Doctors Share The Craziest Patient Self-Diagnosis' (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

doctors of Reddit what is your worst case of I googled my symptoms serious answer I try to ask my patients if they have googled their symptoms it gives me a lot of information about what they are worried about I then try to stay humble about their findings and try to not be a jerk about that Trust is not built by telling people they are stupid however it is hard to keep a straight face when a 50 year old male walks in and says I think I have caught the Down syndrome or when a young women thought she had testicular cancer thank you for not being a dck about it almost everything that's been found out about my condition has been because of Google I would have actually died if not for Google BC my stomach was completely blocked off and they wanted to send me to an eating disorder program I had a great school kid tell me he had a brain tumor turns out he putted fried bean in his ear and forgot about it this is the best thing I've read on this thread so far actually I'm a doctor but this story is from medical school I had a patient who correctly diagnosed herself with mastitis although she was very worried that she had inflammatory carcinoma of the breasts to be fair they can look similar another time I had a patient correctly diagnose a lump in her breast as a fibroadenoma I was very impressed not a doctor but when my film se said he was having chest pains and when he breathes it crackled I googled and all of the symptoms lead to serious illnesses such a collapsed lung thought nothing of it diagnosed did ourselves as analogy and didn't go to a doctor till later in the day it was in fact a fully deflated collapsed lung crackles are always very bad Billy my boyfriend has had a crackle on his chest for almost a year he also suddenly developed wheezing when he's lying down the doctor ordered an x-ray but due to certain circumstances he never went to get it I was listening to this crackle last night on his chest and told him he should get that x-ray should he be worried um he should definitely get that x-ray not a doctor that worked at a hospital for a while one of our doctors came back to the nurse's station laughing because someone was fully convinced they were diabetic because they were craving water and webb said that makes them diabetic turns out they are just human and required to live people are funny just last week a lady came in with shoulder pain after examining her and comforting her she told me that she was afraid it was cancer since she had been Goodling shoulder pain man WTF [ __ ] or paramedic student here last week we had a call for an imminent delivery PT started having abdominal pain that would last a little bit and stop and about two three minutes later would start again she googled her symptoms and everything she found was saying she was in labor she called her husband and he told her to call 911 we walked in as the baby he was crowning she had no idea she was pregnant how do you not know your pregnant friend I used to worked with had some lower back pain went to doctors and was six months pregnant had been having periods negative pregnancy tests the works no visible bump at all they repositioned baby slightly because she was a bit twisted and boom there's a bump baby's a wild not a doctor but in 2013 I was feeling awful shaking puking dry heaving shaking excruciating and debilitating pain went to the ER had blood work done that I never knew what it said if the doctor told me it was a gallbladder attack gave me pain meds and sent me home three days later I was even worse couldn't eat couldn't sleep the only relief I felt was when I was in scolding hot bath I finally went back to the ER and they did more bloodwork and told me my gallbladder was septic and my pancreatic enzymes were 6,500 and rising they should have only been 100 - 150 and I was dying I was admitted and when they did my gallbladder removal my gallbladder was solid blackened had 80 stones in turtle-like substance from sepsis come to find out the first time I went to the ER my enzymes of a 2000 I should never have been allowed to leave the hospital I went to a doctor one time and he googled my question in front of me being a software developer I don't find this shocking it still takes some skill to Google exactly the right thing judge the results reliability and interpret them right as a librarian do occasionally Google things in front of my patrons students they are surprised it works for me well it's because I know what I am looking for and how to construct the search still a database that still matters not a doctor but my friend once said a guy came with a backache and wanted to get operated cuz he thought he had kidney failure I can't decide if I actually want to know how he got from point A to point B try googling your symptoms sometime ever since we studied multiple sclerosis and neuro I'm convinced I have it despite my only symptom being pierced Isis funny feels in my legs at night if your legs just feel weird word last night and you have literally no other symptom it's more and likely just restless leg syndrome it can feel like an ankle pins and needles and makes you feel like you need to move but moving doesn't actually help usually happens it's night or early in the morning it's pretty common I have woken up in the middle of the night feeling sharp stabbing pains in my knee it went on for a long time and if I tried to move my leg it would feel like I was lifting 100 pounds and it caused even more pain like the type that makes you scream it only happened a few times and I never figured out what that could be I'm not a doctor but I'm a medical assistant and I room patients for the doctor this is in the occupational health field and