20 Doctors Share The Stupidest Ways Their Patients Diagnosed Themselves. These Are Gold.

20 Doctors Share The Stupidest Ways Their Patients Diagnosed Themselves. These Are Gold.



We've all spent late nights in front of the computer on WedMD, and so we all know what a mistake that can be. Have a cough? The end is near. Itchy feet? Don't even ask.

Here are twenty of the funniest self-diagnoses that doctors have encountered on the job. Also, check out the source and some bonus answers from other medical professionals at the end of the article!



Many thanks to Reddit user eleventy12 for posing this awesome question.

1/20. This happened in med school. I was taking the history of a guy in clinic and I asked about his past medical problems, including if he had had any heart attacks.

He responded, "oh yeah, I've had about 20 of those."

"...you've had 20 heart attacks??"

"Yup"

"Which doctor(s) did you see about them? Do you have a cardiologist?"

"Nah, I never went to a doctor. My wife is a massage therapist, and whenever a heart attack hits, she starts to massage some pressure points and it stops."

"......Uhhhhh, ok......What does it feel like when you have a heart attack?"

"I don't ever remember them. My wife tells me that I fall onto the floor and my arms and legs start jerking. She says it takes about a minute of her massaging before it stops. I then get really confused and tired afterwards, and I can't remember much of anything that happens to me until I take a nice long nap."

The dude was having seizures, and thought that they were heart attacks. They normally stop on their own after a few minutes (at the most), and his wife thought that her massages were curing him.

-Neuro_nerdo

2/20. I've had a patient claim that amputations run in his family.

He said that was the only reason he needed both legs taken off above the knee. He was adamant that it was not actually due to his uncontrolled diabetes, his enormous and continual sugar intake, his refusal to use insulin, or his refusal of treatment for the giant infected wounds on both feet.

-auraseer


3/20. I also want to add my favorite correct patient diagnosis.

A female doc I know at my school likes to tell this story as an example of why one must always ask for patient attribution (i.e. "What do you think is causing your problem?")

Really old guy came in complaining of foot pain. He was diabetic. Lady doc already has a diagnosis in mind, but goes through the whole shebang. At the end asks "And what do you think is causing the problem?" He goes: "I think I have a tack in my shoe."

He had a tack in his shoe and couldn't bend over to get it out. She helped him remove it and he went on his way.

-littlebutmighty

4/20. So I'm a therapist and I work with kids. Worst misdiagnosis was a family with a two-week old who was convinced the baby had 1) anxiety- because he cries. 2) autism- little eye contact 3) bipolar disorder- because baby would seem content then angry.

I spent HOURS explaining child development, what these diagnosis mean, how they would present in kids. I provided them with books, hand outs, etc. They insisted on going to see my co-worker and a psychiatrist as I was surely lying to them. Even after meeting with the other two professionals, they still weren't convinced. They requested psych meds from the doc.

-PralineSurprise

5/20. As a self-diagnosing patient...

One day notice a white, hard, jagged object protruding from my back gum. Can't believe I'm having a tooth come in, especially since I'm 23 and had my wisdom teeth taken out years ago. Go to the dentist to get some X-rays annnnd it turns out to be a piece of a tortilla chip.

6/20. Just finished med school, so not too much experience, but had an elderly woman come in the ER with new onset seizure. The patient's daughter was convinced her mother had a brain tumor. On review of the medications, turns out the patient had been out of her Xanax prescription for 4 days, and had a withdrawal seizure.

-dolphin_sammich

7/20. I had a male patient come in to the ED complaining of "breast lump". He anxiously stated that the mass was very painful to touch and was convinced that he was going to die of breast cancer.

After a battery of questions I asked him to take off his shirt so I can examine and palpate (read: touch) the mass. After a couple of seconds, I turned to him and said, "Sir, that lump is your rib."

He called me a "dumb kid" and asked to see my attending (I was a student at the time). The patient asked the attending why, if it is a rib, that it would hurt so much. The doc replied, "Sir, you've been rubbing and irritating the area for days now, you've been hurting yourself."

I've never seen a man leave the hospital that fast.

-WatchuknowaboutMD

-8/20. Patient is diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast, confirmed with biopsy. Surgery prepped for two weeks time.

Patient goes to an outside facility, and does a mammogram. Radiologist states it is benign.

Patient writes an email to her primary doctor (my attending), "PRAYER WORKS. Please find attached report stating I no longer have breast cancer. Please tell Dr. X (Surgeon) that I will be no longer needing surgery."

Cue furious emails to surgeon with sense of impending doom.

-dagayute


9/20. Seizures from a parasite.

He was actually self-treating what he thought was a parasite infestation by drinking household cleaning agents. When he started seizing afterwards, this reconfirmed his parasite diagnosis in his mind, so he drank more.

-palacinka87

10/20. Had a 19 year-old girl come in asking for anti-fungal medication because she was convinced she had oral thrush.

Her and her boyfriend had Googled her symptoms, and at 19 you're never wrong. When I suggested that perhaps we check an EBV antibody to rule out mono, she looked at me like I was actively drooling on myself and refused, because there was, "No way I can have mono."

Eventually I convinced her to have some diagnostic testing done, and sure enough she had mono. I tried to explain that having oral thrush as a 19 year old could possibly be much more concerning than mononucleosis, but she didn't seem to get it.

-whiskyvinyl

11/20. I was the person self-diagnosing.

