Determining what’s wrong when you’re experiencing aches and pains can be extremely overwhelming if you didn’t go to medical school. Your first impulse will probably be to Google your symptoms, but that’s a risky move. It might send you spiraling down a rabbit hole, and before you know it, you’ll be posting on Facebook that you’ve only got a few weeks left to live.
In this case, it’s best to take matters out of your own hands and consult a medical professional. And if you’re skeptical of what they have to say, you might want to get a second opinion. Redditors have been recalling situations where patients definitely should not have taken their first diagnosis as gospel, so we’ve gathered their most shocking stories below. Enjoy reading through this list, and be sure to upvote the replies that have convinced you to always consult a second doctor if your health is on the line!
#1
My uncle in law went to multiple doctors about leg pain and trouble walking. He’s a big guy and every doctor told him in more or less condescending ways that his issue was that he needed to lose weight. After a 5 years he finally got someone to MRI him and it turned out he had a (by then) grapefruit sized tumor in his leg. He unfortunately died about 6 months later because it metastasized.
Yeah, being over weight is unhealthy but seriously, darn all those doctors that wouldn’t believe he was in pain and just saw a fat person.
Image source: Mindless_Dust_9217, EyeEm
#2
Not me but my mom.
She was always exhausted, the type of exhaustion that she’d have a bath, be so tired from it, she’d sleep on the bath mat when she got out.
Went to her doctor told her, “oh, you’re just depressed, go get a hair cut!”
She did. Still exhausted. Went back to the doctor.
Continued to tell her she’s “just” depressed, get a hobby, it’s all in her head etc. Never sent her for blood work, never referred her to any specialist.
Months later she goes back. Her doctor is on vacation. Physician reliving her doctor takes one look at her eyes and says, “it’s your liver. Get these blood tests now”.
Abnormal blood work and a liver biopsy later, she was told she had autoimmune hepatitis and was 3 months from death.
After she improved with medications, she went back to the original doctor and said, “I didn’t need a haircut.”
27 years later she still suffers from lingering effects.
Image source: positivegal1, bearfotos
#3
I’m a lawyer, but…. had a client given a devastating diagnosis of an extremely rare heart condition. Doctor told him he had six weeks to live. He contacted me to make his will and set his affairs in order.
Thankfully, he sought a second opinion with an extremely well-known cardiologist (I guess the cardiologist was intrigued due to the rare nature of this heart condition).
THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM. HE WAS FINE. This poor guy, and his family, were tortured over this, so devastated and terrified, FOR NOTHING. He actually called me to tell me all of this, he seemed to be still in the joyous, “I’m not going to die” stage, but I imagine anger comes at some point, when you take stock of what you went through.
I don’t know how a doctor messes up that massively, or if somehow my client’s results were mixed up with someone else’s, and some poor person’s number is almost up and they don’t even know it.
Image source: Domdaisy, seventyfour
#4
Well when I first started feeling sick the October of one year at college I had:
– A non-productive cough.
– Night sweats and trouble sleeping.
and
– I had lost some weight.
The school nurse gave me Claritin.
All of those symptoms got worse, plus I was incredibly fatigued, my lymph nodes swelled up, and I had pretty bad back aches.
My GP took a chest X-ray and prescribed antibiotics for pneumonia. At this point I had almost failed out of school because I was only managing an hour or two of sleep per night.
It took until Spring break for me to go see a pulmonary specialist. He could instantly tell that it wasn’t pneumonia.
I had Stage 4b Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. My first PET scan showed cancerous cells in lymph nodes in all 4 quadrants of my body. At this point I had lost about a third of my body weight. The cough, weight loss, and back pain were my swollen lymph nodes pressing on my lungs, stomach, and my back.
They gave me my first round of chemo and I genuinely felt incredible. I felt like such s**t that an IV mixture of (carefully measured) toxins was an improvement. I went home and ate a whole pizza.
Chemo got shittier but it worked, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Image source: Bitch_Im_a_bus, Valeriia Miller
#5
I had the opposite; I’m a midwife and gave a second opinion. The first was received from the woman’s GP.
She came in to the ante natal clinic and said that she’d had a headache that she couldn’t seem to shake. She’d called her GP the day before who had told her to take two Panadol and have a bath and that she’d be fine.
Whenever any pregnant woman complains of a headache, especially one that won’t go away, it sends alarm bells ringing as it can be a symptom of pre-eclampsia. Sure enough, the woman also reported seeing blue spots, had a blood pressure of 220/180 and a a huge amount of protein in her urine.
I got her to lie on her side in the room I was seeing her in, and race to get a more senior midwife.
It wouldn’t have been more than 60secs that the two of us returned to the room, just in time to see her start having an eclamptic seizure.
