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“They Put Duct Tape On Blistered Skin”: 50 Times Doctors Saved Patients From Their DIY Treatments
Interview With Expert
Preventative medical care can detect and neutralize early warning signs before they become a bigger issue. Still, many people are reluctant to get checked by a professional.
Maybe they don't understand the risks, maybe they feel afraid or embarrassed, or maybe they simply can't afford it, so instead, they treat themselves. But when you haven't gone to med school, and your only resources are Google and ChatGPT, trying to diagnose and fix your own health problems can backfire badly.
So, Reddit user Shandrith asked doctors, nurses, and others in the medical field to share the craziest DIY treatments they've ever witnessed.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Parents sneaking essential oils onto their premature babies’ skin! They have central lines, these oils can wick onto the line and damage the line, cause infection, or interfere with medications. Infections in premies can mean death within hours. Premies have incomplete skin with much faster absorption rates than fully developed adult skin. These oils can cause burns and damage their insides. Your pyramid scheme company is not a reliable source for neonatology treatments. Please dear God keep oils off of any baby, but especially premies.
Iris Gorfinkel, M.D., a general practitioner, medical researcher, and the founder of PrimeHealth Family Practice and Clinical Research, told Bored Panda that she herself looks "for changes in regular patterns, especially if something is unusual and really sticks out. For example, it's easy to say, 'Oh, I just have a fever' at the beginning of an infection, but if it's really persistent, well, that's different, and that should be checked."
"The same is true for any type of pain, whether it's chest pain, abdominal pain, or pelvic pain," the doctor added. "Fleeting pains are really common and mostly not of concern, but anything that's persistent or extremely severe should get checked."
"Consider a common cold. Everything's fine if it lasts 7 to 10 days and there's a smattering of symptoms like a runny nose, sore throat, and a bit of a cough. That's a typical common cold. But if there's shortness of breath, a terrible cough, chest tightness or wheezing, these are signs of something more sinister," Gorfinkel explained.
RELATED:
#2
Finally, something I can add to! When I was in med school on my family medicine rotation I was sent in to see a middle-aged woman with complaints of sinus congestion. Sure enough, from the beginning I can tell she's really stopped up with her nasally voice and my history and exam are consistent with your run of the mill viral upper respiratory infection. I begin educating her on symptomatic management and the following exchange ensues:
Patient: "Do you think it might be the flu?"
Me: "It's possible but unlikely; it's really out of the typical season (it was June)"
Patient: "Yeah, I guess I wasn't sure it was; I've been spraying Lysol everywhere and it doesn't seem to be doing any good, and it says it k**ls the flu virus"
Me: "Well, that's something that could help disinfect the house and keep the virus from spreading"
Patient: "I guess, I just wish it didn't burn so much"
Me: "…what do you mean, 'it burns'?"
Patient: "You know, when I spray it up my nose it burns so bad"
Yep. My patient thought that since Lysol k**ls influenza the best way to nip it in the bud was to flush her sinuses with it like a saline spray. It did not work, for the record. The fact that I didn't immediately fall over laughing and instead seriously counseled her against ever doing that again is still the greatest feat of composure in my entire career.
TL;DR When the label on Lysol says "not for internal use", they mean it.
#3
Had a patient come into the ER with a makeshift bandage on his shin. He had fallen on rocks while hiking and left a three inch long, half inch deep gash in his leg. I go to pull the bandage off and as I’m peeling it away I notice the skin is completely black and there’s dark chunks of fungus falling out of the wound. It looked necrotic, like it had been left alone for a week. I look at this guy like he’s crazy as he tells me the wound is only a few hours old. He’s pretty proud as he explains that he created a makeshift poultice by chewing up leaves and moss, mixing it with river mud and stuffing it into his leg. That’s what all the black mossy stuff was.
Hint. Don’t do this.
Another thing is head trauma. Gorfinkel said we should always get checked out if we experience confusion, loss of consciousness, or seizures.
"That's actually a big one because people don't understand at what time they actually need to go in because sometimes severe head trauma is something that cannot be seen from the outside."
If we're talking about individual signs, a bad one is persistent, unexplained fatigue.
