Medical Professionals Share The Dumbest Ways They’ve Seen People Self-Treat A Medical Condition
People have always relied on herbal teas, essential oils, and other home remedies to make their headaches and colds go away quicker. But with the spread of the internet, many think they can attack even their bigger health problems. Why pay a doctor if you can just google your symptoms and watch a YouTube video for a diagnosis?
Well, because dumb practices can harm you more than they can help. To illustrate this point, let's take a look at a Reddit thread where medical professionals describe the worst attempts of self-treatment they've ever seen. We're talking about individuals who use "sonic emitters" for cancer and pour bleach into their genitals. Continue scrolling to check out their stories.
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I had a patient come to the ER complaining of severe pain and swelling "all down there." On physical examination we noted a really remarkable amount of swelling, and both the internal and external tissues were extremely red and irritated. She was so swollen she couldn't even pee until we put a catheter in. The physician did a pelvic exam and found blisters on her cervix.
We asked when the symptoms started. She said, "Well it was itching tonight. I thought I had a yeast infection, so I poured a cup of bleach up in there to kill it. But then after a while it kind of started to hurt." Yeah, I bet it did.
**tl;dr** - Do not pour bleach into your vagina.
General practitioner, medical researcher, and founder of PrimeHealth Clinical Research, Iris Gorfinkel, M.D., told Bored Panda that there's a limit to what we can know about ourselves without any help from others.
"People are generally good at recognizing when they're cold. They put on a coat. When they're too hot, they take it off," Gorfinkel said. "They know when they need to urinate and when they need to defecate. For the most part, we're pretty good at understanding when we're thirsty."
But if we go beyond these things, our judgment starts to deteriorate quite fast. "People are not as good at recognizing when they're genuinely hungry, when they're tired, and when they're stressed," the doctor said.
This brings us to what's actually hard for people to recognize and treat. "Discomfort, pain, putting off pleasure, deciphering complex emotions (especially the negative ones). These are extremely hard for people to do and to do well."
911 dispatch here. Heard the story second hand, but kid had a crazy high fever and wouldn't stop crying. paramedics get on scene... and mom is squeezing a lemon while rubbing it all over the baby's forehead because it's "supposed to keep the fever down". Mom was completely at a loss as to why the baby wouldn't stop crying either. it couldn't possibly be the lemon juice you've essentially been squeezing into it's eyes for the last 20 minutes. no siree.
I worked at an OB/GYN clinic for 7 years. One day a girl called and said she had a broken shot glass up her vagina. Upon asking how it got there, she said she was using it as birth control. Thankfully it worked because no one that stupid should have children.
Despite the chances of unnecessary anxiety and finding incorrect, or even potentially harmful information, Americans frequently use the internet to find medical diagnoses.
According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of adult internet users in the United States said they looked online for health information in the previous year.
53% of online diagnosers talked with a medical professional about what they found online, and 46% did not.
As an Emt- Basic student I responded to a man who called 911 complaining of a insect crawling up his ear. Upon arrival we ask what ear the bug crawled into, he says his right ear, but keeps complaining about burning coming from his left ear. We noticed his wife standing next to him holding a bottle of insect spray, upon further questioning we come to find out she sprayed insecticide into his left ear thinking it would "flush" the insect out of his right ear. I had to explain to her that our ear canals are separated by our brain.
Evidently some people’s ears aren’t separated by the presence of a brain.
Paramedic here. Got called to a house about 11:30 one night for a "girl with finger nail polish in her eyes". Got there and the scene is a s**t show, people screaming and throwing things around. We immediately notice the mother holding down a younger girl and about to pour something in her eyes.
Nail. Polish. Remover.
Shouldn't people who choose to reproduce attempt to learn how not to harm their young? Like, crack a book, ask Google, take a first aid class?
"Many of these things [we Google], we're born knowing how to do," Gorfinkel said. "But life strips away permission to be at peace with yourself."
According to her, in order to combat this, we have to start with the education system. "People are exceptionally bad at living with emotions that we're told are negative. Guilt, anger, a sense of being humiliated and embarrassed. We (especially women) are repeatedly told these are bad emotions to have when in fact, they're critical to true well-being." Having a firm inner base, everything else, including our relationships with illnesses and doctors, is much easier to handle.
"If I'm not able to label those emotions [and] understand their origins, then I am unable to act on them. That's a serious problem. [And] where does it lead? Into a helpless space. The backbone of anxiety. Helplessness is the very bedfellow of depression. To get out of that space, the basic labeling of difficult emotions and how to manage them should, in fact, be taught in schools."
"I hope the mathematicians out there forgive me. But all that trigonometry, cosine, and tangent... I mean, yes, they have their place but what's universally important in our lives are relationships," the doctor continued.
"We should [know more] about relationships, people, the stages of love, and what it represents. These things really need to be taught [in schools]."
I'm a triage RN. Had a patient call concerning back pain. I was going about my normal assessment and asked if he had taken anything for the pain, to which he replies "Cobra Venom".
Turns out, he had read about Cobroxin, a topical treatment for pain made from cobra venom, and decided it would be more effective to simply let a cobra bite him. I have no idea how he got hold of a cobra.
Late to the party... Guy comes into the clinic with a boil the size of golf ball on his face. He begins to explain that he had a painful zit, and tried to lance it with a needle and when that failed, he stepped it up to a "micro drill" which he sanitized by wiping on his jeans. The nurse stopped him mid story and asked "So you took a drill to your own FACE, and want to know why it's sore and swollen?"
I was the patient.
Had a frequent flyer patient who had psoriasis so bad that he literally had huge scales all over his legs. One day he gets admitted and the scales are gone. He tells me he took a brillo pad (steel wool) and scraped them all off. Surprisingly it works with no adverse effects and he's still scale free a year later.
Oftentimes, it's not only the internet that we trust too much. "Multivitamins together with minerals are taken by huge numbers of people. It is a tremendously big business that promises a lot of things, including mood boosts, healthy bones and teeth, proper muscle function, and this and that, but let's take a look at the truth. Do they do anything?"
The doctor said that these products don't live up to their promises. "The US National Institute of Health has poured two and a half billion dollars into studying them, only to learn that they do not make people live longer, they do not slow cognitive decline, they do not reduce the chance of heart disease, cancer or diabetes ... Now omega three fatty acids, that's still up for questioning. A gram a day may be helpful for lowering blood pressure."
