Patients say the darndest things. We recently asked MDLinx readers to tell us about the most bizarre cases of self-diagnosis they had ever encountered and the amusingly mixed-up medical terms that patients use. The results were entertaining, to say the least. But what came as a surprise was the flood of zany patient stories that we received, most of which had nothing to do with self-diagnosis and everything to do with hilarity. Stories ranged from patients losing medical devices in strange orifices, excretory tales, interesting concerns about virility, and, in one case, a child learning the laws of physics. “A 7-year-old boy came into the office with a black eye,” a family medicine physician told us. “He said he ran into the football standard. He said he had his eyes closed. When asked why, he replied, ‘I was a little tired. I thought I would try sleep running.’” Think that’s eye opening? Here are some more of the craziest things patients have said or done while under the care of our audience. Rising to the occasion One of the common themes we encountered in your stories were patient concerns about impotence. According to one neurologist, however, one of her senior patients has absolutely nothing to worry about. “An 80-year-old man arrived at my office and said, ‘Doctor, I have some buzz in my ears after sex. What is it?’ His elderly wife whispered to me, ‘Applause.’” In another case, a rheumatologist had to do a little bit of medical detective work to get to the bottom of a particularly bizarre patient visit. The doctor told us that an approximately 30-year-old man and an older woman arrived at her office. The woman informed her that the man was having abdominal pain and needed an examination. But when the doctor spoke to the man, she was perplexed. He said he felt well and had no symptoms. “Returning to the woman, I told her that the young man denied any abdominal pain and I wanted to know why she had brought him in,” the rheumatologist said. “She stated that he was dating her daughter and had been married before, but the marriage had been annulled. She was afraid that he might be impotent and wanted me to make sure that he was not. I said, ‘What do you want me to do, wave my magic wand?’ She said, ‘No, I want you to make sure he can wave his.’” If you like it, put a ring on it? Doctors are often required to handle delicate matters, but this patient took it to the extreme, as one orthopedic physician described: “While in private practice many years ago, I was called in the middle of the night with an urgent request to come to the OR stat. The urologist on duty had a patient under anesthesia with a brass ring stuck around his penis, and the urologist was unable to remove it. There was great concern as to the circulation to the organ.” The orthopedist went on to explain that the hospital had just obtained a new metal cutting tool, and he was the only one on staff who had taken the training required to operate it. “With great care, the brass ring was successfully sectioned and removed to the great relief of all in attendance, especially me. Thankfully, the patient did well. Never got to meet the fellow. Never sent him a bill. I figured he had suffered enough—and besides, how do you code for that procedure?” How did that get there? Physicians have seen all sorts of foreign objects lodged in just about every orifice of the human body. Sometimes, they arrive their intentionally. Other times, it’s a bit more mysterious. An otolaryngologist regaled us about a 93-year-old woman who showed up at his office with left nasal obstruction. “In the process of the ear exam I noted she had on one in-the-canal hearing aid,” he writes. “I asked, ‘Why not two?’ She stated she had lost it 6 months ago. I continued my exam moving next to the nose. As I was examining her left nasal cavity I noted a blue foreign body. I removed it and found it to be her other in-the-canal hearing aid. We both laughed over the find, cleaned it up, and made sure it worked properly. She then recalled that she forgot to remove her hearing aid one night. It must have fallen out and as she turned in bed, the perfect situation presented itself and the hearing aid went into the left nasal cavity. We both laughed and joked that she had just saved several thousand dollars for another hearing aid.” Urine and excrement Probably not surprising to our physician audience, but there were no shortage of urine- and excrement-related patient stories in your responses. An emergency medicine physician told us about one particularly messy situation he encountered in the emergency department. “Had a patient brought in by his mother for bloody stools for 2 weeks. The boy was otherwise healthy,” the doctor said. “After lab work was done, which was, of course, normal by the way, the mother tells me she had forgotten to mention his addiction to hot Cheetos.” A dry sense of humor is often a beautiful thing. Clearly, that’s something this physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor appreciates. He wrote in to tell us about something he witnessed in a Veterans Affairs hospital. “In the VA system, a Code Gray overhead call means a belligerent or angry patient is acting out and security backup is needed,” he explained. “One such call went out while I was seeing a veteran who was also a VA policeman. The call was ‘Code Gray, Urology,’ and he said, laconically, ‘Somebody's pissed.’” Psychic surgery Of all the patient stories you sent us, this one was by far the most bizarre. This surgeon’s tale of a patient’s bout of gallstones might be the most extreme case of alternative medicine we have ever come across. “After reviewing the findings with her, including an ultrasound that showed gallstones, I recommended proceeding with laparoscopic cholecystectomy,” the surgeon related. “She told me that that would not be necessary because she already had her gallbladder removed by a psychic surgeon in the Philippines. When I asked her to show me her scars, she said that she didn’t have any. When I informed her that you could not remove the gallbladder without having at least one scar, she said that she would come back the following week and show me the photographs documenting the procedure. She, indeed, had an entire binder full of photographs that showed the obvious sham surgery, but when I informed her of this, she accused me of wanting to do unnecessary surgery. I never saw her again.” Like any other profession, it helps to have a sense of humor in medicine, it seems. They might not teach doctors how to have a sense of humor in medical school, but it appears we can rely on patients for the appropriate lessons. Source