"Fatigue is actually one of the most common signs of underlying cancer. Of course, most fatigue is not going to be caused by that. It could be caused by mental illness or mental struggle. It could be caused by a myriad of things, but it is important to get that checked. The same goes for unexplained weight loss."
#4
I work in the er at a trauma center.
This guy comes in with his little girl and says that she was bit in the face by the family German shepherd. I immediately take her back assuming that I need to control bleeding. What I encounter is a little girl with a laceration going all the way from over her left eye crossing her nose and mouth. It is not bleeding whatsoever and it seems to have a odd looking substance inside. So I obviously ask the dad what she got inside it.
He responds very proudly with, “ Ah yes, I packed the wound with tobacco from my cigarettes and super glue. “
Poor thing.
#5
During third year med school I was on a neonatology rotation. Lots of premature babies or high risk births.
We'd get "code green" paged to us for "please come to delivery room as able" and "code pink" paged for "please come to delivery room STAT". There was a pager that was the standard one that got paged for this, and usually it was whichever of us med students who was on call carrying it. Our job was then to get one of the Nurse Practitioners and possibly a second nurse and head over with the incubator etc. to take the baby and get him/her to the NICU.
About 6PM one evening as we're doing handover rounds, that pager goes off with a code pink. Then the NP's personal pager. Then the neonatologist's personal pager.
The next 10 minutes are a bit of a scramble and not particularly interesting from the point of view I had (as I was assigned to send pages to additional people and fetch things), but in short:
A teenage lady of local aboriginal descent had come in suffering from very premature labour (I want to say 20 weeks, but could have been 22 or so). She and her ex-boyfriend had recently gotten back together. He had discovered she was pregnant. Believing that the baby was not his, he attempted to abort the baby by inserting a bamboo stick and trying to "fish it out". She did not want said abortion so he attempted while she was asleep.
Baby and mother survived. Relationship did not.
Later testing showed the baby was indeed his for those wondering.
#6
Neighbor came over to borrow a chainsaw. I noticed he had a thick bandage around his arm and asked him what happened? He said he fell out of a tree last week and cut his arm. I asked if he got stitches and he said he just wrapped it and his family is praying over it. About 4 days later I seen is wife and she said he was really sick and may have the flu? Come to find out he had septicemia and dying. he died a week later of kidney failure and sepsis.
Then, there's a change in the stool habits or urination. According to Gorfinkel, these signals should not be ignored. But even your mood — which so many of us brush off — is really important as well.
For instance, "it's natural to have some thoughts of death. But if there are thoughts of s*****e or harming someone else, especially when those plans are concrete, in other words, there's a specific time or a very specific method in mind... These are reasons to go to an emergency room," the doctor said.
"A lot of these are impulsive thoughts. It's not that people genuinely want to die, although it can feel like that in the moment, but the key is to try to get help at that moment because that help is out there, and it's just a matter of trying to simplify your life."
#7
Saw a young child (about age 6-7) with a bruised swollen crooked forearm. He had fallen on the playground 3 days earlier and another parent there was a vet and had horse X-ray equipment in his truck. That parent took X-rays and told mom he was probably fine. So that was apparently good enough for mom and she didn't do anything for 3 days while he was up all night screaming in pain. Finally she took him in to my office and brought me the fuzzy copies of the X-rays which were useless and impossible to accurately interpret. I got him real X-rays and a nice cast for his broken arm.
Upstaged75 1 week ago
If you want to be stupid with your own life that's fine. But don't make your children suffer for your stupidity.
#8
My grandpa thought a "leg discrepancy was causing my back pain, which was causing spasms." He put several pieces of cardboard in my shoes to try to even out my legs which were already even.
He also thinks black beans cure *everything*
My dad thought those pesky spasms was a pinched nerve, so he would take me to the chiropractor (his girlfriend) to get my neck c*****d when it happened.
Seizures, people. They were seizures.
#9
I work in a pharmacy and one of the pharmacists that was there filling in that day told me that during his morning shift he had a woman call and tell them she pulled out her own IUD and wanted a painkiller recommendation. I cringed so much when he told me, as I had just gotten mine switched out that same day coincidentally and was still in quite a bit of pain from it.
