have entered the urine, throwing off her reading. She said it was my fault that I did her blood test before her urine test, and I obviously made a mistake. She repeated the test later in the afternoon, still at 4+. Came back a week later, still at 4+. The look on her face when I told her “sorry, ma’am, your result is still positive” was priceless.”

@sosanostra, who works in an optometrist office, said:

“When the doctor was explaining to the mom that her son had to wear his glasses all the time since he’s nearsighted and basically can’t see clearly past 5′ in front of him. For some reason this caused a switch to flip in the mom and she spazzed out on the doctor, saying that her son doesn’t need glasses and that the doctor is only saying that he does because he wants to sell glasses. She says that she only brought her son in because there was some form for school that needed to be filled out and that doctors are all a con artists trying to push unnecessary medications and interventions. The doctor tried to calm her down and explain that he’s only trying to help them but that she was free to get a second opinion and gave her a copy of the kids prescription and sent them on their way. About four months later the lady is back asking for another copy of her son’s prescription. Apparently the first semester midterm results were in, and her son failed them all, because he couldn’t see the board in his classes and needs glasses!”

@talon03 isn’t a doctor, but said:

“We had a patient come into our hospital with anorexia requiring treatment, which, as usual, she didn’t want. However, she appeared to be eating her prescribed meals. After a few days it becomes clear she’s not putting on any weight, but the room is clean and she’s supervised for her bathroom visits, so we know she’s not flushing it away. Turns out her family are going though some tough times and her dad’s down on his luck and out of money. So when he’s coming to visit his anorexic daughter in hospital every day, he’s eating the food prescribed to her because he can’t afford to feed himself.”

From Registered Nurse @jsellars8:

“I see some crazy stuff, but one thing that stands out was the time I was admitting a guy to the hospital. I can’t really remember what for but he was about 400lbs, diabetic, heart disease, you name it. A few minutes in he starts complaining that he’s thirsty. So I get on my phone and call the nurse assistant and as her to bring in some ice water. As soon as the words are out of my mouth the whole family screams “NOOOO! NO WATER! HES ALLERGIC TO WATER!”

@drushkey asked his emergency doctor friend for this story:

“Patient comes in complaining of severe abdominal pain, nurses take vitals, ask questions etc. Eventually my friend sees her and, after a few questions, he has her lift her shirt. The “severe abdominal pain” on the chart was in fact due to a gash so severe part of her intestines were sticking out of her. No one had noticed and she hadn’t thought to mention that her organs had started leaking out. In fact, she seemed just as surprised as he was.”

From @CalvinsStuffedTiger:

“Not a doctor but I’m a nurse who worked in the OR at a trauma center. Was doing surgery on a 19 year old who tested positive for meth and cocaine who was grilling the anesthesiologist about every drug we were going to use in surgery because “he doesn’t like putting chemicals in his body.” Gotta stick with that organic, fair trade, Non-GMO cocaine.”

This one comes from a patient who was outing her mom:

“My grandmother has Crohn’s disease. Very very badly. It skipped my mother and her brother. When I was 15, over the course of 6 months, I went from being 5’9 and 190 pounds to being 110. I was a skeleton, extremely anemic, and coughing up blood. My mother was CONVINCED it was something else. I forced her to bring me to a doctor and she spouted off all these possibilities. She then talked about what she yahooed. Not even googled. Yahoo. About genetics and such. And “crohns can’t skip generations.”Well the doc said “just in case. We’re gonna run some tests. Long story short I have crohns in my throat and small intestine. So does my cousin. It just skipped a generation.”

From @cazman123, whose dad is an emergency room nurse:

“I had a patient come in with several pages he printed off the internet. He kinda slammed them down and said, “This is what I have.” He had bloating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stool, and fever among other things. He insisted he had Schistosomiasis. He was being a real jerk about it like we’re wasting time since he already knew what he had.”

The next question threw the patient off guard.

“So, I asked when did he get back from Africa. And he said, “Africa? I’ve never been to Africa. What the hell would I be doing in Africa?” I proceeded to tell him that Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease one gets while swimming in the Nile River or other rivers in developing countries like in Southeast Asia. He got pissed off at me because he thought I was being a smart ass. He got seen and diagnosed with gastroenteritis (the stomach flu). The bloody stool? He had hemorrhoids.”

From 4th year medical student @Eshlau:

“Patient comes in with a laundry list of chronic conditions he suffers from- fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. Guy is wearing over-the-counter braces on all of his fingers and both thumbs, as well as both wrists, forearms, knees, and shins because of a rare bone disorder he has that I’ve never heard of- “well that doesn’t surprise me, doctors go to med school to learn how to prescribe drugs and make money, not heal people.” Ok. Patient tells me that he suffers from a rare disease that I’ve probably never even heard of called myalgic encephalomyelitis. True, I’ve never heard of it.”