Gorfinkel also doesn't think that probiotics belong to primetime. "The gut is literally made up of trillions of bacteria, funguses, and viruses that live there," and taking some of them in a form of a pill won't magically fix their entire environment.
"There is no existing test that tells us exactly what a healthy gut microbiome is. Nor is there a test that reliably determines which microbes are missing ... and to make matters worse, the studies done on probiotics have repeatedly shown that what's advertised on the label does not even accurately predict what is in the capsule."
But with that being said, Gorfinkel is still waiting for upcoming research on the subject, which is being done as we speak.
We are a needle exchange/harm reduction station at at the clinic I work at. We have IV drug users come in pretty frequently to get their abscesses cleaned out and dressed properly. So one patient comes in wanting to get her abscess cleaned out like many other patients before her. We take her back to a procedure room and get everything ready to start. She has an ace bandage covering up this spot on her arm so of course we are thinking it's fine because that's better than just letting it be open to the air. She proceeds take off said bandage and exposes not only HUGE abscess but a FOUR INCH LENGTH OF VEIN sticking out of her arm that is rotting away and drying up. We are like, "uh what's going on here?" and she says she took it out of her abscess and left it out because it made injecting heroin easier. So basically she ran her own IV with a vein she cut out of her abscess. We then called the ambulance.
tl;dr- Woman came in with abscess, turned out she cut her whole vein out to make an IV for easier heroin injection.
I worked overnights in a midwestern ER and I have seen 2 men try to treat their erectile dysfunction on their own.
One man used caulk in his urethra and then it dried and cracked like pencil lead and only the 1/4 inch at the tip came out, he had another 3 inches or so all broken into pieces that required surgery to get out.
The other man used a clipped off piece of coat-hanger to try to keep himself erect during sex and that also had to be surgically removed.
Dudes is weird. Ask for Viagra.
Animal Attendant for a vet clinic here.
A client came in and had rubber banded their 2 dogs ball sacks as a way of neutering them. VERY VERY VERY BAD. They got the idea from how sheep and goats can be neutered, but there is a HUGE difference between the junk of a sheep and a chihuahua. Both of the dogs had a severe infection and the tissue was completely dead. The treatment for this cost wayyyy more than the neuters would've been.
DO NOT DO THIS EVER EVER.
An 8 year old tripped on the cord of a deep fryer, spilling hot grease on his shoulder and arm. His grandma slathered him in butter to "cool him off" and "draw the heat out". When my medic partner and I entered the house and started assessing the boy, I was saddened and hungry at the same time. The poor kid smelled absolutely delicious. No cannibal.
Med student. A guy came in to the emergency department with two combs and a toothbrush in his butt. He had stuck the toothbrush up there for pleasure, but lost it. He tried to fish it out with a comb, but lost that, and tried again with a second comb, and lost that as well.
The kicker: he was there because he had gotten in a car crash. He wasn't there to get the stuff out of his butt. He volunteered the information after we asked if there was anything else we needed to know.
Doctors: Is there anything else we need to know? Guy: Yeah. So I have two combs and a toothbrush stuck in my butt...You know...I fell on it. After the car crash.
Paramedic here:
Responded to a nursing home for diabetic patient, unresponsive.
The nurse didn't keep up with the insulin and gave a tad bit too much, decreasing the pt's blood sugar. Ok, this is fixable. I walk in to see another nurse pouring Splenda down this lady's mouth.
She has snoring restorations and the Splenda is just being inhaled into her lungs. It also isn't doing s**t for this poor lady because it isn't f*****g sugar.
After give this lady some D50 (IV sugar water) she came to, but felt like she couldn't get enough air.
She ended up being treated for a few days for pneumonia.
I swear, some people get their medical licenses from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.
Love you.
EDIT: I had a few Redditors ask me if the nurse was a Registered Nurse (RN) or Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). This lady was an LPN. License to Practice Nursing I think. I don't know. That's my correction. And I still love you all.
I saw this patient last year. He had a long history of abdominal pain that was quite non-specific, and his previous workups were negative. He was convinced that he had intestinal parasites that caused the pain (which as an aside, he believed that he got them after an "encounter" with a woman he met on the internet).
So despite having seen several physicians and gastroenterologists, and numerous investigations including gastroscopy and colonoscopy, no diagnostic source for the pain was found. But he was undeterred from believing it was intestinal parasites.
So he develops a plan in which he orders surgical instruments and local anesthetic online. Watches YouTube to figure out how to perform a laparotomy (to get into his abdomen). And so after his preparations, he performs a self-surgery using a video camera to watch himself, and manages to get into his abdominal cavity. He had trouble completing his self-surgery and called an ambulance.
I would check him for psychological illnesses, I don't know the name but there is one that makes people feel insects crawling under their skin
I had a patient treating her lung cancer with a "sonic emitter". Her argument was that sound waves can shatter glass, so lung cancer wouldn't stand a chance.
Here is one that my friend who was a EMT told me.
He and his partner got called out for a impailment injury to a child's eye while running with a pencil. The mother removed the pencil before they arrived. The mother was riding in the back. That's when the paramedic said to the mother. "Next time something gets impailed, don't remove it. It's dangerous!" Without skipping a beat the mom goes "oops, I didn't know that." Then she proceeds to quickly and calmly shove the pencil back in. Apparently it was an eventful evening. Edit: corrected the ducking autocorrect on my icrap.
That cannot be true. No way. I refuse to believe this is true. Nope nope nope.
GP here.
The most outrageous thing I've heard was from a boy who was something like 20-22 years old. Very poor, illiterate family. The boy had a bad case of tonsilitis and refused to take any meds because all he needed to do was "bite the sun". Basically at noon he had to look up to the sun, open his mouth as wide as possible and "bite" the sun several times so it would "burn" his tonsils and cure him over the course of a couple weeks. When that wouldn't work, plan B was to do the same at night but only under a full moon.
**TL;DR:** Bite the sun and cure you tonsilitis.
Had an old farmer come in to the ED one day with a severely infected wound on his head. Turned out he had a growth developing on his head for the past few weeks (which turned out to be a tumour). He had been treating it with RoundUp (a potent weed killer) because "that s**t kills everything"...