Turns out, there are DIY instructions on pinterest on how to do this. This should go without saying but please don't do this. Go to a professional if you want it removed!!!
edit: In Canada so it's not like she couldn't afford a good doctor, as it's literally free!!
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 week ago
I currently have an IUD and I think I just heard it scream. No, wait, that was me screaming in horror XD I have a really high pain tolerance, apparently (when I had it inserted, the OBGYN kept asking if I was okay because I WASN'T flinching/gasping/etc.) but I cannot FATHOM trying to pull that thing out of myself.
People put off going to the hospital and take matters into their own hands more often than you might think. A study released by Co-op Health revealed that two-thirds of UK adults (66%) had chosen to delay or put off making an appointment when they actually needed one.
Two-fifths (38%) revealed they didn't feel their problem was bad enough to warrant an appointment, a third (30%) thought they would just get better without their GP's advice, and a quarter (24%) said they couldn't get an appointment that was convenient for them and just gave up.
When looking at the impact this had, a quarter (23%) admitted it resulted in their symptoms becoming much worse, a fifth (22%) claimed their illness lasted much longer than it should have, and a tenth (9%) had to go on antibiotics due to their decision to delay seeking medical advice.
#10
Not at all DIY, but one of my friend's dad back home was an ER doctor, and he had a patient come in with 5+ snake bites, mostly on his hands and arms. The patient said he got bit by a snake and tried to catch the snake so he could bring it in for the doctor to identify it. Luckily the snake wasn't venomous.
#11
I work in oncology pharmacy. I had a patient die of totally treatable breast cancer because they decided to treat it with mistletoe instead of chemo. All because Suzanne Sommers did. Yeah. The thighmaster lady. Don’t take medical advice from the thighmaster lady.
When considering why people may avoid visiting their GP, two-fifths (41%) admitted they feel negative about going to the doctor. A third (29%) said visiting their GP makes them feel anxious or nervous, almost a fifth (17%) said it causes them to feel stressed, while a sixth (15%) said it makes them feel frustrated. A third (32%) of Brits revealed they don't even know the name of their own GP.
Some groups are more stubborn than others. A survey by Cleveland Clinic revealed that 72% of men would rather do household chores—like cleaning the bathroom or mowing the lawn—than go to the doctor.
Seventy-seven percent of those who are married or in a domestic partnership would rather go shopping with their wife or significant other than go to the doctor.
Twenty percent of men also admit they have not always been completely honest with their doctors.
#12
When I worked in ER my colleague had to see a guy with an ear problem. He had something stuck in his ear and had been trying to get it out. This wasn't a new thing, he'd been trying for some time.
Turned out, he had completely removed his tympanic membrane, and the "bits" that were stuck in his ear and that he was trying to pick out with cotton buds and hair clips were his ossicles.
Enjoy.
Upstaged75 1 week ago
OMG!!!!!!! That just gave me the heebie jeebies. And made me put my hands over my ears!
#13
My dad had an abscess on his face. It was huge, about the size of a golf ball and horribly red. It kept getting bigger. My mom (a nurse) kept telling him to go to the doctor, but my dad was a ridiculous cheap a*s. One day when she was gone, we noticed that a big white head had formed on the abscess, and it was apparently ready to bust. My dad went out to the garage, got his shop vac, placed it over the white head, and proceeded to suck out the abscess. It worked surprisingly well and healed up after that nicely. Mom was still furious, though.
However, Gorfinkel said, "The beauty of a hospitalization is that it simplifies life tremendously so that all of a sudden a person doesn't have to think about all the mundane things that they normally have to do, but that adds up as stressors."
"Instead of doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, et cetera, the person is just concentrating on their well-being, and that's what's so great about hospitalization. It provides time to focus on getting better."
#14
Woman I know has a dog that is epileptic but was not willing to medicate the dog for some time. She kept trying "holistic remedies." One of which she informed me about was giving the dog all natural vanilla ice cream during a seizure to stop it. You know, because you should always try to put stuff in the mouth of a seizing animal.
