Doctors can only assist a patient to the extent that the person accepts the help. That acceptance is by no means automatic.
Often, a doctor's work is hindered by a patient's own closely held theory, which is unprofessional, not proven, and comes from God knows where.
Reddit's doctors have no shortage of horror stories in this regard. They shared the most concerning examples of a time when the patient waited way too long to seek medical attention, or disregarded it completely when they finally did.
It's a thread that throws serious doubt over home remedies and, more importantly, shows the perils of that self-deception which a health crisis can often provoke.
cinnamon_woods asked, "Doctors of Reddit, what's the worst case of patient ignorance you've come across?"
ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE NOT PROVEN TO CURE CANCER
"Doc here. I had a patient come in with tumors in many parts of his body. I'm not an oncologist - he came to me for an unrelated issue. But his shirt was bloody in several areas where the tumors had ulcerated through the skin."
"Judging by his chart, all his other docs had tried to get him to get biopsies done and see a specialist and he always adamantly declined."
"His reasoning was that he believed an electrical device was the cure for his cancer and that the entire medical community was completely wrong."
"He had a manual for this electrical device with color coded tabs and he practically had the thing memorized and was trying to convince me that it says xyz here, which indicated it may be able to help with his condition."
"I tried, like all those before me, and failed."
-- olunarorbit
Cleaning a Wound IS Something You Can Do at Home
"Corpsman here . Had a Marine come in to clinic on Monday for abrasions to the hands on Friday. His hands were dirty AF which begged me to ask if he had washed his hands since at all to clean the wound."
"MARINE: I thought that was your job."
"The wound was gross and starting healing over the dirt and grime. Ended up debriding the wound which is very painful and basically tears the old dirty skin away to clean the wound."
-- wizard4life
The Profound Capacity for Self-Delusion
"I worked for an optometrist and a patient came in for a routine eye exam. When she checked in, the left half of her cheek/eye was covered under a loose band-aid. Under the band-aid, her face was completely eaten by cancer."
"I could see the flesh hanging from her cheek bone it was so deep. I looked at her chart shortly after and this had been going on for years with the doctor's note, 'Still waiting for God to heal cancer.' "
"The oddest part of it all was she would only try on designer frames from the optical and insisted she wanted high end frames. Lady, no one is going to be looking at those frames."
-- SucculentOwl
Gonna Need More Than Lotion
"Not a doctor, but a paramedic. Had a lady call 911 for foot pain. Got there, this lady had advanced gangrene to both feet to the point that they were turning black and had that unmistakable smell of gangrene."
"She told me that she had some cuts on her feet and had been applying lotion (like jurgens type lotion, not antibacterial stuff) to her feet and then had been putting slippers on them.
"She was honestly shocked when I told her that she could lose her feet and possibly her life. The smell was so strong that I could smell it when I entered the house."
Clinging to Hope
"I had a sad one happen to me. I saw a patient with very advanced colon cancer, who was convinced that she was misdiagnosed. She had gone to multiple doctors who told her she had cancer, using blood test results, imaging, and biopsies to back them up, but she was sure that we were all missing something."
"She had brought in a copy of her official pathology report with the results of her biopsy. She was so excited, 'look doctor, they told me it was cancer, but I've been through this report over and over, and it doesn't say cancer anywhere!' "
"The whole report had 'carcinoma' plastered throughout it (medical lingo for malignant cancer)."
Tough to Square That Circle
"Just yesterday I got a call for chest pains. Show up on scene and the dude meets us at the ambulance. Hops in and we start assessing him and his chest tightness."
" 'Sir do you have an past cardiac history?' "
" 'No I don't think so.' "
"I lift up shirt so we can do a 12 lead and see a scar from a CABG--'Sir are you sure you don't have any cardiac history? What's this scar from?' "
" 'Oh I'm not sure my wife might know though.' "
A Politically Charged Ignorance
"Anything anti vaccine. Real talk, parents who don't get their kids vaccinated should be charged for murder should their kids fall victim to the disease."
"Yes, you can refuse the vaccine, but children should have the right to common vaccines, Hep A and B, Polio, tetanus, etc. Nothing crazy fancy, but a select few vaccines which we know will keep them somewhat safe."
'If their kid gets the disease and is treated, parents are fined or serve community service, and the children are educated and allowed to make their own vaccination choice."