We called a Code Pink (obstetric emergency), which then escalated to a Code Green (alerting theatre that we were coming down **NOW** for an emergency caesarean) and the woman gave birth under general anaesthetic 20mins later.
I still start sweating when I imagine what could have happened if she hadn’t come in to the clinic that day.
Image source: JaniePage, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#6
Not a doctor but my sister was suffering from headaches and minor seizures for a while, went to an urgent care and that told us she had an anxiety disorder and just needed something to calm her down. we got a second opinion at the ER and turns out she had stage four brain cancer. i miss her everyday.
Image source: mynameisslade, Getty Images
#7
So my local gp diagnosed me with a kidney infection and a urinal tract infection. Told me all my other symptoms like the huge 9cm lump in my armpit were all part of a cold I’d had.
Skip to 3 months later and I’m at a drop in center due to not being able to move without pain he looks at the lump and gives me that look of ” how the f**k has this not been diagnosed?” Anyway, it was late stage cancer by that point… I’m all good!
Image source: hopsinduo
#8
Not a doctor, but my mom went into a walk in clinic and told the doc she had really bad headaches all the time. She was a stay at home mom to me (10) and my sister (6) so it was written off as stress and got a prescription for pain pills.
Two weeks later the headaches were migraines. Stronger prescription and try to reduce stress.
A few weeks go by and she can no longer get out of bed, throws everything up including the meds, is completely disoriented and barely alive. My dad was a truck driver so he was never home. I was taking care of me, my sister, and my mom all by myself. We go back to the doctor and this lady had the audacity to say this is the weirdest migraine case she’s ever seen. Tells her to take warm baths and just keep taking the meds when she throws them up.
Two months go by and my dad came home, saw the condition of my mother (who was so sick she would urinate herself), the house (which was being kept up by a 10 year old), and said he wanted a divorce.
That night we found out she had stage 4 lung and brain cancer with a tumor the size of an egg pressing on her brain as well as many others scattered throughout.
I still haven’t forgiven that doctor for not taking my mom seriously
Edit: I figured I’d answer the questions you’ve been having here because I’m on my phone and keep getting lost trying to reply :).
As far as my mom goes, she fought hard for two years eventually passing in November 2010. I was 13 and my sister was 9. My dad fell out of a tree about a month after her diagnosis and shattered his heel. He became disabled because of the surgeries it required and his back. He was a monster while I was home. All I remember from my younger years was walking on eggshells, constantly being accused of things I didn’t do, and being watched like a hawk 24/7. I suspect he is bipolar and has severe PTSD, but you know how older people feel about treating mental illnesses.
As for us, it sucked not having our mom growing up. She talked every day about how she couldn’t wait to beat cancer and leave my dad so we could all have the life we deserved. I think we turned out fairly well. I’m 23, have a family, moved far away from all of those memories, and have committed to breaking cycles and loving my children the way I wish I would have been loved.
I do wish I knew the drs name now. Even though I know that it wouldn’t bring back my mom, make her diagnosis better, or even prevented anything, I still want to ask her if she started believing her patients. I think being a stay at home mom, previously poverty, woman has a lot to deal with how things went down. I wish no harm on the doctor, but I haven’t forgiven her for not saying something about going to the ER.
Life is short. I learned that by watching my mom give up on every dream she had because she knew she’d die. Go do scary stuff because who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. :).
Image source: Fun_Egg_5280, carlesmiro
#9
Not a doctor. My sister was about two weeks away from giving birth when she suddenly started feeling excruciating pain and vomiting. I called her midwife who refused to speak with me despite my sister clearly not capable of speaking as she sat on the floor next to the toilet, crying and puking. Finally she just took the phone and was told by her midwife that it was probably just a virus and to eat a popsicle
Eventually I was able to convince her to go to the ER. She was immediately rushed in the OR for an emergency c-section. Her placenta had abrupted and my niece was born not breathing, suffered several seizures and even died and then was resuscitated. She is now 15 and has cerebral palsy due to going so long without the oxygen she needed.
Image source: Fiftywords4murder, DC Studio
#10
I went to the ER for some crazy stomach pain and the doc there said it was because my thyroid was super inflamed. The thing is, I don’t have a thyroid. I was born without one, and I take meds every day because of it. I tell her this and she says “no that can’t be true, your thyroid is enormous” and sent me to do an ultrasound. Lo and behold, it’s not there. She refused to believe this and asked my primary doctor to explain my seemingly crazy anatomy. He goes, “yeah he doesn’t have a thyroid.”
Turns out what she thought she saw was actually my adam’s apple, which I guess is sorta big.