It didn't work. The dog is on meds. Seizures are controlled now. Imagine that.
#15
Anesthesiologist here; we had a patient come in for I&D of bilateral deltoid abscesses. He apparently had thoughts of being a body builder, but instead of lifting weights or knowing someone who could hook him up with some quality steroids, he decided to bulk up by using some protein powder at GNC...
...and mixing it with water, drawing it up into a syringe, and injecting 20-40cc daily directly into the muscle. If bulk was what he was going for, it definitely worked, temporarily. A rip-roaring localized infection makes you look plenty swole. They got almost a liter of pus mixed with liquified protein powder out of each deltoid.
This also wasn't the first time he'd been in for this problem.
#16
This happened when I was still a med student doing a rotation in the ED. Patient comes in and is pretty vague about his actual complaint, something about head pain but he looks just fine sitting waiting to be seen. When I finally get to see him and ask him what actually happened, he removes the hat he was wearing and a chunk of skin about the size of my hand literally flaps off of his skull. This guy managed to basically scalp himself, and apparently it had been like that for 3 days. According to him it was caused by falling in his bathroom and hitting his head on the toilet. He had been previously duct taping it down or using the hat to hold the skin on, but it wasn't sticking well and that's when his wife convinced him to come to the hospital.
#17
Guy had abdominal pain.
Drank a bunch of beer and tried to give himself an appendectomy with a steak knife on his front porch.
Wife calls 911 after she see him performing seppuko.
We roll on on scene and ask him if he want treatment/ride to the emergency department.
He looks up at us. Looks down and the mess he has made. Says, “ hang on lemme see if I can fix this first”
He then tries to cauterize the wound he made with his cigarette.
Realizing that that isn’t working and goes, “well s**t, let’s go, I guess”.
#18
White bread soaked in milk placed on an armpit abscess to draw out the infection. Needed an I&D and a couple weeks of IV antibiotics by the time he got to us.
Either that or the guy who crashed his motorbike, scraped his leg all to hell, and then decided the best course of action was to self-cauterize it on the tailpipe.
#19
Adult patient had gas and poked a hole in his belly button with basically a knitting needle to release it.
Edit: it didn't work, he actually came in for the ensuing infection in his belly button.
#20
As a child I got really bad sunburn. The person looking after me coated my sunburn in baby oil to help it heal, and sent me back out into the sun.
I realised when I was older why my mum went nuts.
#21
A man who'd accidentally sliced his leg open at his workplace. He obviously figured that as surgeons use staples to close wounds, he'd cut out the trip to hospital and DIY. With an ordinary desk stapler. Arrived in ED with a pus filled wound with the odd discoloured staple hanging off it some days later.
#22
So sugar can be used to help heal certain types of wounds. A patient I saw had missed an appointment with part of their care team where they get their bandage changed. I noticed what appeared to be oozing around the edges of the bandage. Asked my patient about it, offered to change it for them (we didn't typically do that in our clinic), they said yes. I go get fresh bandages and what not, take the old one off and it's just sticky and stringy (picture the slo-mo shots of caramel being pulled apart) and it smelled.
To be fair, most wounds smell, but this was different. I finally asked them what they used to change their bandage since I knew it wasn't discharge. Maple syrup... They used maple syrup.
Edit: RIP my inbox. I tried to respond to some, but dang lol. Here's some answers to some common questions.
Yes, honey (certain varieties) can be used with wound healing so it's possible they confused it with this but I don't believe that's what happened here. Can't disclose more because HIPAA (the thing that doesn't seem to exist on shows like Grey's).
No, I'm not sure it was pure maple, they said it was the "good stuff in a glass jar" but who knows. Either way, it wasn't sterile and this wasn't a simple wound.
Proper sugar dressings can be used on various types of wounds, but it's not just pouring some table sugar on it so don't go trying this at home folks. Necessary disclaimer 😉
No, it wasn't thousand island dressing...
There is medical grade honey, studies show that it and medical grade sugar can actually be better for some wounds than antibiotics.
No, I could not eat pancakes for a while.
Honey dressings typically are less painful to administer than sugar because of the lack of crystallization. But that also means the sugar is better at cleansing... Your wound care specialist can determine which is the better route.