Probably will be buried at the bottom but here it is. I responded to a 9-1-1 call for a man bleeding. Supposedly the guy had a angiogram (catheter stuck in the artery near your groin to look at the blood vessels near your heart for blockages) earlier that day and was released with the explicit instructions to not mess with the bulky dressing. The old coot decides to "adjust" it, causing it to open, pouring blood out his artery. What does the guy do? He puts duct tape all around his groin. Not just a few pieces, no, all attached to his junk and up and down the leg. It was a noble attempt but did not do much to control the arterial pulsations.
My patient was instilling honey in his eyes to "treat his cataracts and glaucoma" ... wat. Yes he came in for conjunctivitis cause bacteria were having a party on his corneas.
He’s lucky it was just conjunctivitis. I never realised people were so weirdly cavalier with their eyeballs.
The parents of one kid canceled the surgery to repair his ACL because people had prayed for him at their church the Sunday beforehand and he had apparently been miraculously cured.
They called and scheduled surgery later in the week.
I know a doctor. She told me a story (EDIT: that she heard from another doctor) about how this guy came into the ER, an absolute nervous wreck. He was brushing his teeth for the first time a couple years (he was homeless and couldn't afford toothbrushes or toothpaste) when he found a maggot in his mouth. This happened frequently over a course of 3 days, and he self-diagnosed himself with oral myiasis.
Now this guy was bats**t afraid of bugs, so he tried to get 'em out via the quickest way possible - ipecac.
He didn't really think that one through, and ended up vomiting shiploads of maggots before he called 911.
The doc sympathized with him - I'd freak out too, if I barfed up fifty maggots. S**t's scary.
I used to work in a lab in a hospital in a rural town. I got a stool sample from the ER that was basically a blood clot the size of a golf ball. Sometimes the ER gets mixed up and sends me the wrong specimen, like some kind of body fluid and labeled it as urine, for example. I called the patient's nurse and asked what the deal was with the patient and if it was really stool they sent up. The nurse I talked to said the patient thought he'd eaten bad pork and to prevent food poisoning, drank a concoction of bleach, rubbing alcohol, vodka, ibuprofen and some Tums.
Patient comes in to the ED with an abscess. Tells us he knew he had an infection and so ate a pound and a half of raw steak to get the antibiotics that were given to the cow.
didn't help the cow much, I mean it was dead right? please tell me it was dead.
Had a Marine stick a Q-tip up his d**k dipped in hand sanitizer cause he thought he got the clap in Thailand. That's not what Navy medical does guy.
I'm a nursing student and one of my patients had an earache so he decided to hold his daughter's bobby pin to a candle for roughly 5 minutes and then shoved it in the ear that hurt. He is now deaf in that ear and was on fall precautions since he couldn't walk straight. As a bonus, I was able to listen to every episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that was on that day wherever I was on the floor because the TV was on the loudest volume possible.
What…what did he think that would do? A bobby pin alone would’ve been a bad idea, but a red-hot one?
Dentist reporting in:
I had a guy who had tried to pry his own tooth out with a screwdriver. It did not go well.
A screwdriver? Guy didn't have a pair of pliers? (For legal and medical reasons do not plier out your teeth either. Thank)
I am an EMT who works in the ER. We once had a patient who spilled hot grease all over his arms after a small fryer accident. This happened to take place at the patient's In-laws who happened to be Chinese. Apparently there is an old wives tale in china that says to treat burns with a layer of toothpaste and rock salt. Not wanting to offend his In-laws he goes along with this do it yourself treatment. I think I spent about three hours that evening picking rock salt out of 2nd degree burns and then cleaning out all of the, now dried, toothpaste.
it's not just Chinese, but there is an "old wives tale" that you can treat first-degree burns with a layer of toothpaste since toothpaste will keep the heat inside and help, but it will do nothing for 2nd degree, and rock salt is because its usually used with toothpaste or used instead of toothpaste, and he must have thought all of it together was the Real deal
I have a buddy that is a medic in the United States Navy. One time when he was on leave and in town, us and all of our mutual friends were hanging out, shooting the s**t before a night of typical drunken shenanigans was surely to begin. He then proceeds to tell me multiple stories to which I could not believe. I have forgotten pretty much all of then, except for one...
He proceeded to tell me how a young (late teens early 20's) woman came in complaining of severe stomach pain. He was expecting to diagnose her with menstrual cramps or something else rudimentary and gave her basic pain meds etc. She came back less than a week later, complaining that the pain had only increased. He decided to send her for an X-ray to get it checked out and he could not believe what the results showed.
It **appeared** like roots of some sort were twisting and turning inside her abdomen, and proceeding to wrap around her spine.
Apparently, as a form of do-it-yourself birth control, this young lady had followed her mothers instructions and cut the end off a potato and stuck it all the way up in her vagina. Well, in a damp, moist environment, it began to thrive, as well as partially rot. I cannot even imagine what her gyno must have said, but this story had me in a cold-sweat, near dry-heaving. Easily tops one of the most disturbing stories I've ever heard.
Edit: Emphasis on **appeared**. He did not say it WAS wrapped around her spine, just that's what it LOOKED like it was about to do.
He was expecting to diagnose her with menstrual cramps or something else rudimentary and gave her basic pain meds etc. - Well, there's the first part of the problem. Any wonder why women get fed up with the state of healthcare towards us?
I work in a hospital lab. A couple years ago, I worked night shift and would routinely get called up to the Emergency Room to draw blood. I get the call, go up there, and find a two year-old boy, completely unresponsive and a mother screaming frantically and hopping around. I draw the blood, go down to the lab, and start my tests. I found an ethanol level of 350 mg/dl (Blood Alcohol Level of 0.35...possibly fatal even for an adult). I call it up to the doc and they bring in Social Services and whoever else to question the mom. Apparently, she found her son in the garage with a bottle of antifreeze and he was acting kinda weird, so she figured he was drinking it. She went online and saw that the cure for ethylene glycol poisoning is ethanol. So she went to the liquor cabinet and started POURING STRAIGHT WHISKEY DOWN THIS POOR KIDS THROAT!!! Then, of course, he passed out and she decided maybe they should go to the hospital. Kid lived.
TL;DR Mom gave her 2 y/o alcohol poisoning in an attempt to cure him from possible methanol poisoning
EDIT: ethylene glycol, not methanol.