Image source: anon
#11
Nurse here. I cared for a woman who had been diagnosed with broken vertebrae. She was in a lot of pain, couldn’t get her pain under control, and her blood pressure was very low. She’d lose consciousness, and be very difficult to wake. I also couldn’t get her doctor to answer the phone (middle of the night). Something just felt off about the whole situation. He finally answered and demanded we Narcan her, insisting we’d overdosed her on narcotics (following his orders). I then had a hysterical woman in a lot of pain going in and out of consciousness. I finally walked down to the entrance of the hospital and grabbed the cardiologist who came in at 4:30am for rounds and said “This isn’t your patient but I think she’s going to die.” He came upstairs with me, looked at her and her chart, grabbed the bed and rolled her to ICU himself. I have no idea how the conversation went between the cardiologist and her doctor. She didn’t have a broken back, she had an aortic aneurysm, which caused the pain and the low pressure, and the loss of consciousness. She died the next day. Doctors, if the nurse says “something is *wrong*” you might want to lay your eyes on the patient rather than shouting orders through the phone.
Image source: jdinpjs
#12
Not a coincidence that 80% of the “it’s all in your head, you’re fine” diagnoses in this thread were given to women.
Image source: NovaPokeDad
#13
I have one that happened to me. I did college gymnastics, my senior year I had an accident in practice landing in my neck. Went to the hospital got x-rays, was told I was perfectly fine. Walked around in pain for awhile, Weeks later went to another doc got a new set of images, my neck was broken in 3 places and had a dislocation, had a multi level fusion surgery days later. Found out my x days got swapped with someone else’s in the ER and I was originally diagnosed based on someone else’s images. This was found out when I went to get my records long after my surgery for insurance purposes and my files had someone else’s medical records and images in it. Because of the time I spent walking around with it I had to have a posterior surgery instead of anterior which is way more invasive and gives me major issues to this day.
Image source: gymgirl89, freepik
#14
Not a doctor. My husband had a situation where he almosted died because of a misdiagnosis. To preface this at the time we were young in our mid 20s living in a college town. My husband had horrible pain (on floor on hands and knees horrible), we went to the ER and the doctor barely looked at him and just told him to stop drinking and he would be fine. We go home the pain is getting worse and now he is vomiting. As soon as the doctors off opens back home were we grew up we drove 1.5 hours to see our primary care. Within 15 minutes of walking into the GP office my husband was rushed to emergency surgery, his gallbladder had completely ruptured and he was going septic. It was a total mess and he almost died all because of a misdiagnosis.
Image source: zandria123, Getty Images
#15
I went to a walk-in clinic because I couldn’t swallow anything.
The doctor pressed on my forehead and asked if it hurt. I guessed kind of? He told me I had a sinus infection and prescribed me antibiotics (that I couldn’t swallow) and sent me on my way. Turns out I had had a stroke and ended up spending three weeks in the hospital.
Image source: kissingdistopia, Ahmed
#16
*not a doctor*
Dealt with an unrelated incident, and reading a patients notes found he had been diagnosed with a rare but deadly skin cancer and was booked in to have his upper lip removed. Obviously this would leave the patient quite disfigured. On a whim he’d booked in to see a dermatologist at our hospital, who advised it was a cold sore, prescribed acciclovir and the problem was resolved.
Image source: anon
#17
As a kid, I was diagnosed with asthma by a substitute doctor for my regular physician. Cue the nebulizer and inhaler and all that. The whole time I’m saying it feels like there is stuff in my lungs. A week or so goes by and nothing gets better so I see my regular doc and they do a chest x-ray. I had pneumonia the whole time.
Another one comes to mind is when, after a surgery, I vomited so hard that I had a psuedoanyuerism near my femoral artery and immediately knew something was wrong. Instant shock. My gf yells for the nurse, nurse says, “It’s probably nothing”. I say, “it’s something…get a doctor”. Surgeon comes in, immediately sees that I’m in trouble and starts putting pressure on my femoral. Memory is foggy due to bleeding out internally but I made it. Had I listened to that nurse, I would have died right there.
Image source: acidphosphate69
#18
Not a doctor, it was MY doctor.
I was a child and had a lot trouble with abdominal pain. Mum kept taking me to the doctors and he kept minimising it, saying there was nothing wrong.
Went on for a long time until I was doubled over in pain outside school one day. Mum asked me if it was hurting and I told her it *always* hurt and I just told her when it was really bad. She took me straight to my doctors surgery and demanded it got looked into further, figuring a five year old child shouldn’t be living in constant pain.
A few scans later and I was immediately whisked into surgery. My mum still can’t think of me being wheeled into theatre when her and the doctors did not even actually know exactly what was wrong and what they were going to do. The plan was open me up, figure out the exact issue and go from there.
I had an extra growth on my kidney which was all infected, an extra ureter that was infected the whole way along.
The doctor who had continually fobbed my mum off as a panicking parent whose child has nothing wrong with them actually ended up making a house visit to apologise.