-- PLEASEHIREZ
Here's to That Losing Popularity
"Pediatrician here. Once working in the ER I was brought a septic 6 days old newborn. He had a weird stinky thing over his umbilical cord."
"The mother said it was a popular remedy to make the umbilical cord fall faster. It was made from horse manure, spider webs and some plant."
"I lost that baby."
-- Wicz69
Even Drinking Water Can Be an Impasse
"Pregnancy woman is admitted for severe dehydration. My mom is her nurse and apparently their first interaction was something like..."
"Mom: the Dr. said you're very dehydrated and we need you to drink at least x amount of water before you leave."
"Patient: I don't drink water."
"Mom: your baby is becoming stressed and you should try to drink as much as you can for your baby."
"Patient: I hate water. I only drink soda."
"Rest of the day she basically refused to drink any water no matter what anyone else said to her."
-- aislyng99
A Wild Pain Tolerance
"Saw a guy came in with a R hemisphere stroke. Completely paralyzed on his left side. Symptoms started 2 days ago."
"I asked him why he waited so long. He said he thought he slept on it funny so wanted to wait a day. Unfortunate too. He had a big clot in his r mca artery."
"Probably could've fixed it if he had shown up earlier."
-- Goseki
Healthiest Meal of the Day
"Not a doctor but when I was at university my Chinese teacher who was about 60 at the time said she is retiring early because she got diabetes and also said she was shocked to learn that eating 5 eggs at breakfast is unhealthy."
Wildly Obedient
"I'm not a doctor but somebody who is a doctor told me that one time a guy was sick, so they told him to drink lots of fluids, but the guy really went to town and drank gallons a day. He didn't die, but it apparently wasn't great."
A Couple Lessons to Live By
"Hmm.."
- "sex causes babies, yes anal counts. (Horrible one due to religious lack of sex ed, and a low enough IQ that consent to sex was a very grey area)"
- "If one of your balls is the size of a large grapefruit, please go to hospital. This had been going on for a year."
Don't Go Willy Nilly with the Herbs, People
"(Third world country here) Once a child was brought to the ER because of sleepyness, and vague response. The mother gave the kid in a normal basis herb tees. It was hard to determine the cause, but people really don´t think that herbs could cause harm."
"Herbs are a very important cause of liver failure... And in kids its way more toxic/potent. Watch what you drink/eat. Everything is a potential poison, even oxygen and water!"
-- Wazabie
Gotta Cut Corners Somewhere
"Years ago we had a patient come into the ER for a broken arm, she was treated and received a full arm cast. She was given a date to come back to remove the cast. The week she was due back she came by ambulance for a partially amputated arm..."
"...her boyfriend had decided that since they didn't have insurance he would take off her cast with some kind of electric saw, he almost took off her whole arm."
-- MiMisViews
Doctor's Orders
"Not a doctor, but I went out to eat with my friend who had just seen a nutritionist for her diabetes. She told me the nutritionist told her to eat more vegetables, so my friend ordered fried pickles."
"No, I did not try to set her straight because I knew it would lead to a fight."
-- chenliiin
Missing the Point
"A patient newly diagnosed as a diabetic was instructed how to use insulin by nursing staff before being discharged to home. The nurse showed them their insulin vials and injector, using an orange as a pin cushion so to speak, in order to demonstrate how to inject the insulin."
"The patient returned to the emergency department several days later, very sick, with diabetic keto acidosis, a life-threatening complication of poorly controlled blood sugar."
"They told the emergency staff that they don't understand why they got sick because they've been injecting and eating oranges every day just like they were shown."
-- Mohrisbetr
Attention All Males--Be Nipple Mindful
"First patient I saw as a medical student presented to the ER because, as he put it, 'my nipple fell off.' Very nonchalant."
"Turns out he'd been watching his left breast get bigger over a period of months until the underlying tumor finally eroded through the skin causing said nipple to 'fall off.' "
"Male breast cancer is more common than most people realize."
-- SloTriMan
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
Unlike introverts who tend to shy away from engaging in random discussions, those who are comfortable–or too comfortable–in their own skin love to get all chatty.
That doesn't mean they have anything significant to say.
"What’s the weirdest thing someone casually told you as if it were totally normal?"
People whom you don't know tend to overshare as these Redditors experienced.
A High Request
"A story from a friend - in Colorado, someone once asked, 'Could you watch my wolves, I can pay you in weed.'"