The first advice showing up on Google when searching for poisoning should be "Contact medical services immediately" in big, fat letters
Nurse here. We had a younger patient who had run out of their inhaler and didn't want to tell their mom (after meeting her I could see why, she was just angry at the world) so he took keyboard cleaner Can-o-Air and tipped it upside down and inhaled.
Turning it upside down releases the chemicals in an icy cold spray and it immediately caused this kid to go into a severe asthma attack and caused cold burns to the back of his throat.
When I was 12 I had a really irritating case of [tonsil stones](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsillolith).
No matter what I did I couldn't get them out and was starting to get a little desperate. I decided to use a vacuum cleaner (not a small one, an actual household vacuum cleaner) on its lowest setting to suck them out.
I ended up bleeding a lot and my uvula swelled up so much my throat almost closed. The hospital still wouldn't take out my tonsils.
I was not a smart child.
ER Tech here:
A man came in with his wife because he had been bleeding from his bum. He thought that the best way was to self-anesthetize with alcohol, lubricate the area, and cauterize with a curling iron...
He actually got it a fair way up before he pulled it out, judging by how much of his r****m turned KFC. We had to remove about a foot of GI tract due to burnt, scarred tissue. The worst part was that didn't even stop the bleeding, which originated farther up the GI tract than the iron would ever reach.
There is also the story about a champagne bottle popping off inside someone, but thats another story.
Not an RN, but my diabetic grandpa used to eat all the bread/sugar he wanted, and then eat lemondrops after everything. According to him, the real lemon juice acid would counteract the sugar he had just eaten. He was convinced. The nurses disagreed and fought with him for years, but eventually gave in and let him do what he wanted because he was 97 and the food made him happy.
hell at 97 i would just take him to a candy factory and go ham on anything he wanted!
My first night as an intern, this old man came in the ER with his daughter complaining of fainting while at home. He was just feeling dizzy now so the resident admits the patients and since he is not cooperative we start taking history from his daughter. While we are inteviewing her the patient starts vomiting some brownish material (it looks like clotted blood which is usually seen in a bleeding stomach ulcer). So we ask the daughter about it and she says: "Oh no! this is just 'melted suger' that I gave him an hour ago". Turns out she heat some sugar until it started melting and fed it to the poor guy. So we spend an hour convincing the lady that this can be a GI bleeding and we have to do so and so, and she is not convinced. Meanwhile the patient went into cardiopulmonary arrest and died. Turns out it WAS a GI bleeding, exacerbated by pouring hot sugar in patients mouth. GOD people are idiots sometimes.
ER nurse here.
I was working in triage. Another triage nurse called me over to show me a horribly rotten foot. The first thing I noticed was that there was no detectable odor. Normally the smell is quite pronounced. I wondered out loud why there was no smell.
That's when the patient spoke up. She said, "Bleach. I've been soaking it in bleach every night."
I work in the ER and not too long ago I had a lady come in with a HUGE swelling on her arm and a really really upset stomach. As we began to examine her arm we found two small puncture wounds. I asked her what had happened and she said she was out working in her garden and she was bit by a snake.....THREE DAYS AGO!! And that she had heard that drinking vinegar would cure the bite. Not only did the bite become infected only drinking vinegar for three days is not a very good idea!!
What a basic bítch. (yes, vinegar’s pH makes it acidic and not a base, but I couldn’t resist!)
So my dad was an EMT for the longest time and he would always tell me stories about the weird s**t he happened upon, but the most f****d up one was told about 5 months after my 18th birthday.
So my dad walks into an apartment downtown where he is immediately greeted by a pack of about 16-20 elderly swingers in various stages of nudity and bdsm wear. They were all huddled around a single man strapped into a sex swing who was holding his genitals and moaning. When my dad asked what had happened the man responded by removing his hands and displaying his penis which had swollen so much that the skin had actually ripped all along the length. He said that he had ED but mistakenly left his Cialis at home, so thinking on his feet he decided to use a c**k-ring. He asked around but nobody had one. But nobody comes to orgy to sit on the couch so the man improvises, lubes up his wedding ring and manages to get the sucker on. It did it's job though, blood went in but didn't go out. Problem was the ring was 6 sizes too small so when the deed was done his penis had swelled so much that the ring wouldn't budge. He played it off though and suffered in silence for THREE HOURS while the orgy continued until a rough Handy-J backed by the immense blood pressure caused the skin to split. The man was rushed to the hospital but nothing could be done to remove the ring and his penis had to be amputated.
TL;DR- Don't put your wedding ring on your d**k.
I think what all we want to know is..... was he really still married or was his wife/husband there with him or did he come alone? also.... are you allowed in a swinger party if your partner is gone and you are single? are you a swinger if you are single? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
This guy had a scabies infestation and poured rubbing alcohol over himself to kill the mites. Then he lit a cigarette while he waited for it to dry. Second and third degree burns over 80% of his body.
One of my patients had put Nair on his a**s and left it on overnight. As one would think, when he woke up he had burns that looked like a pressure ulcer. Instead of coming to the ED right away he decide he would soothe the pain with honey. When that didn't work he tried to remove the honey using vodka.
Teaching his roommate how to do those dressing changes was the most awkward experience I have ever had professionally.
Diabetic patient, went to vacation in the Caribbean, left her insulin on a cruise ship, hasn't taken any for a week... Gets back to states and Medicaid won't pay for lost or stolen meds, and she refuses to pay for another bottle, because she "doesn't have any money". Realizes that no insulin = more sugar in blood, somehow gets the idea in her head that more sugar in blood means that her blood is now "thicker" so she decides to take a bunch of plavix, warfarin, and aspirin (all blood thinners that cause bleeding and high doses can and will lead to internal bleeding and death) to thin her blood. I get the story when she comes into the pharmacy to get refills on her warfarin and plavix and ask her why she needs those early. Told her to immediately go to the ER. I have no idea if she actually did...
-plavix, sorry bad typo thanks for pointing that out, and causes blood thinning ( I need to proof read more)
Fork the U.S. medical system and the GOP right in the ear. Richest country in the damn world. But it would be sOcIaLiSm to make insulin, and other drugs, less prohibitively expensive.
Not a medical professional, but I once shared living quarters with medics at a small outpost in Afghanistan. Whenever they weren't busy otherwise they'd see as many locals as they could. I'm working in the back room one day when I overhear this little gem of a conversation:
Patient, through interpreter: "I caught an STD recently during a vacation in Pakistan."