Image source: TinyLuckDragon
#19
My Dad has a lesion on his leg that wasn’t healing. The Dermatologist prescribed different antibiotics (pills and ointment) but nothing was working. He did 2 skin graft that didn’t work. This went on for at least 2 years.
Then my Dad got a new Dermatologist from the same hospital. She realized that he never had a biopsy!!! It took her less than an hour to diagnose the skin cancer. The surgeon scooped all the cancer out (another skin graft) and that was it for a while. Since then he got a lot of other skin cancer lesions but now he knows what it is.
Image source: sonia72quebec
#20
I’m a gynecologist. The number of times I’ve seen patients pregnant and upset (or happy) because some other doctor told them they can’t get pregnant – so they didn’t use birth control – is appalling. Usually it’s family med. Not ragging on all FM docs, just how it goes. I then have to explain that even if the patient has whatever condition that makes it unlikely for them to get pregnant, the odds are almost never 0%. Maybe
Image source: MDFlash
#21
I am late, so this may not get seen, but it’s a good story.
(Not a doctor)
My grandmother fell from her horse one day. Not a terrible fall, but from the way she landed, she wanted to get checked out – she felt she’d really jolted her neck/spine, and was an older lady with fragile bones.
Her doctor looked things over, gave her one of those soft neck cushion things and sent her home.
A couple days later, she decided to get a second opinion. No real reason, she just hadn’t felt listened to by the first guy.
The second doctor basically took one look at her X-rays and freaked out. He told her they needed to get her immediately into a brace to immobilize her spine (I googled to try to figure out what it was – I think it is a halo brace, but in my memory it’s bigger and more metal than what I was seeing in the pictures).
Basically she’d broken her neck (the same injury that had paralyzed Christoper Reeve), but she wasn’t paralyzed because the vertebrae hadn’t dislocated. The second doctor anything that did dislocate it (another minor fall, twisting wrong in bed) would mean being permanently paralyzed from the neck down.
She wore her intense metal brace that kept her spine in place for a few months and was totally fine, she lived another 15 years after that. But I think about that story often – the second doctor saved her mobility and freedom.
Image source: daybatnightcat
#22
I am a doctor. Just not the right kind. When I was 20 or so I started feeling dizzy, disorientated, tired all the time-like I could never get enough sleep. My male family doctor actually literally patted me on the head and said I was just a “type A young lady” and the problem was my “monthlies” giving me anxiety.
Yeah no. Turns out I have a brain malformation that gives me epilepsy and associated narcoleptic episodes. He’s since retired (unrelated, but he should have years ago.).
Image source: PurlsandPearls
#23
Also not a doctor. I was diagnosed with MS, sought out a second opinion, and turns out it was an easily solvable vitamin deficiency. Pretty d**n different… $15K in medical bills later only go have all symptoms subside with some nutritional advice, and supplements. I’m still salty about it.
Image source: anon, Getty Images
#24
Not a doctor, but when I was 11, we thought I had Lymes disease. Doctor refused to test for it because the bullseye rash was squiggly in one area. It was on my ear. Six months later, I had excruciating pain in my hip. I was 11, very athletic, and had to ne pulled off all my sports team because whenever I tried to run, I’d fall and burst into tears.
My doctor examined me and, without telling us what he thought was wrong, asked my mom in a grave voice what kind of health insurance I had. My mom flipped out and kept asking him what was wrong. He told my mom that my leg was calcifying (turning into bone) and we’d need to amputate it.
We left, switched doctors, had an appointment later that week, and demanded they test me for Lyme’s. It was positive.
My mom also has nerve damage and has had a slew of misdiagnoses, from MS, cancer, to issues with blood vessels in her brain.
Image source: Oregano__Gangster, Getty Images
#25
Posted about this before but I’ll post it again anyway.
This is my moms story not mine.
So my mom used to work at a non profit clinic that would give free healthcare to people who didn’t have insurance.
This guy came in with his teenage daughter, basically saying he was between jobs and the insurance for his new job hadn’t kicked in yet but his daughter was having her yearly case of pneumonia and just wanted her antibiotics.
He was really arrogant and rude saying stuff like, “She has a CUBAN doctor she usually goes to.” (My mom is Mexican and I live in an area where most Latinos you see are Mexican.)
My mom, staying calm despite wanting to bite the guys head off, examined his daughter. She noticed his daughters fingers were clubbed (Google “clubbed vs normal fingers) and this was indicative of a serious, chronic respiratory issue, not something temporary like pneumonia. She asked if she could run a few tests just to be safe, and at first he was huffy about it but was persuaded when my mom told him it wouldn’t cost him anything but a bit of time.
A few days later, the clinic calls her freaking out because this girl didn’t have pneumonia. She had cystic fibrosis.
