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Like priests or your own lawyer, doctors are in that category of people where, technically, you should feel safe to share anything. Still, most folks still might find it hard to actually share relevant information if it happens to be somewhat embarrassing. So it can be helpful to read some of the unhinged things others have said to a medical professional face to face.
Someone asked “What’s the strangest thing you’ve confessed to a doctor you’d never tell anyone else?” and people shared their wildest examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own examples in the comments down below.
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#1
How much I was drinking. When regular people asked, I'd say around 4 standard drinks a night. When I finally realised I was getting out of hand, I admitted to the doctor that it was around 15 to 20 standard drinks a night. Today, I am officially 1 month completely sober, and the sight of alcohol makes me sick (possibly due to medication). I'm just glad I finally got help, 2+ years of heavy drinking completely finished now with help.
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#2
Admitted that I had an overwhelming urge to chew on ice and smell wet concrete. Like, a *compulsion*. Thought I was losing my mind. Doc ran some bloodwork and boom, severely anemic. A few iron pills later and the weird cravings vanished completely.
#3
I had a doctors appointment the next day for mental health. They asked me if i ever harmed myself and I said yes, and was super embarrassed about it. They asked when, and I said last night. They then asked to see, and gently cleaned the wound while saying nothing. They then went about the rest of the consultation and sent me off to my mother. I eventually told her a few years down the line, but having that quiet compassion really helped me in a dark time.
#4
That I ate one kilo of licquorice in a week. For the first time in my life I had a nearly normal blood pressure.
The doctor was shocked and said: "This is NOT the way we want to treat your low blood pressure!".
funeralpyres:
“No, really, doctors hate this one simple trick!”
Deta Rossiter 8 hours ago
i would love self medication like this.. haha. I self medicate with copious amounts of salt though
#5
“I took hundreds of pills and washed them down with wine. I am about to faint.”
The next thing I remember is waking up in the ICU with a dozing nurse in the corner.
Not my finest evening.
#6
That my ex won't let me leave and went as far as trying to end their life to keep me. My doctor told me to let them. Unconventional, but it snapped me out of a trauma bond. No one [passed away] so far.
Huddo's sister 6 hours ago
I told my friend to do this, but she didn't listen to me and ended up marrying him. They seem happy, but I don't see them really now, so who knows.
#7
The emotional [mistreatment] I suffered as a child. I told her they never hit me though she responded “they didn’t have to” real eye opener.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 6 hours ago
Yup, emotional a***e or neglect is just as much a***e as any violence.
#8
I had a bit of a rough but consensual hookup one night, and totally forgot about it when I went to the gyno the next day. During the breast exam she noticed I had this massive purple bruise on my [chest] and looked incredibly concerned. I turned 10 shades of red and started overexplaining that it was consensual. Thankfully this was a Planned Parenthood so the people that work there tend to not judge much. We ended up having a good laugh about it.
Savannah greenleaf 9 hours ago
Sometimes it is not so much judging, but more concern for your safety on there end.
#9
That I have severe social anxiety, absolutely detest making eye contact, I get distracted easily, love to procrastinate, and I have auditory processing disorder. I have autism and ADHD and that is for my psychiatrist to know and not my job. I have been working at my job for over 3 years now and my issues haven’t affected my work or my work ethic. I’m actually very good at my job.
Huddo's sister 6 hours ago
I can definitely relate to all the first sentence. It does affect my work at times, but no one seems to notice at least.
#10
I was telling my neurologist about numbness I'd been experiencing from my waist down. He asked the inevitable question: "can you feel your groin?" The answer was no and it also meant I couldn't tell if I had to [go to the bathroom]. I didn't realize he'd specifically detail that in my medical notes and thus every other doctor that treated me would ask the same question. Fun times.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 6 hours ago
Standard questions to safety net for Cauda Equina Syndrome, which is a medical emergency and requires immediate surgery to prevent loss of function/paralysis. Every time I see a patient with low back pain, I have to ask about bladder/bowel control, sensation around genitals and s****l function.
#11
I don't remember ever being happy. I was hoping they'd have some advice.. looked at me like dude that's rough. Last time I did that. I'm telling y'all cause that was a decade ago and it's all been downhill. Lol, take care of yourselves.