Context: The locals tend to look at Pakistan like Americans view Las Vegas; a way to get away from it all for uninhibited hedonism when desired.
Medic: "How bad are the flareups?"
Patient: "Pretty bad, but I'm trying to treat it naturally."
I lean in at this point, ready for whatever explanation is coming. Long silence from the medic, who is trying to process the situation.
Medic: "How...does one treat a STD naturally?"
Patient: "I'm eating a lot of cheese."
Ophthalmologist here - I've had a patient who would rewet her contact lenses when they felt dry by putting them in her mouth. Ended up with a central corneal ulcer requiring a transplant.
Pour straight bleach onto poison ivy...at the suggestion of a pharmacy tech.
Edit: I didn't do this to myself, I saw the aftermath on someone.
This guy slightly burned both his feet while burning leaves. The burns got horribly infected. He knew he needed to drain them. He pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and drove it through the wounds. A USED toothpick. He ended up in the hospital of course.
I once stitched up my own wound. I was under the impression that if my dad took me to the hospital, I wouldn't be covered by my mom's insurance. So, I took some string and a sewing needle and stitched it up. It hurt like a b***h.
Afterwards, I wrapped it with gauze and no one was the wiser. Until my grandma asked about it. I, being an evil child and fully aware my grandma is extremely Squamish, took the gauze off and showed her. She promptly told my mom and I was taken to the hospital. Doctor told me I did a decent job with the stitching but to let a professional take care of it next time.
A sixty year old woman self diagnosed herself with leg cancer and decided to treat it herself by periodically "squeezing the cancer out" of a centimeter wide hole in her leg.
Yeah, that was a pretty stupid one. @_@
Eww, that makes cutting seem mild. I hope the lady got a really helpful psych consult.
Not a medical worker but I still have a pretty good story.
My first year going to Boy Scout camp I wasn't able to go the week the rest of my Troop was going so I had to go with the provisional group (all the people who went without their Troop). Being that way I didn't know anyone in it but soon made some friends. This one kid loved holding his extremely sharp pocket knife in his hand and then throwing it into the ground in front of him. One day he got the idea that the ground wasn't fun enough and decided to try and stick it into trees. We were all just sitting around relaxing in between classes watching him and he throws his knife directly at the tree in front of him. It didn't stick into the tree. Instead it ricocheted off of the tree and sliced his shin. Since he was working toward his first aid merit badge he decided he could handle it himself and tied a tourniquet **below** the cut. We tried to tell him he was wrong and he assured us he was fine and started limping toward the first aid hut with someone helping him. He passed out on the way there.
TL;DR: Kid throws knife, gets cut, mends it horribly, and then passes out.
I've never even been to med classes and I'd know to tie a tourniquet ABOVE the wound! Or closer to the heart than the wound is. Come ON!
When I was a nursing attendant at a hospital, I brought a patient from emergency to the OR for emergency surgery.
This unfortunate chap had somehow managed to put a lubricated apple into his r****m. After discovering that this was a bad idea, he decided that a good way to extract this object would be to take a fork and a knife, cut it into smaller pieces, thereby making extraction a breeze.
This brilliant idea didn't work so well for him, and he ended up in the emergency department with some nasty lacerations to the inside of his colon. Oh, and a still mostly intact apple in place.
TL;DR: Apples + A**s = No fun.
While working in the ER, an older woman came in and complained of a headache and rectal pain. Nothing too out of the ordinary by themselves, but an odd combination of complaints. A few questions in, we find out that patient has been attempting to treat her headache with over the counter ibuprofen... Rectally. She was pretty embarrassed when we told her over the counter meds can't be taken rectally unless specified.
My Uncle had a rotten tooth, and was scheduled to get a proper surgical removal the next day, but it was just too painful. In the middle of the night he attempted to remove the rotten tooth himself with a pair of needle nose pliers. He didn't realize that the rotten tooth was very weak, so when he attempted the removal, the tooth shattered. This made him have to get in his car and drive himself to the hospital (while biting down on a blood-soaked cloth) to get much more expensive emergency surgery to remove the shards of tooth. That was truly idiotic.
BURNS, BLOOD, AND ICE CREAM.
While working in Buffalo, NY as an EMT, I once responded to the scene of a fireworks related injury. Upon entering the premiss it noticeably was filled with only very drunk, very scared, very high school age kids, of course no adults.
After convincing one party goer that we were not the police, and did not care about their drinking, they showed us to the injured boy. He was 14, his hands charred, chest skin pealing, face very bloody and rearranged. The story as to how this happened was that the kid made an improvised explosive out of at least 20 motor ball fireworks...when lighting it things did not go as planned.
Now 3rd degree burns are indeed very very painful, but under no circumstances should you try to alleviate the pain as this young kid did...
His solution; chocolate ice cream! F*****g chocolate ice cream everywhere, on his face, on his chewed up hands, smeared on his chest. It was like a chocolate BBQ o'child!
Dairy products are never the answer to serious wounds folks, teach your children. (and maybe that golden rule; "No more than ten mortar balls per improvised explosive")
strawberry ice cream would have healed him and they wouldn't have needed t cal 911! All because of the wrong ice cream, always bring more than one type folks!
Had a make patient, late 50s, hated doctors and hasn't been to see one in decades. He started developing urinary retention, likely due to an enlarged prostate. After a time, his bladder was so full of urine that couldn't come out that he found he was constantly dribbling out urine 24/7. Instead of making an appointment, he dealt with it by limiting his fluid intake to no water and "just 1-2 beers" a day, and then wearing diapers and sleeping on an absorbent pad. When he finally came in (by ambulance, called by his wife), the ER doc put a Foley in and drained literally 3.5 liters of bloody urine.
FYI: A “Foley” is a type of catheter. It’s a little tube that they pass up through your urethra and into your bladder to drain urine.
Nurse here: had a man decide to self treat an abscess in his stomach by stuffing it with clorox bleach soaked socks. Yup yup. Needles to say after 4 months it was pretty disgusting. Needed treatment for MRSA, surgery and packing for the wound, and finally closure.
Orthopedic Nurse here.