The girl was transferred to a hospital where she could actually start receiving treatment for her condition. It was a minor case (if it was anything more she honestly could have been dead by that point) but my mom probably prolonged this girl’s life expectancy with the diagnosis. Her regular “Cuban” doctor had been regularly misdiagnosing her with vitamin deficiencies and pneumonia.
Later, the father called my mother and thanked her for helping his daughter. My mom was going off in her head (“What about her Cuban doctor huh a-hole”) but was polite and wished him and his daughter well.
Tl;dr: not really a second opinion, but when a Cuban guy who was arrogant about being Cuban came in with his daughter thinking she had pneumonia, something she was diagnosed with yearly by her Cuban doctor, my Mexican mother diagnosed her with cystic fibrosis and helped extend her life expectancy.
Image source: Dorki-doki
#26
I’m a surgeon.
Most patients come to me after having seen another physician who has diagnosed them with something and told the patient to see a surgeon.
I’ve been called to see more than one patient for appendicitis….*who has already had an appendectomy.*
I’ve also been called in multiple cases for patients who *very obviously* have previously undiscovered, very advanced cancer. It always too far advanced for me to be of help, so I have to wonder….am I being called so *I* can be the bad guy and explain everything? Yes. The answer is yes.
Image source: AnatomicKillBox, 洋 墨
#27
Obligatory not a doctor, but…
My father got a call at work from a neighbor, because my brother had gone to get him. Our mother (I wasn’t born yet) was curled up on a ball on the floor, crying and unable to stand due to pain. My father rushed home, carried her to the truck, and took her to the ER. The ER doctor just “Oh, it’s probably nothing. We’ll just put her under observation.”
During this time, my grandparents had arrived, and my grandmother thought the whole thing rather worrying. My mother had the most insane pain tolerance, so for her to be hurting like that meant some stuff was going down. My grandma called her doctor, who proceeded to *scream* down the phone for them to get her to another hospital about 20 minutes away immediately.
They did, and she was taken straight into the OR. Ruptured ectopic pregnancy. She survived, and family lore has it that it took four security guards to drag my father off that ER doctor the next day. A year later, I arrived, which was a whole other load of craziness in of itself.
Image source: Shishi432234
#28
Not a doctor but i experienced the worst first opinion from a local GP. a few years ago, i started having unusual pains in my back, but it didn’t feel like regular back pain. I decided to see a doctor as it was a pain i hadn’t experience before. He felt around and just said “you must have strained your back, there’s no problem.”
that night i woke up shaking so violently that i had to crawl my way into the kitchen to get myself a drink of water, and once again I had never experienced this before. after about half an hour of shaking, i eventually fell asleep and booked myself to see the doctor the next day. he said once again there was nothing wrong, and that the “shakes” was probably a panic attack. For about two days i had sporadic shakes and shivers, and continual pain in my back. Eventually it wasn’t subsiding so I ended up at the ER. Turns out my temperature was at 39.8c and the “panic attacks” were actually severe fevers, and the “back pain” was kidney pain. I was diagnosed with a kidney infection. had to have about 5 bags of fluids and a round of antibiotics. Safe to say i left a horrible review of the doctors page.
TLDR; doctor said i had anxiety, turns out i had a bad kidney infection.
Image source: paigepantal
#29
When I was 18 I was pregnant with my first. I went through a midwife clinic with a backup doctor and only had to see the backup doctor if there was an issue. Well a pap came back abnormal so I went to the backup dr and he did some tests and tells me I have uterine cancer and as soon as I give birth I will have to schedule a total hysterectomy. Well I was young and stupid (hence pregnant at 18) and now scared shitless. I had a few more appointments with him where we discussed it and it was just a general plan for shortly after giving birth. When I had my son every thing was fine the dr never showed just the midwives. The doctors office called me after I got home to schedule a pre opp appointment and being young and stupid and scared and now exausted I told them I wasn’t doing it and to not call me back. They called back leaving a message stating that the cancer would only spread and I would never have another child anyway. Well I didn’t go back until 2 years later when I went to the midwives clinic because we were pregnant again. The midwives sent me to a new backup dr for my initial appointment instead of waiting and she did a bunch of tests. I never had cancer of any kind. Turns out the previous dr has a tendency to do a hysterectomy if he assumes you will just be a drain on the system. Well all 3 of my children were fathered by my then boyfriend now husband and the only time we had any type of assistance was this god awful pandemic and I was on unemployment
TLDR self-righteous dr diagnosed cancer wants to do hysterectomy on healthy 18y/o pregnant woman out of assumptions she will be burden on system.