#12
Getting screened for adhd and they question you about a lot of things to eliminate all sorts of psychiatric issues. I admitted to having experienced intrusive thoughts. I’m white and sometimes when I’m extremely tired my brain makes up a horrific scenario. I become convinced I have Tourettes syndrome (which I don’t have) and I have this intrusive thought that I’m going to blurt out the n-word in a room full of people. Not because I’m racist, but because it’s the most horrible insulting thing my brain can think of to scare me with. Luckily, this only happens to me every now and then when I’m completely exhausted, like maybe once a year for 5 minutes. I feel so bad for people that have Tourette syndrome or intrusive/unwanted thoughts on the regular. It must be very difficult.
astheshadowsfall 11 hours ago
I sympathize with this, either we are both crazy, or it's part of the human condition.
#13
I told them the glass shower door didn’t “just shatter” when I bumped it with my knee trying to get in. I had actually put the bathroom scale against the wall and was trying to see how high I could get number via leg press with my back against the glass shower door.
36 stitches in my back. Mainly left shoulder blade. It was north of 200 when it broke. I was 14.
#14
That I once had to sleep with someone for shelter. I was briefly homeless and it was during covid times…..
It was and still is very embarrassing.
#16
I used to pick one side of my nose with crochet hooks because the bone was itchy. Fun fact: the bone WAS itchy because I had a birth defect called unilateral choanal atresia (the plate under your eyesocket at one point covered your sinus opening in your nose). It was not fully corrected until 2020 after a prior unsuccessful corrective surgery in 2010 while I was in high school. Less fun fact: the bone still gets itchy, but the bone is no longer there. I have to sit and rub the right side of my face from cheekbone up until the itching stops or my brain will throw me into a sneezing fit like a tantruming toddler. I have gotten bloody noses that way.
#17
“I have three testicles.”
Turned out I still just had the two. The third one was a spermaticele (sp?).
#18
I shared something having to do with the almost 50 year old man (teacher) that groomed me when I was 16 that I’ve never told anyone else before. 12 years later, the weight is finally being lifted from my shoulders.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 6 hours ago
So glad OP was able to do this. Hoping that all other survivors of a***e realise it was never their fault and can get the help and support they need.
#19
I had my period in early January, and got pregnant. That pregnancy ended up being a blighted ovum, and I had a D&C in mid March. I was waiting to get my period again...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting. I finally took a pregnancy test and was shocked to see i was pregnant again! But I hadn't had a period! I was 32, had a 2yo, my previous pregnancy was very wanted, and I was in the doctor's office saying "how did this happen?!? I never got a period?!?"
The doc laughed, asked if I needed to go back to 10th grade health, and reminded me that the egg releases before we get our periods. Oh. 🤦♀️
It was fun going to my appts for my baby due 12/25 yet saying my last period was 1/3 lol.
AlithenewMC 1 hour ago
I had irregular periods when I was younger, due to being underweight. When I got pregnant with my first, I consistently had to correct medical people on my due date, since they'd try to convince me I was further along than I was. Got pregnant end of June, but my period had been early May. One ultra sound tech didnt believe me, despite telling her I was irregular, until she actually did the scan and saw how small he was.
#20
That I felt like my body was a grave and I was buried inside of myself. This was after a traumatic pregnancy loss. I’m feeling better now, but things were rough.
Dragon mama 5 hours ago
The wording was very evocative. And made me cry. I hope she is truly better.
#21
I was a chronic bedwetter growing up and while it is a whole lot better now as an adult it does still happen from time to time. Since it has never fully resolved itself 'Nocturnal Enuresis' is something that is still listed on my medical record as a condition.
So my doctor and I have this strange and awkward few minute discussion every year during my wellness check up about how is my bedwetting, better, same or worst. 😳.
Yayheterogeneity 15 minutes ago
Nothing to be ashamed of. Just your doctor wanting to know how they can help you. Answer with your head held high!
#22
Probably the most intimate details of my OCD. It makes me sound insane (I AM insane), so that doesn't really get shared with anyone else. Close friends and family know I have it... and it stays at that.
#23
I was about 17 or 18 when I was misdiagnosed with schizoaffective, she put me on a cocktail of meds, about 20 in a year (not at the same time) and it completely fried my brain.