When someone breaks their hip the typical presentation is a shortened and externally (sometimes internally) rotated leg. I had a lady that thoughr her hip had simply popped out and had her kid pull on her leg to try and pop it back in. That didn't work, but regardless she didn't believe anything serious was wrong at the time. She waited 3 months before coming to the hospital. She only came in after she couldn't feel her foot anymore and her leg was swelling up from a deep vein thrombosis.
TFW needs treated for DVT and needs surgery.
Putting aside the fact she’s lucky to be alive at all - how did she stand the pain of someone yanking around her broken hip? And then still think it was nothing serious??
Had a story from a friend who was a first responder. Gets a call to go to an address, with a 16 year old girl calling for help and refusing to divulge more.
He shows up to the location, finds the girl with her pants off, washcloth covering the genitals. After a brief examination, he finds the reddest, swollen, puss discharging mess I could only begin to imagine.
Turns out her bf gave her crabs, and her dyi method to try and solve the problem was to attempt to insert the nozzle of a raid bottle, and douche away while spritzing the exterior as well.
Holy Shîtballs! There are far too many teens trying to fry their gênitals off with chemical burns from hazardous and poisonous products. They're in dire need of some sex ed or a hotline where they can call and ask questions or even a website with a response team and possibly live chat available. This is horrifying and so serious 😢. I feel horrible for these kids.
Had a homeless patient in med school with venous stasis bilateral lower limbs...gets a wound...gets infected...it spreads.
So he thinks that he can beat the infection with toilet bowl cleaner.
By the time we admitted him from the ED, not only were his legs stained blue from the cleaner, they were also completely infested with maggots. The smell was something I'll never forget....I had to put a mouthful of altoids in before I put my mask on, and huff my own spicy breath, as I approached his room.
Poor guy wound up leaving AMA because he didn't want an amputation, and died from a DVT that week.
Edit: spelling, yikes.
Nurse here.
A mom was caring for her son who had a G-tube most of his life. (A feeding tube that goes into his belly) Sometimes when it would get clogged she would put Coke into it to dissolve the clog, a common practice with G-tubes. At one point he child went home on IV antibiotics. The IV goes into the blood stream as opposed to the stomach. At home he IV got clogged. So the mom tried injecting Coke into it in order to dissolve the clog. Luckily it did no work. Coke into the blood could probably have killed the child. In the mom's defense, I guess all tubes look the same to her.
OMFG how could anyone think that Coke could enter the bloodstream along with IV fluids, that's insanity!
I work at a veterinary clinic and we once had a gruff, old country guy come in with his Australian shepherd. The dog had a huge hanging growth under his neck that was rubbing against the ground and just looked horrible. The doctor strongly recommended he have it removed, and the owner said he could do it again.
Again!? Apparently, the dog had a smaller growth in the same spot years ago that the owner removed with a pocket knife and bottle of alcohol. No closure, no antibiotics.
We were so shocked! The doctor went on to educate him as to why that is NOT a good idea. He eventually agreed to let us do the procedure, but MAN was he a difficult son-of-a-b.
We're still not sure how the dog survived the last removal without any problems.
had this with an old dog, I thankfully was going through veterinarian school and was able to remove a cyst from my dog and treat him, but since I had no money for him he got everything second handed, I had teachers sign off on like shots that i gave for him and stuff, and he lived to a ripe old age~ Sadly i had to drop out of the school ..... I couldn't take putting animals to sleep, I was too much of a "bleeding heart toward animals", I still use a lot of it on my pups now, one just passed away cause he was too sick, and I wasn't able to get him to the actual vet, so I just made him comfy the last few days, and I'm tending to his brother now that has seizures and mental problems, I would rather die than let a animal go in pain
Im not a medical worker but I did something pretty dumb.
I was maybe 10 years old. I had an outward grown birth mark on my body. I dont know how to describe it but it was sticking out of my skin a bit and was darker colored. It was in a rather embarrassing area of my body. I did not want to show or tell my parents about it cause i was embarrassed. Remember, I was 10 or so.
I took ice, held it against it until I could no longer feel it and it was numb. I then took a pair of scissors, Soaked it in rubbing alcohol to make sure it was as clean as possible. Then I cut it off. Wrapped myself in bandages and it was over with. When I reflect on that, im proud of myself for making sure it was done cleanly....but its dumb to do self surgery.
When I was younger I pierced my own ears with a pin….I have no idea how I was so brave because the thought makes my stomach turn now. I had ice and rubbing alcohol too, and they healed just fine - still pierced today. Still, do not try this at home kids.
Firefighter/Paramedic here: We were called for a diabetic patient in a private residence. We walked into the pts bedroom to find him laying in bed with sugar all over is face and the bed. The teenage son admitted to poring a bag of sugar into his dad's mouth after the dispatcher told him that his sugar may be low.
An elderly lady brought her husband in with severe diarrhea. She had stoppered his a**s with a '00' rubber cork. He died of sepsis.
My mom got a huge abscess on a wisdom tooth and had such a bad infection that they were worried about it reaching her brain or heart. Two years later she tells me she had an abscess there before, but had no insurance, so she used a (clean) veterinary scalpel and tequila to take care of it. She also bit off a chunk of skin that was hanging from her hand after she scraped it.
acid/chemical from car battery on poison ivy. It got rid of the poison ivy and some skin.
Not me personally, but when I was in EMT school our instructor told us of a woman who thought she was having a heart attack, then after calling 911 she took her husband's nitro. For those of you who don't know, nitro is used by medics and also prescribed to patients in order to lower blood pressure. It is also prescribed according to your body size. This little old lady took nitro that was meant for a full grown man twice her size. Apparently she was just sitting on the couch about to pass out when they showed up.
Admitting a patient in the ED for unstable angina. He had great ST depressions during chest pain that resolved with aspirin and nitro. Earlier that morning he had crushing chest pain with radiation to his jaw. Thinking somehow it was due to hunger pains, his attempted cure was to eat an everything bagle with lox and cream cheese. Didnt work, but sounded delicious.
A friend of mine superglued his teeth back into his mouth after drunken shenanigans once.
Try not to ingest superglue. The reason we don't use it for emergency wound closure is because it contains potassium cyanide, which is potentially lethal.
I work in a retirement home, and I caught one of my residents with a spoon inside her butt. Apparently she tried to cure her constipation by sticking a spoon up her booty and trying to scoop the poop out.