"There's a lot to unpack in that question!"
– surlymoe
"You don't unpack wolves, you keep them together."
– hwarang_
Unsolicited Prediction
"Husband (30) and I were pushing our shopping cart out of the grocery store when a random man (who honestly looked like dumbledore) looked at my husband and said 'take my hat, you're gonna need it, you'll be bald very soon.' Obviously my husband didn't take it. It was super odd of him to say because my husband had a FULL head of hair."
"Three months later, my husband was diagnosed with a condition that made him lose all of his hair. Weird coincidence."
– hollyjollyaf
Self-Casting
"A guy once told me how he loved the feeling of wearing casts, so he'd put casts on himself- for days or weeks on end. Even if it meant he couldn't drive and would be stuck at home the entire time. He'd use vacation time just to wear full leg & arm casts."
– Present_Dust_2308
Homophobic Homosexual
A homophobic guy I know: 'Being gay is a choice.'"
"I said something like - ok, choose to be gay for a day, an hour, a single minute if you can."
"Guy - That's easy, I'm attracted to men all the time, I just choose to only like girls because I'm not gay."
"Me - Ummm..."
– discostud1515
Longheld Grudge
"Once, an older woman came up to me on the street, took hold of my wrists and simply said 'they ripped out my afterbirth', and then carried on walking."
– JennyW93
"It's strange to grab strangers. But one day in Walmart, my granny walked ahead of me, and reached to grab me to show me something, without looking and she was pulling on an old lady's arm obliviously, and the old lady's eyes were like O.O."
"My grandma didn't even apologize, she just let go and yelled at me to stay closer."
– chzygorditacrnch
A Hairdresser-In-Training
"I was getting my hair done this last weekend by my daughter at her cosmetology school. One of her fellow students was excited to meet me. She talked nonstop and eventually told me that she has hemorrhoids and that she has her husband push them back in. So much TMI from a stranger!"
– Digjam823
You never know about the personal lives of people you see on a regular basis.
Squeaky Clean
"I had a college professor on the first day of class say that she is obsessed with Q-tips and cleaning her ears and that her family has to limit her to 3 a day-"
– lokeilou
Here's The Story...
"That they have 6 kids, all with different dads & each dad is in prison."
– ChyCgx2
"I once had a coworker who had seven kids with five different women and he'd constantly complain about how most of his paycheck went to child support. You uh, dug your own grave, pal. I'm really not sympathetic to your plight."
– apocalypticradish
It's the end of the world as we know it.
End Of Civilization
"I know a guy, we don't talk often but due to business we cross paths on occasion. More or less every time we talk he asks if I'm ready for the total societal collapse coming next week, or Tuesday, or at the end of the month.. and so on."
"I just tell him that it's not gonna happen; he usually then asks about my "crystal ball" so I remind him that I've been right every time."
– rkpjr
Zombie Apocalypse
"I went to a ComicCon type event in my city years ago(Walking Dead was a new show, first season for reference) and went to a panel about zombies. They talked about historical zombie lore, the first zombie movies, and the exciting first season of the new show Walking Dead, with some actors on the panel. When they opened it up to the audience for questions one of the first ones was, 'what kind of zombies do you predict we’ll have in a real zombie apocalypse? (Fast vs slow)'…panelists don’t really know how to answer, each gives their personal favorite or worst case scenario. Then we get to, 'What do you think the timeline is for the start of a coming zombie apocalypse?' Panelists are kind of like….? Talk about how things usually play out fiction."
“'No, but exactly WHEN do you think we’ll need to be fully prepared for zombies in real life?' Like, guys, these are actors and media studies academics, first of all they don’t have the level of belief you do and second, the people you should be asking about this stuff are probably biologists."
– AlternativeAcademia
Whenever I feel threatened by a homeless person who is pressuring me to hand over them cash, I tell them, "I''m allergic to corn."
The random phrase throws them and in the brief moment they assess what they heard I'm afforded more time to distance myself from them.
It always works, especially when they realize I'm all kinds of crazy and not worth targeting.
I have been left utterly bewildered by what some people believe is acceptable thought, conversation, and behavior.
Like... "Do YOU hear you?"
It shows when a person lacks life experience and/or brain cells.
Words expose everything.
And sometimes shock is all that is left to grapple with.