When covid happened, we were doing monthly phone calls and I somehow expressed that I think of her as a friend, and went into detail as to why. She quickly shut that down, telling me that she was not my friend and I had to differentiate that because she was helping me mentally doesn’t mean she was my friend.
Well, now I’m 26. I’ve always thought I was misdiagnosed but nobody believed me. Two months ago I talked to my new psychiatrist and told him I want to stop taking meds. He was hesitant but allowed it. Next few weeks were absolute hell, dry heaving, throwing up, no appetite (didn’t eat for a week straight) but still went to work (construction, material handler).
I stopped taking meds officially the night of November 5 of this year. My psychiatrist appointment was Tuesday of last week. He discharged me because he saw I was getting so much better.
#24
It was earlier this year actually. I told my GP that if it wasnt for my son, then I would 100% [take my own life]. She was amazing and kind and supportive. I'm out of that blackest of black holes. It was horrific.
#25
I think I declared my love for the hot anaesthetist while high from a fertility treatment... possibly in front of my husband:(.
Nichole Harris 2 hours ago
Hilarious!!! My hubby made a similar faux pas after surgery!!! He thought a similarly built nurse was me.... He was very confused when I walked in 🤣
#26
I mean, having to explain to the doctor about my work-related injury falling off of scaffolding and landing... awkwardly. I literally thought I exploded a ball.
#27
It was like less than two weeks ago when I was meeting with a surgeon about carpal tunnel surgery (happened this past Friday actually) and he said I couldn't use power tools, vacuums, basically anything that would cause vibrations and I was like "ok well I'm gonna be a huge [witch] at the end of 6 weeks of that..."and he looked at me in confusion for about 10 seconds then just started cackling but like... I was very serious! 😂
#28
The only person that I've ever told about my decades-long fantasy world was not a doctor, but a psychologist.
I think we were exploring my autistic traits. She was convinced that I was autistic after the first session so I just leant into it, showing her all my obsessive note-keeping books, discussing alexithymia, rituals etc.
I still don't know if she believed the depth and bizarre nature of my fantasy world. It's to do with being a giant sentient starship and imagining the world as a galaxy with precise distance / time conversion. She probably thought I was trying to ingratiate myself with her for being such a clever psychologist.
Savannah greenleaf 9 hours ago
Now I am intrigued and want to know more about this made up fantasy world.
#29
That I haven't got it up in 3 years.
#30
That I used to eat nail polish 😬 i was concerned it caused some type of damage so i needed some reassurance.
UnclePanda 1 hour ago
My parents used some sort of spicy pepper nail polish on 4-year old me to get me to stop biting my fingernails. I learned to like it.
#31
Sometimes I get so deeply sad for no apparent reason, that I stop feeling altogether and am just numb. There's a physical pain in my chest, but no emotion per se. I call it the black hole, because the longer it goes, the worse it gets, eating up everything in my life. Once it ate up so much of me, that I tried to end my life.
After I told him he gave me pills, they made me sick for a few weeks, but then I felt good. Like me. Like the me trapped in the black hole. The sick feelings went away to eventually.
#32
The holes burning into my legs were caused by nitric acid which had been on a table inside a window, which had collapsed, dousing me in acid, when I climbed through the window to get back into what had been my room.
This kind GP told off his receptionist, who'd been telling me the doctor was busy and to go away, washed my legs and lathered them with some ointment that counteracted the acid, bandaged me up and sent me off without asking for payment.
This was a horrible time in my life, and I'll never forget his kindness.
#33
My ocd compulsions, in order to get diagnosed. otherwise, those thoughts will never ever be uttered aloud to another human.
#34
That it would probably be better if my boyfriend [passed away] from the cancer he had because I would never get away otherwise.
#35
One time I had an allergic reaction on my face to Lysol (I'd used it on the handset of my phone at work) and went to the urgent care. They wanted to do steroids but I said I wasn't sure because I didn't want to get herpes. The doc talked me through it and gave me vicyclovir (sp? the antiviral).
