https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/82hwsi/medical_professionals_of_reddit_what_is_the/
created by Shandrith on 06/03/2018 at 19:40 UTC
38745 upvotes, 136 top-level comments (showing 25)
Comment by [deleted] at 07/03/2018 at 01:21 UTC
1523 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Anesthesiologist here; we had a patient come in for I&D of bilateral deltoid abscesses. He apparently had thoughts of being a body builder, but instead of lifting weights or knowing someone who could hook him up with some quality steroids, he decided to bulk up by using some protein powder at GNC...
...and mixing it with water, drawing it up into a syringe, and injecting 20-40cc daily directly into the muscle. If bulk was what he was going for, it definitely worked, temporarily. A rip-roaring localized infection makes you look plenty swole. They got almost a liter of pus mixed with liquified protein powder out of each deltoid.
This also wasn't the first time he'd been in for this problem.
Comment by Greeneggsandmandy at 07/03/2018 at 01:21 UTC
1238 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My dad had an abscess on his face. It was huge, about the size of a golf ball and horribly red. It kept getting bigger. My mom (a nurse) kept telling him to go to the doctor, but my dad was a ridiculous cheap ass. One day when she was gone, we noticed that a big white head had formed on the abscess, and it was apparently ready to bust. My dad went out to the garage, got his shop vac, placed it over the white head, and proceeded to suck out the abscess. It worked surprisingly well and healed up after that nicely. Mom was still furious, though.
Comment by RobTheMedic at 06/03/2018 at 23:34 UTC
1984 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Paramedic here. Once had to explain to a family that putting lemon juice in the eyes of an unconscious patient isn't an approved treatment method.
And no, it didn't work. (It was an interesting moment when I had to explain why his eyes hurt)
Comment by mronion82 at 07/03/2018 at 00:18 UTC
796 upvotes, 2 direct replies
If I've learned anything from reading the comments here it's that some men will tolerate almost any amount of pain to avoid a doctor seeing whatever stupid shit they've done to themselves. This is no exception.
I once spoke to a paramedic who went out to a man at 2am who had excrutiating pain 'down below'. The poor organ was wrapped tightly in soaking bandages, and underneath was a blackened penis with large pus filled holes in it. The man eventually admitted that he'd shoved a chicken bone (a 'clean' one, whatever that means) down his cock for pleasure. Predictably enough he couldn't get it out, and being too embarrassed to go to the doctor he'd left it and left it until he was in so much pain he couldn't walk, both from the rotted penis and the fact he hadn't been able to urinate for days.
Apparently you could actually see the bone once the wound was clean, and although not an expert my friend couldn't imagine that what was left was salvagable.
Comment by Iamthewarthog at 07/03/2018 at 00:39 UTC*
2705 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I had a guy come in for coughing and shortness of breath for the past few months. His lungs sounded like absolute shit. Got a chest xray that looked horrible, so I did a CT scan. Radiologist called it the worst case of necrotizing pneumonia he'd ever seen. Dude had like a 15% functional lung tissue left. The patient then mentioned things had been worse after he started using a new "breath freshener" spray....
He whipped out one of those BluntEffects concentrated air freshener bottles, supposed to cover up weed smell. Labeled Not For Internal Use. Apparently he had been using it like Binaca spray, and had already gone through 3 bottles.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 23:49 UTC
1250 upvotes, 2 direct replies
In nursing school while I was on clinical rotation in urology, there was a man who ended up having his penis removed. It turned out he had an infection brewing for quite a while and thought the best course of action was placing a sock over his penis in hope that it would heal. He was generally confused and upset as to why this didn’t work to heal the issue.
Comment by chibimorph at 06/03/2018 at 22:39 UTC
3232 upvotes, 2 direct replies
One of my first clinic patients was a dude who was injecting a mixture of testosterone, "human growth hormone," sesame oil, and sunflower oil into the base of his penis as a DIY penile enlargement therapy. Well, it got infected so he ended up going to the ED for incision and drainage. I saw him as a post-ED visit and at that time, he figured that he shouldn't be injecting into his penis while it was healing. So instead, he was injecting his oil + sketchy hormones off the internet concoction everywhere else into his body (arms, legs, butt, shoulders, etc) because he figured it would still have some effect.