we had a young gentleman come in who was pretty sure he had a groin hernia according to his google search he said he'd been lifting produce crates and experienced sharp overwhelming pain and his groin the doctor came back out after seeing him and was clearly fighting laughter by the time he got to the desk turns out the kid had chlamydia which had caused things to become swollen and just happened to get symptomatic while he was at work one day a few weeks ago I was lifting something heavy and felt a stabbing ish sort of pain near my bladder area I thought for a bit there that I maybe had a hernia like Joey and friends it seemed to be around the same area so I tenderly prodded around there but he felt okay but kept happening when I was trying to pick up other stuff it wasn't until like half an hour later that I figured out what it was I had undone my belt earlier after a restroom visit and haven't bothered to buckle it back since I was at home and nobody was around to see and it was stabbing me when I bent over to pick up my things this confuses the Frick out of me when I go to a doctor they specifically ask if I've done research about whatever like they expect it awkward position cause if I have researched I feel like an idiot using dr. Google and having medical student syndrome if I haven't researched I get the distinct impression nice disappointed the doc med student here there is a spectrum of acceptable giggling it is helpful if a patient has some sort of idea what might be aiming them they know their body best and often it gets the gears churning for the physician for possible differential diagnosis however if said patient comes in knowing they have a rare disease because of common symptom X and disputes everything the doc says despite negative tests that's when sh t gets annoying not a doctor but I had a co-worker come into the office with this one he was having nausea fatigue frequent urination and decided to WebMD vashti chatting in the office one day and he says something like hey I've been feeling like sh t lately and it sounds like gestational diabetes but I can't find any cases of men getting it I just slowly lowered my head into my hand and asked him do you even know what gestational means he did not a couple of years ago my mum was 65 ish she had blood tests done got a call she needed to go see the DRS and when her dr checked why she needed to come she was quite amused mum apparently a gestational diabetes it would appear no one checked her age when they did the tests she did not have gestational diabetes not a doctor nor was my brother despite him thinking his Google foo is a degree but a couple years ago my brother decided that since I had been laid off and needed to borrow some money from him to tide me over that it meant that I was utterly depressed and suicidal thus he deduced that I needed to be institutionalized and took me to a doctor he Lightman said he wanted me to just get a normal checkup since I hadn't had one in a while I was I believe Whitely P said off and embarrassed but since I needed the money I went along with it so he decides to just come into the psychiatrist's office with me while she is trying to ask me some questions and see how I am he starts throwing out terms like maladaptive coping and how I am suicidal and needed treatment she finally tells him to leave and I speak with her for a bit how I was a bit morose because I had lost my job and was embarrassed about asking for help but I wasn't suicidal and the psychiatrist agreed stating that I just needed support and not Google for quackery I hadn't turned to drugs stealing or any other illegal destruction activities to deal with my depression just that I was a bit withdrawn and down because of my recent low TLDR laid-off needed some financial help brother googled big sounding words and tried to act like a doctor to an actual doctor no longer interact with that clown into my mental health is quite improved because of it not a doctor but throughout my childhood and teen years I had these weird episodes where I would suddenly have really bad date a villain gets very nauseous for the next few hours afterward I would feel like I was in a fog and my memory would be sh t eventually I googled my symptoms and learned they might be minor epileptic seizures I went to a doctor and he laughed it often told me it was probably just having panic attacks related to the normal emotions of being a teenager I was so sure he was wrong that I opted to go gettin eek turns out I have a mild form of epilepsy and Google was totally right not a doctor but the brother of the patient and worst being on the money my older sister diagnosed herself as having symptoms of systemic heart failure her new primary doctor agreed and gave her some basic guidelines of what to do and had her visit her cardiologist the cardiologist pupule her saying there was probably nothing to worry about and scheduled a test in a few days just to be on the safe side one of the things her primary had her looking out for was sudden weight gain and when she woke up two days later suddenly six pounds heavier we went straight to the emergency room who ran tests including an echocardiogram her injection fraction was 12 and they immediately sent her to the biggest Hospital in the area where they ended up saving her life from congestive heart failure he had had at least two silent heart attacks due to the amount of damage they found TLDR I still have my sister because she self diagnosed correctly not a doctor but once back in fourth grade during winter break I had some sort of illness that made me throw up sleepy all the time and a few other symptoms I can't remember so I was at my mom's computer and I decided to google my symptoms since my mom wasn't there turns out I had mono or also referred