I get the meds filled at the pharmacy and realize what the antiviral is for. I don't have herpes, the word I was looking for was *thrush*. I'd gotten *thrush* after being put on oral and inhaled steroids for my asthma. My cat, however, had herpes (the eye kind). I gave the doctor my cat's medical info because I'm a dingus 🤦♀️.
#36
Probably that I trust nobody.
#37
So this isn't my story, it's my former (both retired) coworker's one. I must give a little back story.
We were both RN in obstetrics in an isolated area, where the Ob/Gyn docs are not only our peers, we are friends. They are also our personal doctors because traveling hours to see another Ob/Gyn isn't feasible while working full-time.
Now to the story. Coworker found a new love interest who apparently was quite endowed. After a night of imbibing and some interesting positions, my coworker ended up having traumatic pnuemoperitoneum, or a tear in her uterus and air entered her abdomen. She was driven to the ER by her boyfriend, her Gyn was called in and she of course had to tell him the how's of this injury, then she was whisked off to the OR for repair of the small uterine tear and ended up in my care for her overnight stay.
My coworker is normally quite a happy camper and thankfully the embarrassment of her injury didn't bother her. However no one on staff in our unit made mention of it, unless she brought it up. Which she did, because she and the guy got married and she was worried this might happen again. As far as I know it didn't happen again and I do know they are still blissfully married.
Savannah greenleaf 9 hours ago
I don't know if I would have continued that relationship. The fear of a repeat would be too much.
#39
When I had pica due to anemia, and confessed I was eating strange things for the texture - baby powder, then baking soda, then finally cornstarch of all things. I remember feeling so embarrassed & humiliated; the doctor & my whole family was treating me like a was a weird experiment, giving me small amounts of starch daily to try to wean me off.
#40
Best doctors I've had are former military because I am as well and, this story comes from that. ARNP says "blood pressure is x/y" and I state, "that's high"
"...... no, that's a normal blood pressure"
"Well not for me, I'm used to x/y" so that's high for me"
*looks through charts, "huh that is high for you, but why is it?"
"Oh I was bulking, so I've been eating (the worst food imaginable for your heart 2x a day)"
"OK. Well, stop doing that you idiot"
She's the best.
#41
I 100% know I have pinworms because my wife saw them. The doctor was trying to convince me that the itching I felt was from a food allergy.
#42
Im asexual and very open about it. I am in the middle of autism testing and something they ask you about is hypersexuality and whether or not youve acted on it in inappropriate situations.
Its so embarassing to say yes (to hypersexuality) and then have to explain that no, you dont act on it, because youre ace and repulsed, but not because you understand social boundaries.
#43
I talk to myself. I told my therapist and it really lifted a weight. 🤷🏼♂️
I’ll share most anything with anyone but that? Ugh.
#45
I gave myself razor burns on my [chest] because I was trying to shave off all the stray random hairs before my appointment. The doctor was like ??? and I had to tell her embarrassingly. I have fair skin, so it was very noticeable.🤦♀️.
#46
When I was in my early 20s I was having yeast infection symptoms. I went to see my gynecologist who took one peek down under and told me I left a sponge up there. OMG the horror and embarrassment.
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 9 hours ago
I'm sorry, a sponge? Is that slang for tampon elsewhere in the world?
#47
I know it's not strange, but I really hated having the E.D. discussion with my doc.
#48
Fear of an electric tooth brush and how to fix it.
(Hyperemesis Gravidarum can destroy your mind, Body, and soul guys).
#51
#ITS LIKE I'M WIPING A MARKER.
#52
My wife told an er doctor that she once used a toy on me….
#54
That i see static all the time and i am guaranteed to have a vivid, highly detailed nightmare i can’t forget if i have a headache before i go to bed (plus other stuff).
#55
I tested because of fear of transmission not just male (male suspected) partners.
#56
My BF might be gay (not my Son's Dad who secretly was) and I need blood tests. All negative.
#57
I told my doctor I took my wife’s anxiety meds and liked them so would like some and she gave me a script. I’ve admitted buying meds online and stuff.
She knows I don’t play around and do so much research on stuff that she trusts I am not just being some idiot wanting stuff done a commercial and at least I’m telling her instead of lying. She can always ask me some questions and I’ll be fine explaining why I ask. By now she pretty much just trusts me to do alot of my own doctoring. She’s an awesome doctor.
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