Comment by Eagle694 at 07/03/2018 at 00:19 UTC
487 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There’s a myth that lowering someone’s core temperature will save them from an opiate overdose.
As a result, many first responders have arrived on scenes to find friends/fellow users inserting ice into someone’s rectum.
Sometimes they don’t have ice around though. Which leads to getting inventive. Popsicles, frozen hot dogs. My personal favorite (which regrettably I didn’t witness myself, it was told to me by another medic) was a bag of frozen French fries.
Cold will do nothing to help someone who is overdosing on heroin or other opiates. What they need is respiratory support (oxygen and/or artificial ventilation) and naloxone (Narcan). If you’re a user or know one, and somebody ODs, call 9-1-1, perform mouth-to-mouth and give narcan if you have it, but leave the popsicles in the freezer.
Comment by 12awr at 06/03/2018 at 22:46 UTC
7072 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I work in dental and years ago had a patient attempt to super glue her front tooth back on after it broke in half. She screwed up and ended up gluing the chunk to her upper lip.
Comment by Do_my_cat_daddy at 06/03/2018 at 23:09 UTC
7236 upvotes, 4 direct replies
This happened when I was still a med student doing a rotation in the ED. Patient comes in and is pretty vague about his actual complaint, something about head pain but he looks just fine sitting waiting to be seen. When I finally get to see him and ask him what actually happened, he removes the hat he was wearing and a chunk of skin about the size of my hand literally flaps off of his skull. This guy managed to basically scalp himself, and apparently it had been like that for 3 days. According to him it was caused by falling in his bathroom and hitting his head on the toilet. He had been previously duct taping it down or using the hat to hold the skin on, but it wasn't sticking well and that's when his wife convinced him to come to the hospital.
Comment by stebus88 at 06/03/2018 at 23:56 UTC
440 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Pharmacist here. Worked in a shop where a woman asked for some advice about potential UTI or STI. Told me she had bathed her vagina in bleach for 5 mins to try and kill any bacteria. Miraculously, she hadn’t done any lasting damage.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 23:05 UTC*
1558 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by lacamaguzi at 06/03/2018 at 22:31 UTC
2877 upvotes, 2 direct replies
An old lady told me the rain hurt her arthritis. That's reasonable.
She also swore that dog spit had healing properties so she let her dogs lick her feet when she felt it coming on. She then wanted to show me a video of said dogs licking said feet.
I swiftly and politely declined.
Comment by okaycitizen at 06/03/2018 at 22:25 UTC*
10489 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Adult patient had gas and poked a hole in his belly button with basically a knitting needle to release it.
Edit: it didn't work, he actually came in for the ensuing infection in his belly button.
Comment by rxjen at 06/03/2018 at 23:55 UTC
2116 upvotes, 4 direct replies
I work in oncology pharmacy. I had a patient die of totally treatable breast cancer because they decided to treat it with mistletoe instead of chemo. All because Suzanne Sommers did. Yeah. The thighmaster lady. Don’t take medical advice from the thighmaster lady.
Comment by rosequarry at 06/03/2018 at 23:59 UTC*
3265 upvotes, 4 direct replies
A little late to this thread but have a weird one. A patient was told by her doc that she had low magnesium and should consider supplements. Not uncommon. Instead of getting Mg supplements, she ate an entire tub of “homeopathic volcanic ash” and completely destroyed her electrolyte imbalance and ended up in ICU. We admitted her as a pharmaceutical overdose so Poison Control automatically follows up with you. It was hard to explain to them.
Edit. It was probably naturopathic, not homeopathic. I don’t know enough about specific differences. Think of a tub of protein power, but volcanic ash. Her husband brought it in for the poison control report. You were supposed to mix a scoop in water for the health benefits. She ate the whole tub and had a seizure and wrecked her kidneys. The activated charcoal/volcanic ash vomit that was all over her when she came from emerg was a bitch to clean up.
Comment by BloodTypeDietCoke at 07/03/2018 at 01:17 UTC*
6199 upvotes, 6 direct replies
A mentally-delayed woman came in septic to the ED. Did xrays, blood cultures, urine cultures, the works. Finally found this weird image on her pelvis film, and we had GYN come do a pelvic exam. They pulled out this blob with bones in it.