Image source: 80babycakes
#30
I was a competitive Irish dancer training for the nationals when I hopped, heard a snap, and could not bear weight on the left foot. An X-ray and mri showed nothing, so an orthopaedic surgeon did an exploratory surgery on me, and then got angry when I wasn’t walking 4 weeks post op. She said it was all in my head and sent me to a neurosurgeon who did a lumbar sympathectomy- still no reduction in the extreme pain. 2 years later I’m still on crutches, and a podiatrist sends me to his mate, a podiatric surgeon. He takes one look at my old X-rays and points out the break. It was too late. The bone has already healed incorrectly and had to be removed. 14 years on I still have pain. Moral of the story: Get a second opinion early.
Image source: VicJRichardson
#31
Back in 1999 my FIL fell gravely ill, long tests resulted in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, mere months to live, should make him comfortable to his end of life…second opinion from diagnostician same thing, gonna die…then third opinion, much older surgeon, a quiet guy, grandfather type, twinkle in his eye, looks at the tests and says it’s not cancer but said so in front of the first doctor who diagnosed it…consternation and argument…old doctor number 3 looks at me and says that it’s not cancer but if it is then Whipple procedure to give him 6 more months, if it’s not then we know for sure…FIL is unconscious, wife too distraught, MIL can’t stop crying…I say do it…operation happens, very long…hours and hours…no news…then old doctor 3 comes over with a smile, it’s a bad infection from burst gall bladder that formed an infection in the pancreas that mimicked cancer…turns out that FIL had a good 6 years life thereafter.
Image source: WorldBiker
#32
Not a doctor but I went to a dermatologist for a rash on my hands and face.
He insisted it was eczema even though I’ve never had eczema on my life. He refused to do any testing or take a biopsy.
He prescribed me a steroid cream for eczema.
The rash spread and got horribly worse. It was all up my arms and all over my face. It was itchy and painful.
I went to a different dermatologist and explained the situation. They took a biopsy.
It was a bacterial infection and the first doctor essentially gave me a bacterial infection on steroids. I was a minor at the time and I don’t know why my parents didn’t go after the first doctor.
#33
Not a doc but a guy here living in the outback, local doc kept giving him paracetamol for what turned out to be strokes. The family only found out when the big one hit.
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#34
Like many, not a doctor but just screwed over by many.
Got an infected hang nail so I went to urgent care. I got a shot of an antibiotic a a prescription for another. Took the pill for about a week out of the 10 day dose.
On that 7 day mark I was in my chemistry class (which was at the end of the day) feeling extremely lightheaded, tired, and so dizzy I could barely see. I stagger down the stairs of my hs to see the nurse but she was out to lunch. I didnt know what to do and had bad attendance due to chronic illness so I stayed for the next class. Went home on the bus and passed out on my couch. For the next 2 days I had a bunch of symptoms. I spiked a fever of 104°F, had a swollen lumpy throat, in and out of consciousness, vomiting, coughing, and dizziness so bad i couldn’t stand.
Went in the next night after coming home from school with the fever of 104. Urgent care doctor said that wasnt a treatable fever, that I had a upper respiratory virus that was also untreatable, and told me to go home and not worry. I wasn’t allergic to the antibiotic I was taking because I was taking it for a week and had no reaction before that day.
Next night felt even worse. Couldn’t keep food down, could barely breathe, dizziness was so bad i couldn’t get up to use the bathroom without being in severe danger of falling. There was also a rash that was going from behind my ears down to my stomach in little red blotches. Went to the ER this time. Also had a yeast infection from the med. Doctor there wouldn’t touch me. He barely wanted to look at me. He wouldn’t do any kind of exam on me besides look at the rash on my stomach. He said it was measles. Gave me nothing for that. Said there was no way I was allergic to the antibiotic. Sent me home.
Went the next day to see my primary doc who squeezed me in due to my stmptoms. Talked to the assistant getting my vitals and symptoms about what was going on. She said I was allergic to the antibiotic. She wrote in my chart that I wasn’t supposed to take it. A nurse practitioner came in and listened to me tale of woe. He said I was having a bad reaction and also wrote AGAIN that I should stay away from the antibiotic. He said I could’ve died and usually would’ve because it built up in my system and caused a deadly reaction. Doc comes in and says the same thing. If I take it again I’ll probably die. Not measles, not an untreatable upper respiratory virus.
Image source: ilovethatdog
#35
My sister-in-law once had severe pain in her jaw and went to the dentist, the dentist said her teeth were fine and sent her to a doctor. The doctor said that since it wasn’t something dental, it must be tri-geminal neuralgia and put her on extremely strong pain medication. After about a year of that she went to a different dentist for a second opinion who told her ‘yeah, you have a severely abcessed tooth…I have no idea how the first dentist didn’t see that a year ago.” It had gotten so bad she had to go to a specialist to get it treated, and once that was done the agony she had been in for a year was finally over.
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#36
My co-worker went to a free walk-in clinic once because he wasn’t feeling really well. The Dr told him he either had a really bad cold or AIDS.