Well, it could have helped a little, I suppose. I read a book where a woman occasionally stuck her finger up her aunt's bum to scrape excrement out, because she used to beg her to as it brought her at least a small bit of temporary relief. Desperation makes weird things possible.
While in China a Chinese female engineer had a cold. To cure the cold she attempted to burn it out using a curling iron. She had large burn all across her back from burning herself repeatedly...
Community Health Nurse reporting in. I love my clients, but sometimes they are a little crazy :-)
Patient had diabetes and urinary incontinence. Would often take insulin without eating to "cure the diabetes", and to avoid incontinence, would stick tampons into her urethra.
The most interesting part of this is that the raging urinary tract infection she acquired from the tampons probably helped keep her blood sugar high enough so she wouldn't have crippling hypoglycaemia.
A slightly crazy guy in my town developed numerous decayed teeth over the years. As they became painful, in their turn, he would "extract" them using pliers. This usually just broke off the crown of the tooth, leaving the roots in place. Then, one fine day, one or more of them caused a severe infection and he had to be medevacked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig%27s_angina
I used to do this, but I would have to dig into the root to pull the rest out, it was almost 5K to pull but like $800 to replace, had to do that a few times, it wasn't fun, {my dad thankfully got wind of it and now pays for medical since my stepmom ... kinda caused all of it} so I'm good on it now, all fixed now
You read one and think nothing can be worse and then you read the next one. Holy c**p Batman!
Oh, you learn in med school not to say, "This has to be the worst". It's tempting the stupidity of humankind.
Load More Replies...
I’m a retired nurse. One time I had a hospital patient with a serious infection in a leg wound. His girlfriend came to visit with something she had printed off social media. It said an infection can be treated by exercise because it increases blood flow to the infected area. I’m certainly in favor of being physically active, but this patient desperately needed IV antibiotics. Myself and the doctor tried to convince him to stay, but his girlfriend talked him into leaving and told us “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he gets lots of exercise.” The patient returned to the hospital by ambulance a few days later and died in the emergency department.
Some of these situations may be caused by the high cost of medical care in U.S. Some situations might be caused by people believing the stupid articles they read on the internet without first verifying the information. Personally, I'd like to see any website dispensing medical advice without the proper qualifications to do so, be shut down and the people running it arrested and heavily fined.
Sure, spend money on law enforcement NOT basic education including critical thinking skills. You can fix a lot with that one skill.
Load More Replies...
Think so many of these were caused by the ridiculously unaffordable cost of medical help in the US......
There was this one guy once who thought you could kill COVID by injecting bleach into your veins.
This one guy who led the executive branch for four years...
Load More Replies...
I knew a former nurse who was deep into alternative medicine and married to a “healer shaman.” About 15 years ago she had a mole appear above her eyebrow. Years go by and the mole is irregular and growing. Friends urge her to get it looked at and biopsied. But the “nurse” says, no, it’s under control because she concocted a daily ointment for it. After 8 years the mole looks like a tiny finger hanging over her eye. It smells. Again she claims it’s under control because her husband, the shaman, is performing healing rituals with her. Friends keep urging her to go to a doctor. But this former nurse says the medical profession is just a big scam and her diet and spiritual healing remedies will take care of it. At 10 years, her eye is affected. She finally goes to the doctor to have it checked at urging of friends. It’s cancer. She finally gives in to having surgery to save her life. Her eye is removed as well as part of her face. She and hubby still believe in some of the craziest alternative medicine. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against some alternative treatments but they have fallen into the rabbit hole.
Dog drool from a rabies positive dog... to treat autism... I'm in the veterinary field, it's unimaginable to me why anyone would do this. On a practical level, I have some serious questions..
Load More Replies... Worked in a pharmacy for a while in college, and there were all kinds of facepalm stories. I heard one about a man who came in for liquid amoxicillin for his daughter's ear infection. The tech asked if he wanted a syringe to measure the medicine with. His response? "But won't that hurt if I put that in her ears?"
My dad told me once when he was a kid at a family dinner his cousin cracked his tooth on something they were eating. He was in agony and my grandmother's idea was for him to gargle with GASOLINE. She had some insane home remedies but this one was the worst
That and turpentine were very very popular during the Spanish flu.
Load More Replies... Why are so many ppl shoving things into holes where you're not supposed to shove up things (unless a doctor prescribed something)? And all that bleach!?! I sometimes feel a bit crazy for relying on tea for colds and extra water+sleep for headaches... but the ppl on this list makes me feel so so normal. 😏
I posted this as a comment on a specific post but thought I'd share... While I'm not an advocate for this I had several very bad warts on my foot that would not go away (or would come back) despite very painful medical intervention (lasers, freezing, cutting out, etc) and because warts are kind of an anomaly there was no good solution...but I was embarrassed and uncomfortable and purchased a canned freeze spray (think scientific grade cell cryogenics not just dr. Scholl's) and literally froze them every two days for a few weeks. It was torture, I misjudged once and blistered the top of my foot....eventually they went away and stayed away. My point is that desperation and discomfort are powerful motivators to try anything.
Um, that's reallllly not recommended unless you're very precise about it, b/c you can cause damage equivalent to severe frostbite.
Load More Replies... FYI, you can’t fix frostbitten fingers by setting them on fire, but you CAN use them to toast marshmallows!
At the rate of "incidents" involving our members/parts (ladies and gentlemen), I think we owe them big time apologies and a solemn, never-broken vow to never repeat anything of the sort ever again or even think of trying them...
Why permit unlicensed, unqualified people to issue sham info??? Why isn't it punishable?
All of this stuff sounds suspiciously American, which makes me wonder if people in nations that have affordable health care do this kind of crazy stuff. Heck, 15 years ago I accidentally cut a huge gash into my arm and immediately searched for a needle and some nylon thread to sew it up because I couldn’t afford the ER visit. I got help wrapping it tightly instead. The scar is completely gone now.
Me: I'm allergic to surgical glue and tape, please just use stitches. Doctor: right, I'll write that down so we don't forget. *Doctor does hip replacement with tape AND surgical glue* Me, calling the nurse: my leg is swollen up three inches bigger around, and I can't stand the itching, did they use tape or glue?" Nurse: of course, they always use tape and glue! I ended up removing the dressing a day early and starting peeling off the tape and glue. Once I got about half of it off, the swelling went down by two inches and it's a normal color; no longer fire engine red.