Redditor nlwfty wanted to hear about all the things people have overheard that left them utterly stunned, so they asked:
"What's the most out-of-touch thing you've heard someone say?"
I once a friend's friend moan about how she and her husband were nearly destitute.
Almost penniless.
All while she was straightening up the house for the new au pair they had just gotten from Columbia.
The Who?
Over It Maid GIFGiphy"My boss once told me to have 'the maid' drop my car at the shop. WTF!!"
amboomernotkaren
Be Happy
"'You won't be happier at work if we pay you more, but we need to figure out why workplace happiness is so low.' This coming from a guy that made 10x what I did and was born into old money."
Dirac_comb
"I had a job that was paying below market rates and 'expected' daily overtime (unpaid, natch) and was trying to figure out how to improve morale. They were considering bringing in consoles and having video game nights after work... as if we weren't stuck there too long already."
"I did have the fun of leaving, then being asked to come back as a contractor to help out, and taking advantage of being on a short-term contract and giving no f**ks to suggest that maybe they should consider at least TRACKING the overtime people were working, even if they weren't going to pay for it since there was probably a whole extra job's worth of hours in there and maybe hiring another person might improve morale and reduce the risk of the kind of errors tired people make."
"Didn't stay long as a temp. Apparently telling the truth and discussing facts with your co-workers isn't good for morale >_< They told everyone I was leaving because I got a better offer (!), but I told everyone exactly what was really happening when they asked XD."
princess_ferocious
It hasn't?
"My dad (who is now the Director of Accounting for the school district I teach for) was talking about how my starting pay was way more than his starting pay."
"I said, 'Well, yeah... The cost of living has increased a ton since then.' This motherf**ker straight up said, 'No it hasn't.'"
"He started working there in 1992. This conversation happened in like 2017 (about a year after I started working there). Again, he is the director of accounting."
pjsans
Move On
"'You seem sad.'"
"My mother to my sister, at her husband's funeral."
blarg-zilla
"My sister's son was murdered. Two weeks later my mom asked her if she was over it yet."
NeverCallMeFifi
"One of my sons was murdered 12 years ago. Many people started telling me that I needed to 'move on' after 4-6 weeks. My brother refuses to say my son's name, so I no longer speak to him. Sending my deepest condolences to your family from a mom who understands losing a child to homicide."
PDXer328
Good Idea!
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy“'I don’t know why people get big mortgages. Just save up for a few months and pay cash for a starter home!'"
Hopeful-Moose87
People with money always seem to have a plan, unless the plan is sharing.
FInd the Treasure
Dragons Den Television GIF by CBCGiphy"When people were complaining about not being able to afford housing/food/living in general, one of the Dutch ministers (I think he was a minister or at least the leader of a party) said something along the line of 'well, find a rich boyfriend then'. ah, yes, that will solve the crisis!"
pastelchannl
Dumbfounded
"I went to an Ivy League college with lots of children of extraordinarily wealthy families. When discussing inequality and its effects on housing, my professor briefly mentioned how mortgages are out of reach for a growing number of Americans. The girl next to me stopped the class, and with a confused face asked the professor why people don’t just buy their homes in cash outright because 'surely the interest means it will cost them more over time.' The professor was dumbfounded. I found out later that she is the heiress to a major luxury brand that you have all heard of."
wildblue2
The Increase
"My former landlord and his wife dropped by to tell me and my financially struggling 20-something roommates that they were raising the rent, by nearly 25%. They said, 'We noticed on Craigslist that neighbors had higher rent so we’re doing the same.' The wife then earnestly reminded us that we’ve been great tenants but maybe we just needed to find some higher-paying jobs. 🙃."
agingcatmom
Not Me
"I was waxing a woman’s eyebrows once and she was complaining that sometimes after she gets a massage the pillow leaves a circular indent on her face and she can’t go out to lunch after. She then asked me if that ever happened to me? I was like ma'am I wax people for eleven bucks an hour; I’m not going out to lunch lol, let alone getting massages."
lomi08
Investments
Money Invest GIF by ProBit GlobalGiphy"Something like: Give a rich person $500 and they will invest it into $1000. Give it to a poor person and they will spend it in a week."
"Yeah exactly give it to someone who’s needs are met and they can save… give it to someone who needs to eat/pay rent etc they will spend it to survive!"
ExaminationLucky6082
You need money to make money.
One of life's biggest lessons apparently.
So someone give me some money.