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#37
I was almost a victim of a misdiagnosis. I was 9 years old, and one day I suddenly felt the worst pain I’ve ever had in my stomach. I couldn’t walk. The next day, I couldn’t eat or drink because I would throw them up immediately. I went to a doctor, after a very brief dignosis he said it’s just an infection in my intestines. Prescribed some antibiotics and sent me home. Antibiotics didn’t help at all and things were getting worse and worse. I was so weak that I couldn’t speak and move. We went to another doctor, told us to do a sonography. When the results came, he said I had appendicitis and now my appendix has exploded, my whole body was infected and I was literally dying. I went under a long surgery and survived it. They said I was only hours away from death.
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#38
Psychologist here. Patient came in complaining medication is giving him a lot of side effects. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms and delusions and prescribed first-gen antipsychotics. Why? He told his last psychiatrist that he frequently hears his dead parents or his dead wife talking to him. Also said that they’re watching him when he’s alone. And it sometimes frightens him.
What he meant to say: I hear my dead loved one’s voice in my head, I know they’re watching me from heaven, but being alone makes me sad and scared.
Dude was on antipsychotics for a very long time because he miscommunicated grief and the clinician thought hearing loved ones voices in your head is weird.
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#39
Not a doctor, this happened to my mom. My dad had dementia and was basically nonverbal except saying my mom’s name. He called me (we had all the big buttons programmed with my number) and said my mom’s name over and over while sobbing. I assumed they were having an emergency, so I called 911 and asked them to make sure they took Dad with them if Mom had to go to the hospital. Then I headed over to their side of town, the paramedics called and told me what hospital.
I got there and they were discharging my mom, who couldn’t speak or stand up. Dad was running around like a scared toddler. The staff were telling me the ER wasn’t respite care and I couldn’t send my parents there when I needed a break. I told them she was walking and talking and driving the day before, so clearly something was really wrong and I guess we’d have to call an ambulance to take her to another hospital. They decided to run some tests and figured out she had sepsis. She was in their ICU a couple weeks.
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#40
In no way a doctor, but here’s a short story of a when I was stationed in Germany.
In the Army we have to get periodically tested for HIV. One of the guys in my unit got his test upon coming back from Afghanistan. Much to his despair he came up Positive for HIV.
Now this guy obviously freaks out, and so does his wife. Of course she assumed he cheated on her (how else could this possibly happen?) And it quite literally tears his life apart.
So he gets almost completely through the process of moving to a duty station where they have proper medical facilities to handle something like this. He’s going through a divorce, career is pretty much ended, and now facing an incurable disease for life.
As part of the final parts of moving, he gets another HIV test. And comes back Negative. Turns out his first test, somehow, was a false positive and they didn’t catch it until his life was torn to pieces.
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#41
When I was really young, just after my mother had recovered from cancer. She started to limp, it never seemed to not be related to her cancer but it got so bad that she had to get a wheelchair because she could not walk.
So she went to the doctor, he didn’t even do any tests but told her that she had female hysteria! Like that hasn’t been around for like 2 centuries. Obviously, my mother asked to see another doctor and they found a flesh eating disease in her leg and if they acted any later she could have lost her leg.
Now, more than 20 years later she has this indent in her leg.
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#42
Back in college I noticed a pretty sizable, oddly-shaped lump on my testicle. I went to the doctor the next day to get it checked out, they did a couple scans on it and told me it was a “blockage” and that I just needed to jerk off more. 6 months of testicle pain, back pain, and extreme fatigue later I went to the emergency room for it and it was immediately diagnosed as cancer. I had to get it removed that day and found out it had spread to my lymph nodes and almost started spreading to other organs. 2 major surgeries and 6 months of chemo later and I’ve been in full remission for 7 years.
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#43
I have a genetic condition that causes my stomach to be lined with polyps. For years I complained that I was very often in pain, nauseous and never felt full. I saw multiple doctors with the same complaints. Each doctor told me that the polyps were the problem and there was nothing they could do. The pain grew worse and I was missing work due to my constant vomiting. I decided to try one more doctor.
When I met with the doctor, I had a list of every stomach test that could be run. I told him I wanted all of the testing. He agreed to run some. One of the tests was to see how fast my stomach was processing food. The test normally takes 4 hours. I was done after one. My stomach was emptying at a very fast rate. They call it Gastric Dumping. Symptoms include pain, nausea and never feeling full. Two pills a day and I am feeling fine.
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#44
Patient, not doctor.