It seems a huge percentage of these stories are caused by a lack of education, rather than spite or low intelligence.
Welcome to my world. If anyone asks why I prefer research to practice? ... This is why.
You are clearly well informed, likely educated, and I'm sure well immune to making poor or impulsive choices (regardless of any financial or negative influential circumstances)....Likely many people share your opinion regarding those who can't spell basic words or use spell check. Like the word oxygen for instance. My six year old had that on her spelling homework last week. She got it right but definitely couldn't navigate Bored Panda, let alone the comment section. That would give me the impression anyone who could, would also spell oxygen correctly. I don't know though. What do you think?
Load More Replies... You read one and think nothing can be worse and then you read the next one. Holy c**p Batman!
Oh, you learn in med school not to say, "This has to be the worst". It's tempting the stupidity of humankind.
Load More Replies... I’m a retired nurse. One time I had a hospital patient with a serious infection in a leg wound. His girlfriend came to visit with something she had printed off social media. It said an infection can be treated by exercise because it increases blood flow to the infected area. I’m certainly in favor of being physically active, but this patient desperately needed IV antibiotics. Myself and the doctor tried to convince him to stay, but his girlfriend talked him into leaving and told us “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he gets lots of exercise.” The patient returned to the hospital by ambulance a few days later and died in the emergency department.
Some of these situations may be caused by the high cost of medical care in U.S. Some situations might be caused by people believing the stupid articles they read on the internet without first verifying the information. Personally, I'd like to see any website dispensing medical advice without the proper qualifications to do so, be shut down and the people running it arrested and heavily fined.
Sure, spend money on law enforcement NOT basic education including critical thinking skills. You can fix a lot with that one skill.
Load More Replies... Think so many of these were caused by the ridiculously unaffordable cost of medical help in the US......
There was this one guy once who thought you could kill COVID by injecting bleach into your veins.
This one guy who led the executive branch for four years...
Load More Replies... I knew a former nurse who was deep into alternative medicine and married to a “healer shaman.” About 15 years ago she had a mole appear above her eyebrow. Years go by and the mole is irregular and growing. Friends urge her to get it looked at and biopsied. But the “nurse” says, no, it’s under control because she concocted a daily ointment for it. After 8 years the mole looks like a tiny finger hanging over her eye. It smells. Again she claims it’s under control because her husband, the shaman, is performing healing rituals with her. Friends keep urging her to go to a doctor. But this former nurse says the medical profession is just a big scam and her diet and spiritual healing remedies will take care of it. At 10 years, her eye is affected. She finally goes to the doctor to have it checked at urging of friends. It’s cancer. She finally gives in to having surgery to save her life. Her eye is removed as well as part of her face. She and hubby still believe in some of the craziest alternative medicine. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against some alternative treatments but they have fallen into the rabbit hole.
Dog drool from a rabies positive dog... to treat autism... I'm in the veterinary field, it's unimaginable to me why anyone would do this. On a practical level, I have some serious questions..
Load More Replies... Worked in a pharmacy for a while in college, and there were all kinds of facepalm stories. I heard one about a man who came in for liquid amoxicillin for his daughter's ear infection. The tech asked if he wanted a syringe to measure the medicine with. His response? "But won't that hurt if I put that in her ears?"
My dad told me once when he was a kid at a family dinner his cousin cracked his tooth on something they were eating. He was in agony and my grandmother's idea was for him to gargle with GASOLINE. She had some insane home remedies but this one was the worst
That and turpentine were very very popular during the Spanish flu.
Load More Replies... Why are so many ppl shoving things into holes where you're not supposed to shove up things (unless a doctor prescribed something)? And all that bleach!?! I sometimes feel a bit crazy for relying on tea for colds and extra water+sleep for headaches... but the ppl on this list makes me feel so so normal. 😏
I posted this as a comment on a specific post but thought I'd share... While I'm not an advocate for this I had several very bad warts on my foot that would not go away (or would come back) despite very painful medical intervention (lasers, freezing, cutting out, etc) and because warts are kind of an anomaly there was no good solution...but I was embarrassed and uncomfortable and purchased a canned freeze spray (think scientific grade cell cryogenics not just dr. Scholl's) and literally froze them every two days for a few weeks. It was torture, I misjudged once and blistered the top of my foot....eventually they went away and stayed away. My point is that desperation and discomfort are powerful motivators to try anything.
Um, that's reallllly not recommended unless you're very precise about it, b/c you can cause damage equivalent to severe frostbite.
Load More Replies... FYI, you can’t fix frostbitten fingers by setting them on fire, but you CAN use them to toast marshmallows!
At the rate of "incidents" involving our members/parts (ladies and gentlemen), I think we owe them big time apologies and a solemn, never-broken vow to never repeat anything of the sort ever again or even think of trying them...
Why permit unlicensed, unqualified people to issue sham info??? Why isn't it punishable?
All of this stuff sounds suspiciously American, which makes me wonder if people in nations that have affordable health care do this kind of crazy stuff. Heck, 15 years ago I accidentally cut a huge gash into my arm and immediately searched for a needle and some nylon thread to sew it up because I couldn’t afford the ER visit. I got help wrapping it tightly instead. The scar is completely gone now.
Me: I'm allergic to surgical glue and tape, please just use stitches. Doctor: right, I'll write that down so we don't forget. *Doctor does hip replacement with tape AND surgical glue* Me, calling the nurse: my leg is swollen up three inches bigger around, and I can't stand the itching, did they use tape or glue?" Nurse: of course, they always use tape and glue! I ended up removing the dressing a day early and starting peeling off the tape and glue. Once I got about half of it off, the swelling went down by two inches and it's a normal color; no longer fire engine red.
It seems a huge percentage of these stories are caused by a lack of education, rather than spite or low intelligence.
Welcome to my world. If anyone asks why I prefer research to practice? ... This is why.
You are clearly well informed, likely educated, and I'm sure well immune to making poor or impulsive choices (regardless of any financial or negative influential circumstances)....Likely many people share your opinion regarding those who can't spell basic words or use spell check. Like the word oxygen for instance. My six year old had that on her spelling homework last week. She got it right but definitely couldn't navigate Bored Panda, let alone the comment section. That would give me the impression anyone who could, would also spell oxygen correctly. I don't know though. What do you think?
Load More Replies...