to as the kissing disease so after that I was crying to my mom hacking my guts out while my mom tried to calm me down and to this day legend has it I still don't know what I had and I have never had it again at the hospital in my town there was the kid who came in saying he had knee pains the doctor said it was from playing basketball and five months later at a different Hospital they found that he had knee cancer and it was too late to treat him he died a few weeks later really sad story I had a friend who's 11 year old kid presented with similar pains in her knees and thighs the doctor told my friend she was probably over exerting herself at basketball it was rhabdomyosarcoma she died a year later not a doctor close bracket I had an insect bite basically next to my nipple it was itching like crazy and my usual bite cream said not to be used on nipples so I decided to Google what else I could do to relieve it found out that apparently no one else has ever had an insect bite on their nipple but that what looks like an insect bite on all right next to your nipple is almost certainly inflammatory breast cancer phoned up my GP we used to be neighbors so I kind of knew him and was in a right state because I thought I had this incredibly aggressive form of breast cancer he listened to me for minutes asked a couple of questions and then said it's an insect bite come back to me if it's still there in three weeks oh and try deodorant on it but he odorant calmed it right down and it had gone by about five days afterwards took my 92 year old grandma to er because it was Saturday tailed them I suspected UT doc didn't listen finally she had to go potty and they brought a potty chair in after she was through the nurse went to empty it she took one look at how her urine looked and went out and almost made the doc right order for tests of course it came back as UT can be difficult to diagnose a dementia patient because they lose ability to tell doc what's going on they also become afraid of doctors because they think they will put them in a nursing home or such my brother is both the doctor and the patients in my story around two months ago he had started to feel really tired and ill like really all he had said to his partner that he felt like he had leukemia which was of course just kind of shrugged off because why how would he have leukemia but he had been suffering with a throat infection for a few weeks and was given antibiotics by a GP at his practice after a week or so it hadn't helped and he was tired and slightly breathless whilst walking the dog one Sunday afternoon the next morning he registered himself as a patient and took his own Bloods after being prompted by his receptionist parents doctor friend and sent them for testing unfortunately he had been completely correct and when his results returned he saw that he did have leukemia acute myeloid leukemia to be precise he saw the results and knew immediately as he went to confirm them with the GP next door the specialist hospital had already called and asked for the patients to be brought into hospital immediately unfortunately his hemoglobin levels and general cell count was so low and he was in a really bad way many transfusions and one round of chemotherapy done and he is determined to be this horrible disease there's a long long way to go but he won't give up and neither will we I love that guy so much and wish I could trade places with him there's potential that I may be used as his bone-marrow donor I hope I can be because anything I can do to help I want to do it's not too likely to be me but I feel so helpless right now so it would be good to help I guess anyways no googled but turns out these doctor guys are pretty damn good at their jobs even when it's certainly not their specialism had the opposite experience with my general doctor he was sure I just had social anxiety finally went to a psychiatrist at age 28 diagnosed autism still I felt like it probably was only social anxiety after years of my doctor denying it went to another psychiatrist autism again turns out my general doctor thought autism means can't understand metaphors and symbolism and Sheldon Cooper likeness obligatory not a doctor but the patient went to the doc several times as a team complaining of being extremely lethargic I slept like 13 hours a day extremely pale cold all the damn time etc all classic signs of anemia from what I had looked up but the doctor said I was overreacting and just being a teenager and refused to even sherek well guess who ends up back at the doctors like a year later after an emergency blood tests showed my hemoglobin was at like 6 - just being a teenager my ass Midwife here or at least I will be in two months when I graduate Google has its place it helps people me more informed if you take what you read with a grain of salt and listen to your health care provider had a young lady last week who thought she might have preeclampsia because she'd googled it and based on her symptoms she was absolutely right to come in we were surprised when the tests came back negative but she was also very anxious about getting it so I was clear to her that she shouldn't go home and google it more because it would just make her anxious I also always try to give people appropriate websites to go to so at least that can Google something evidence-based obligatory not a doctor it was the patient I googled my symptoms of hearing loss tinnitus vertigo I focus issues and headaches I was fairly convinced I had an acoustic neuroma a rare benign that if not treated potentially life-threatening tumor on the eighth cranial nerve the end was convinced it was sinus related but sent me for an MRI on the very slight chance there was something else going on at this point I mentioned that I had read about