Y'all, I swear to God ....
It was a decomposing frog.
She put it in her vagina for "safekeeping".
She got toxic shock syndrome from a FROG.
Edit: just realized that the topic was about DIY treatment, and my story doesn't really match it. I guess there wasn't anything she was trying to fix. Except maybe the lack of frogs in her vagina?
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 22:14 UTC
5889 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Not me, but my boss (mother of the child I care for) is a nurse practitioner. I asked her what the worst thing she had witnessed was. She continued on to tell me the story of a man who had stapled his ball sack together and onto his body after “slipping with the razor”. He had it that way for days, metal holding his poor testicles in place, infected and gross as you would expect, before he came to a professional. Later admitted his ex attempted to castrate him. The balls lived
Comment by ed_dsm_ia at 07/03/2018 at 01:02 UTC
330 upvotes, 3 direct replies
dude came to the ED because his leg was swollen. i'm talking, like, twice the size of his other leg.
it turned out that his 4th and 5th toes were getting caught on his sock, which, to be fair, sounds super annoying. so he CUT THEM the fuck OFF. WITH SCISSORS.
and then it got infected.
and he waited. and waited.
and that's how he lost his entire fucking leg.
Comment by TaterTawt at 06/03/2018 at 22:46 UTC
4338 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Long story but: had a young teenager with sickle cell disease who had been in the hospital for around a week already who decided to "manage" his pain himself. This was a few years ago, but I caught him pretending to take his meds-- he would cock his head back and gesture that the pill went into his mouth but really he either kept it in his hand or threw the pill behind his back and landed somewhere in his bed. He was also quite a talker, which I then assumed was a tactic to try and distract me. I kept seeing his odd behavior and caught him doing this a 2-3 times by the middle of the shift so I was definitely onto him. He had a PICC line (which is essentially a "long" IV where the tubing goes all the way to your heart) in his left arm, and I noticed that it was quite a bit more swollen compared to his other arm. Sometimes clots can happen in PICC lines, so that was my biggest concern at first, but the line was drawing blood fine so I know it wasn't clotted off. Told the doc, then I drew blood from his PICC line and sent it down to the lab for it to be cultured to see if there was any bacteria. Lowwww and behold it came back positive for a bacteria that is commonly found in tap water (and usually not a source of infection in infected PICC lines). Fast forward a few hours later he confessed that with any oral medication (pill form) he can slip by the nurses, he saved for later in order to crush them up himself, try to dissolve it with sink water in the bathroom (every room had a private bathroom), and inject it in himself via his PICC line.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 23:42 UTC
309 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Having once seen a commercial that oatmeal can lower cholesterol a patient started having chest pains and tried to resolve it with a bowl of oatmeal.
Comment by itsjakefromstfarm at 06/03/2018 at 21:01 UTC
7840 upvotes, 3 direct replies
We had a guy come in with an abscess on his right thumb. When I asked him what happened to his hand, he told me about his recent deep sea fishing trip and was given the responsibility of cutting the fish with an open wound in his hand. A sliver of fish got in there and became infected as it healed, so this guy gets the bright idea of doing a little DIY wound drainage by grabbing his pocket knife and cutting it open, leading to a greater infection.
Comment by tlcyummum at 06/03/2018 at 21:42 UTC
18269 upvotes, 6 direct replies
As a child I got really bad sunburn. The person looking after me coated my sunburn in baby oil to help it heal, and sent me back out into the sun. I realised when I was older why my mum went nuts.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 20:51 UTC
9908 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My mom once melted Vick’s Vapor Rub into my tea because she thought that would help my cold. It didn’t.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2018 at 22:35 UTC
6825 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Neighbor came over to borrow a chainsaw. I noticed he had a thick bandage around his arm and asked him what happened? He said he fell out of a tree last week and cut his arm. I asked if he got stitches and he said he just wrapped it and his family is praying over it. About 4 days later I seen is wife and she said he was really sick and may have the flu? Come to find out he had septicemia and dying. he died a week later of kidney failure and septsis.