After the patient leaves, the doc-in-training looks it up.

“I look up myalgic encephalomyelitis. It’s the British term for chronic fatigue syndrome, which the patient also had. He has a weekly standing appointment with my preceptor, which is the only thing that keeps him from visiting the local ER every day, sometimes multiple times a day. His diagnosis is Illness Anxiety Disorder, although he would tell you it’s 800 other things you’ve obviously never heard of. The patient is mentally ill, so I’m not insulted by him or anything, but you’d be surprised how many people come to the doctor to be treated for something, all the while telling the doctor how horrible they are and why all doctors are evil puppets of big pharma.”

“Had a patient present at the ER with “blue fingers”. She thought she was having some sort of heart attack. She had new jeans and the color stained her hands. Genius.”

“I had a patient come in with unmistakable signs of BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo), a condition where the salt crystals that fall on hair cells in your ears to tell you which way is down and which direction(s) you are accelerating in get stuck. When this happens, your ears and eyes disagree about your current position and acceleration and you get really dizzy.”

The patient saw an urgent care doc, who diagnosed her with BPPV. He told her to go home, lay down on the bed with her head hanging off the end, and have her husband shake her head.

“Imagine being on the most intense rollercoaster you’ve ever been on, feeling like you’re going to throw up, and then having someone who has no medical training shake your head around for five minutes. She spent the next two days throwing up before she could get in to see me.”

From @malibooootay:

“Paramedic here. Transported a guy who was adamant about only using homeopathic medicine, natural/healthy living, etc and refusing meds/interventions/x-rays on this basis. He also smoked a pack a day. The ED doc called him on this nonsense with something along the lines of “you smoke so you’re not that homeopathic, you’re getting a chest x-ray.”

@entMD has seen firsthand how mind control can fail a person:

“Had a patient with a HgbA1c of 13 who refused all diabetic medications because he believed that he could control his livers production of glucose with his mind. He believed himself to be very fit and active and felt that with his mental control he was a better athlete than most other people because he could ramp up his glucose production when he needed to. He was in the hospital for a diabetic foot ulcer that required a transmetatarsal amputation.”

As told by @AvalonAPV:

“A male patient inyected kitchen oil into his own cheeks because he saw a plastic surgery tv show where a surgeon inyected something similar to a model, then he was amazed that the bumps of the oil didnt go away and were turning red and painful…”

@pheebers was peeved at this mom:

“Was treating cavities on a very nervous 4 year old. Had finally gotten into a cooperative groove when genius mother looked up from her phone and noticed that I was drilling teeth (she was in the room the whole time – I had reviewed treatment with her, she knew we were fixing cavities). Proceeds to curse me out under her breath saying “you’re drilling holes in her teeth! this is…ridiculous, you people are scammers making holes in people’s teeth!”

At this point the dentist is mad at mom for being 20 minutes late, and scaring her kid with her screaming.

“Appointment is over, kid jumps down high fives and gives me a big hug and I turn to mom and ask her how exactly she thought cavities were fixed? She said ‘you don’t drill, my mother is a dental assistant”. I then proceeded to explain in excruciating detail the scientific process of how we remove decay. She said “that’s not true” I then told her that she can go ask her mom, ask Google or go to dental school if she wants to know more but I won’t be treating her child anymore.”

“I saw a patient who was concerned because she was still lactating, despite the fact that she stopped breastfeeding her twins two years ago. She said: “sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find my husband sucking on the breasts. He says he’s trying to drain the milk for me” I had to explain to her that breastfeeding her husband will lead to continued Lactation….”

“This one happened to my ex father in law, and it’s funny, but it’s not. He was a surgeon (very gentle, soft spoken guy) and came out to tell them the biopsy results, to which they responded “Praise Jesus, it’s malignant.” (He had to explain that ‘malignant’ meant bad.)”

“A guy brings his wife to the ER, Her leg has a 7cmx7cm wound (diabetic ulcer) with greenish yellow pus and what looked like a few maggots. Now I took one look at her and referred her to the Surgery department for admission. But the hubby is adamant on his wife’s kidney disease. “But doc, it’s just a wound, you gotta fix her kidney first doc, I read online that diabetes can cause kidney failure, and you gotta do something for that. I spent an hour convincing him that his wife would probably die before the kidney damage sat in by sepsis from the clearly infected wound.”

From @Dr_Dubs:

“Lady walks into the office. I start coughing the smell of cigarette smoke is so strong on her. Her dry leathery skin cracks while she talks from the years of sun abuse. She tells me, “I’ve stopped using sunscreen because I researched that it causes cancer.”