the aforementioned tumor and she looked to be stifling in I role it's always a brain tumor when we google our symptoms right the morning after Maya Maya I received a call from the nth and she sounded shook not only did I have the tumor it was as big as a golf ball and pushing against my brainstem I'm not a doctor but I went to a doctor because I was certain I had delayed sleep phase disorder he told me I couldn't have a sleeping disorder without being depressed and made me take a depression test it said I wasn't depressed so he said obviously I don't have a sleeping disorder I went to a sleep specialist a few months later and they diagnosed me with delayed sleep phase disorder and helped me get it under control the healthcare system where I live is broken someone I know didn't have a doctor had been looking for one for seven years and started having worrisome symptoms the ER and Clinics wouldn't order tests because follow-up appointments would be needed and they didn't do that she finally went to an ER and stood her ground saying she wasn't leaving until they did tests Google suggested he had a brain tumor or a hyperactive thyroid they reluctantly did the tests and she had to fight for the follow-up turns out it was a thyroid disorder for which she was in bad need of treatment without Google she didn't have much ammunition for the fight long story short I used to be in a relationship with a highly anxious hypochondriac there were many spells of OMG I'm dying that were laughable things would calm down life was good one time for a handful of symptoms headache neck ache general sick feeling she mentioned I think I have meningitis normally it was just the process of calming her down et Cie etcetera this time I thought I'm al giggle that off things weren't I bought into it one long embarrassing pool with a CDC later there was nothing wrong I figured they would know for sure beats me what I was thinking another expensive as hell trip to the doctor confirmed that nothing was wrong that was embarrassing as hell and about $200 in a wasted trip to Urgent Care I'd say about three strokes four times a year I get two new young male that has googled their symptoms and determined they need a smear test yes you read that right a few men look for advice for their symptoms online and will end up on mums note or the like and see women saying get a smear test without them actually knowing what it is I always have to leave the room to excuse myself whilst I have a laugh I'm Way too late to the game but mine is funny not a doc it was in a car accident a few years back and while chatting with a paramedic still in my rolled over car I told her that I had sharp pain in my right thigh and couldn't move my right arm or right leg assumed I had broken my femur and dislocated my right shoulder she agreed wasn't until they got me into a CT scan that they realized eyeglass had taken a chunk of my right leg out and I had broken my neck in two places and I really had damaged the nerves on the right side of my body oops a friend of mine when I was younger had been having chronic migraines the doctors brushed it off telling her to take some pain meds and you'll be fine keep in mind she was only in middle school in the middle of class one day he collapsed aneurism ambulance rushed her to the hospital turns out she had a brain tumor the size of a beach had chemo radiation the works finally able to have it removed so they cut a large part of her skull out to remove the tumor and had to wear a cast helmet for months six years later she's fine now my stepfather was working in the garden one day and came inside complaining of feeling hot tired nauseous and his legs hurt we didn't Google his symptoms but assumed he'd had too much Sun he went to bed and woke up several times and his symptoms were no better my mom called an ambulance when he woke up at 1 a.m. vomiting uncontrollably he was dead less than five hours later from septicemia I think my dr thinks i'm a bit of a drama queen for griddling symptom and coming in to get stuff check now but I'd rather err on the side of caution what you described definitely sounded like heat exhaustion at first and as soon as you knew it wasn't you took action I'm sorry it wasn't soon enough but I hope you don't blame yourself it's scary how quickly some potentially fatal conditions can progress from just feel a bit bad so I don't blame you for taking warning signs seriously and neither should any decent doctor not the doctor but the patient had awful burning pain in my side for two weeks before I googled burnt itched made me cry couldn't sleep came back as shingles I was certain it couldn't be that because I didn't have a rash and I was 20 at the time went to the doctor two weeks after that I'm on a monthly routine and she looked prodded question then informed me it was in fact a form of shingles without a rash and why was I not concerned sooner this was an especially atypical bout as it lasted nearly another month because mine was stress induced and was not going away until I relaxed I never even mentioned looking it up not a doctor but this happened with my mom a few years ago my mom was getting violently sick after eating sometimes one time in the middle of the night it was really bad and my dad decided to look up her symptoms on WebMD he concluded that she just had the flu and they waited her sickness out I was really drowsy so I don't know exactly how it went down my mom goes to the hospital the next morning and it turned out she had something wrong with her gallbladder and she could have actually died she got it removed don't worry , so thanks for that dad [Music]

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Id: vnMmtxg4ams

Length: 26min 11sec (1571 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020