In my early twenties, went to see my doctor because of some weird rash on my arm. I thought it might be because I switched shower gel or something, but the doc took one look and sent me to a specialist right away: I had capillary bleeds all over my arms, legs, stomach and back. After some skin biopsies the dermatologist told me it was a type of infection and it would go away on its own. A couple of months later it still hadn’t cleared, and I had a miscarriage. Doctor told me it was because I was too overweight, it couldn’t have had anything to do with a skin infection. After miscarrying a second time and developing open sores on my legs, I was sent to a specialist hospital where I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder that usually affects boys under the age of 10. By the time I was at the doctor’s to hear about my diagnosis, I was pregnant again. The doctor was shocked, apparently there were fewer than 20 cases known worldwide of women carrying a baby to term with this. She was sure my miscarriages were caused by the autoimmune disorder, and the rest of my pregnancy I was very closely monitored. Guess I’m case number 21 now, kid was born healthy and full term.
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#45
I’ve got an opposite story. My brother was experiencing severe stomach pain, fever, and vomiting. Our family GP diagnosed him with appendicitis and told my parents to take him to the hospital. The doctor there said it wasn’t appendicitis, just a virus, and sent him home. My parents didn’t believe him, and took my brother straight back to the GP. The GP was furious and drove my brother back to the hospital himself and demanded that my brother be admitted. By this point, his appendix had ruptured and his fever was so high that it wasn’t safe to operate. He spent the night in an ice bath before he could be operated on, and his insides were a mess because of the delay. Two weeks in hospital instead of a day or two, and the hospital had the nerve to send a bill. My mother sent some harshly worded letters and the bill went away. No compensation, just a lot of trauma for the whole family.
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#46
Kid was diagnosed with lazy eye, given various glasses.
a cursory look at the macula shows that there is no macula.
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#47
Not a docotor, but (I am sorry) my mother had severe back pains for a few weeks and already planned an MRT a month later. But then in addition to the back pain there was a tingling sensation in her legs. They drove to ER in the biggest and supposedly best clinic in town. They told her not to worry and wait for the MRT. Well a few days later she became incontinent. This time they made the MRT and saw a tumor next to the spinale column. They wanted to operate the tumor and remove parts of it. Two weeks later. Seemed strange to my parents, no one really cared about my mother. They decided to switch to another hospital, but about a week had already passed. My mother got an emergency operation that night but the tumor had already caused a lasting damage to the nerves. Thanks a lot first hospital!
Later there was another incident, the doctor supposed that she had metadtatic tumors in her lungs. When the results arrived another doctor came to my mother, who at this moment was visited by my aunt and my cousin with her baby. The new doctor just told her without preparation or any counseling: “you should say goodbye to your relatives, you won’t see them again as you have just a few weeks left”. My father later in the day consulted the other doctor, who was completely surprised about this. “No, we already knew that there were metastatic tumors and I already told you, how I plan to treat them.” That was 2 years ago, my mother is still alive and the treatment still works. Fck you second doctor!
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#48
Family Friend, Airline Pilot, Went into an FAA Doctor for his 6 month Physical.
Doctor noticed some unusual bruising but thought nothing of it more than “Go get that checked out”, happily signed off on Friends First Class Medical.
Friend goes to another doctor and founds out its a very aggressive and late stage cancer, and was dead within about 3 ish weeks,.
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#49
Obligatory not a doctor here, but I know someone who was diagnosed with heart failure by one doctor and then it was determined that they did not indeed have heart failure but rather pneumonia.
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#50
Not a doctor but … My brother-in-law was diagnosed with a sinus infection, given a prescription antibiotic, and sent home. Turns out it was actually non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with HLH.
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#51
Not a huge deal but recent: Young guy came to my office (ophthalmologist). Said he went to urgent care 4 times in 16 months or so for “pink eye.” They convinced him it was coincidental getting it 4 times. Guy had blephoritis. Very common. Cracks me up.
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#52
My daughter went to ER with pains in her stomach and her heart was pounding hard. They new that she had an infection but didn’t give her antibiotics but instead gave a 20 year old heart medication. 1 day later she has a very big infection in her cheek and down her neck. We have now been in the hospital more than a week and she has had 3 surgery’s and been in intensive care 2 times because her throat was swollen after surgery. She even had to go to a bigger hospital 3 hours away from home to get better help. All because the first doctor didn’t look for her infection.
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#53
My second child was delivered via c-section. I had a home health care nurse visit me daily to change the bandages. One day, she put my bandages in a ziploc bag, showed them to me (they were almost rainbow-colored) and she said, this is a sign of pseudomonas infection. Take these to your doctor asap. I did so and the doc put me on infusion therapy. I had to go to the infusion lab each day for two weeks to receive IV antibiotics.
With my next pregnancy, I experienced spotting – again, the same weird colors. I told my (different) doctor. She did not investigate the matter at all. shrugged and said that the cause was “ubiquitous. It’s everywhere there’s water.” And she did nothing about it. That pregnancy was very difficult, but I cannot pin those difficulties on pseudomonas, per se. However, I now know she was negligent. I should never have allowed her to perform my second c-section after she behaved that way.
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