From @habitual_wanderer:

“I got this from my friend, who is a doctor on the children’s ward in a rural hospital. These parents bring in their child whose hair is infested with lice. The lice was visible to the naked eye and could be seen crawling on the child’s clothing. While the medical staff examined the child, in order to determine a course of action, they discovered the child was covered in a white powder and smelled heavily of chemicals. They asked the parents what were the substances and the smells emanating from the child. The parents said, quite matter of fact, it was Sevin Powder and flea and tick spray they used on their dogs on the family’s farm. Needless to say, social workers were notified about this case.”

Here’s a good one from @StrutThatCorgiButt:

“One day in the pharmacy, a girl comes to the counter requesting a refill for her birth control. We pulled up her profile and realized we couldn’t refill it because she just got a 28-day fill less than 2 weeks ago. When we asked what happened to the other one, she said she was out. Apparently, both her and her boyfriend were each taking a pill each and was adamant that was how they needed to prevent pregnancy.”

From @420-BLAZIKEN

“This lady came in and literally half of her face had been basically eaten up by basal cell carcinoma. Eye and everything were just… gone. It was oozing blood. It had been this way for years, according to her. And the kicker – that’s not even the problem she came into the hospital for. She had come in for an umbilical hernia as big as a basketball that had been there for months, and she’d started vomiting over the past week so she finally went to the ED”

“I have had several arguments with diabetics about Coke/Koolaid/Sweet Tea vs those made with artificial sugar. I tell them, look, don’t drink sugar. If you have to have something like that, use an artificial sweetener. “No way! That stuff is poison! It will kill me!” “Ma’am, your A1c is 14. Sugar is already killing you.””

@detdox was fed up with arguing:

“70 yo female tripped and fell 2 days ago. She came it with hip pain but reports after the fall her nose was bleeding – she had landed on her nose. About a year prior her dentist had messes up an infraorbital nerve block and caused some swelling in that region but that all was resolved. This old lady is now convinced her nosebleed after falling on her face is related to an “infection” from the dental issue a year ago. After multiple back-and-forth on the etiology of the nosebleed, she became the first patient I raised my voice and put down an authoritative “no, you are wrong, just stop it”.

“Guy is trespassing in a junk yard and gets his arms and legs [messed] up by a pitbull. Have to clean out all these wounds. Flash forward to 3am that night I get called in to do a case. Apparently the guy left the hospital AMA to go get revenge on the dog, and the dog bit him in the face , breaking some facial bones and poking a few more holes in the process. Classic.”

@nellirn disagreed:

“Oh yes, we had an elderly woman with severe malnutrition and her hippie daughter wanted us to only giver her raw, unpasteurized goats milk. We did everything we could to convince her that her mother wasn’t getting enough nutrition. We even tried to allow her to bring in the raw, unpasteurized goats milk that we would supplement with the FDA approved formula we wanted to give her mother through the feeding tube. We finally had to become pretty blunt with the daughter and let her know that her mother was going to die due to malnutrition due to the daughter’s unique views on what was a proper diet for her mother.”

@Dyspaereunia didn’t treat this patient, but witnessed what happens when dumb gets dumber:

“I didn’t treat this patient but I was on shift when this guy came in with tombstones on his ekg in the setting of chest pain. He told the ED doc, “I want a second opinion before going to the cath lab.” This ekg is unmistakable. The interventionalist had to come down to the emergency department to tell him he was having a heart attack.”

@xxsheaxx loves her job for crazy reasons like this:

“Had a mom in hysterics because she was convinced that her neighbor’s, friend’s, step son’s, teacher’s dog has MRSA so her baby was going to die. It took everything within me to not tell her that most of the hospital staff have MRSA. But it took 3 hours for me to finally calm her down after I called: infectious control, her pediatrician, gynecologist, and family doctor. Yes I had to call all these people; yes they laughed at me; yes she was beside me the whole time questioning their judgement.”

“The mans wife was in early stages of dementia and was upset and saying things in the room like “why did you leave me you bastard.” The age 40ish daughter pulled me aside, very concerned and asked me, “My mom is saying some very nasty things, do you think he is still able to hear her?”

The nurse had to compose herself and act like a pro before answering.

“‘In the sense that Jesus can hear you, maybe. In the sense that you can hear me, no.’ She immediately hugs me and says ‘Oh what a relief.'”

“I’ve got one. I was working at an Indian services clinic a few years ago. We prescribe a guy Flonase (nasal spray primarily for allergies) which starts a conversation: Guy: “will this nasal spray give me anxiety like the last one I had?” I start trying to find which drug he had been prescribed previously but he says: “I just threw it away in the trash out front, do you want me to go grab it?” He comes back a few minutes later with an albuterol inhaler. I’m perplexed. Dude tries his darndest to shove the opening (meant for your MOUTH) into his nostril, gives it a squirt and a snort.”