I thought I had a really bad muscle spasm.

I actually had cancer.

Oopsie!!

-angela_bee


12/20. Man came into the ER in a panic thinking he had incurable skin cancer.

Turns out he had a wart on his foot...

-stickycondom

13/20. Self-diagnosis? I'm an orthopedic surgeon, so patients are really often unable to diagnose themselves because they don't have the power of MRI or scoping.

The most incorrect self diagnosis I've encountered was a patient who believed they broke their hip after a fall when they actually had a 2 inch piece of skateboard lodged into their side they forgot about...yeah.

-JennyAndCarly

14/20. While working as a nurse, had a patient who insisted that her abdominal pain was from a surgery she'd had done on her arm. She thought that a staple that had been used to close the wound on her arm had somehow traveled to her abdomen.

-Anxious_midwesterner


15/20. Anal cysts. Nope, he just touched his anal cavity too much and left it irritated.

-JustJokingF*ckYou

16/20. During my time as an intern, a patient was admitted for anemia (hematocrit of 16) requiring blood transfusions. Turns out that at some point in the past, after she was diagnosed with an in-born error of metabolism, her primary care physician prescribed her vitamin B12 injections (your body requires B12 to make hemoglobin).

Instead of going back for refills after she ran out, however, she headed over to her local pharmacy, bought vitamin B6 tablets, and proceeded to take two per day, and went on to explain how, you know doc, it's the same thing!

Yeah, no.

-bupivacaine

17/20. My dad worked as an ER doc for 30 years, and started practicing in Alabama way back. He was taking one woman's medical history on a visit and she told him she had "Fireballs of the Eucharist."

Translation: fibroids of the uterus.

-littlebutmighty

18/20. Not a doctor, but my PCP told me that I had a sinus infection when I actually needed a heart transplant. Got my transplant 3 years later. Doing great now.

-Alltruenews

19/20. Not my story, my dad's, an ER doctor. He once had a patient duct tape a huge bag of weed to his chest and ride his bike full speed into a parked cop car. The guy thought he was in the hospital because of some big government conspiracy that he knew too much about, but it ended up just being a broken arm, and probably schizophrenia.

He then ended up suing my dad, so he was really an all around great patient.

-Jatz55

20/20. My boyfriend was born in a teaching hospital. Because of the size of his head, a bunch of doctors informed his parents that they believed it to be a brain tumor just days after he was born.

It ended up being that he just has a huge head.

-jennambee

Bonus:

1/3. It was the summer of 2008. I was at work with a massive headache. I decided to head home early. Thinking my eyes were acting up again. (I'd suffered from severe light sensitivity since I was 12. This wasn't entirely uncommon.)

In the lobby of the building I pass out as I'm nodding to the security guard. I wake up in the hospital, the doctor is talking with a nurse insisting I get another set of X-rays "There's no way this is right, have a different tech take another set of images." Then he walks out.

I'm asking what's up. No one is explaining anything. I have another set of X-rays done. A bunch of other scans of which I still don't understand the differences. And eventually the doctor comes in. Still no one has explained anything to me, no matter how much I ask "Wait for the doctor to get back."


Finally the doctor comes in and tells me they're going to need to prep me for surgery. I immediately ask about my eyes. He seems confused. "Did no one tell you what's going on?"

"...umm..."

Doctor gets all upset "You're missing 1/3 of your skull. Or more appropriately, the bone marrow inside the entire right side of your head is necrotic. It's just sitting there between slivers of bone. When's the last time you've been to the dentist?"

"I don't know, 10-15 years ago? I was planning on going next month now that I finally have insurance for the first time."

"Well we're not sure how it is you're alive. But this has been building for at least 10 years. An abscess in your gums has burrowed up into your bone."

A week later, after a bunch of specialists are consulted, I had my teeth, gums, soft palette, and entire right side of my skull drained of fluid and removed. I was awake through most of it, and no amount of pain medication was enough to deal through the worst of it. Everything was replaced by mostly a plastic polymer, with some metal studs to snap everything together.

-Melachiah

2/3. Veterinarian here. Hope you won't find this out of place.

I had a client come in several years ago with a dog suffering from flea allergy dermatitis. These dogs have an allergy to flea saliva that causes them to get insanely itchy - primarily around the rear end and base of the tail. This poor little guy had chewed his fur out to the point that his back half was just about completely naked. So there he sits scratching and biting at himself, covered in fleas, several of which I have combed off of him and showed his owner. "Good news," I say. "We can fix this." After explaining the diagnosis, his owner proceeded to tell me how foolish I was - the dog was not itchy because of fleas. He was chewing at himself as a psychological response to the disturbance caused by having his butt shaved by an unknown intruder who must have broken into the house while they were away. I had no response to that other than to agree, that, yes, that must have been very traumatic for him. Ultimately we agreed to treat for the fleas, just in case. Shockingly, the dog got better.

-fattymcassface

3/3. Ooh, can I play? Only a vet, not an R.D. (real doctor) but... a young couple brought me their young ginger cat, requesting euthanasia because he had cancer. I asked why they thought so. They cited a) the tumours on the margins of his eyelids (which were actually normal pigmentation, or ginger cat "freckles") and b) that there were drops of blood when he jumped into the empty bathtub (which were actually re-hydrated flea dirt falling off the cat onto the wet tub). I talked them out of euthanizing their perfectly healthy cat.

-yo_saff_bridge

Source

 

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