Last Edit:
Since this seems to be an issue now: No HIPAA isn't just saying the patient's name. It can also be saying enough that could then cause them to be identified. Up to this point I have not revealed anything that would link this story to this patient. Revealing more to the backstory would, in my opinion. Considering I do not want to out this person (as a human being) or cause a willful HIPAA violation (as a, now former, professional), I won't go into the backstory, even with details changed as some have requested. Had to find the exact wording but this is directly from HIPAA
"The term 'individually identifiable health information' means any information, including demographic information collected from an individual, that-- iii) with respect to which there is a reasonable basis to believe that the information can be used to identify the individual."
I prefer to err on the side of caution with that. But thanks for all your comments, it's been fun seeing everyone's stories about home remedies :).
Auntriarch 1 week ago
"No I couldn't eat pancakes for a while" I really shouldn't be laughing but...
#23
Am a dental student where we see mouths in pretty awful condition. One guy came into the emergency clinic with teeth half rotted off from decay and told me he has been putting gummy bears in the holes to make it less sharp on his tongue....
#24
Dental student here.
We had a patient who declined a much needed cleaning saying he could do it just as well a home with a scalpel. Didn’t brush his teeth but every few weeks he would go at the accumulated plaque and tartar with a scalpel.
Same patient also insisted we do a procedure without local anesthetic. He was an amateur boxer and was « building up his pain tolerance. »
He also told us he smoked 20 blunts a day and only drank coke. We could tell.
#25
I had a guy come in for coughing and shortness of breath for the past few months. His lungs sounded like absolute s**t. Got a chest xray that looked horrible, so I did a CT scan. Radiologist called it the worst case of necrotizing pneumonia he'd ever seen. Dude had like a 15% functional lung tissue left. The patient then mentioned things had been worse after he started using a new "breath freshener" spray....
He whipped out one of those BluntEffects concentrated air freshener bottles, supposed to cover up weed smell. Labeled Not For Internal Use. Apparently he had been using it like Binaca spray, and had already gone through 3 bottles.
#26
My step father thought he had an boil of some sort on his arm a few years ago. So he did what any middle aged dad would do, cut the sucker open and poured hydrogen peroxide on it. Turns out it wasn’t a boil but a form of skin cancer. Also turns out that hydrogen peroxide doesn’t do much to help with melanoma. After a lot of one sided discourse he went to the doctor to get it checked and treated. He’s now cancer free!
Katie White 1 week ago
I have heard of people cutting into their skin cancer and causing it to metastasize
#27
Worked in pediatrics for a few years and we had this one family come in with a kid who was burned by one of those microwave ramen soups. They put duct tape on the now blistered skin to keep it from popping in the car.
#28
I am not a medical professional, but my father in law had severe skin cancer. He basically had an open sore on his back for several years that bled and bled, we never knew about it until one day we saw a pancake sized crater through his shirt. Went to the hospital finally and they basically said he has cancer throughout his whole body at this point.
His response was he thought it was a cut that wouldn't heal and put gauze and Neosporin on it.
EDIT: Since folks are curious - yes he is still alive but they didn't give him much time left, they managed to treat the wound but the cancers spread into his organs and bones. The sad part is it could've been avoided if he just went to the doctor years prior, but that is unfortunately the common mindset in a lot of older folks.
#29
Infections of the skin of the external ear canal are common and treatable. Hard to get to tho. A dairy farmer who didn't have time to see us got a long rubber tube that he used for something to do with cows (not sure what), fed it into his ear canal, then poured cow antibiotics down the tube. He came in when it didn't work. Seeing a doctor in the Uk is free....
#30
Not me, but my mom. Had a gentleman walk himself into the ED one day after he tried to give himself a vasectomy with an animal neutering kit he bought on the internet. When she asked him why, he told her that his wife wanted to have a sixth kid and it was too expensive to pay a doctor to do it and how hard could it be to DIY.
Edit: I now know that it's relatively cheap to get a vasectomy, which makes this guy even dumber.
I also now know there's more than one way to neuter an animal, thanks guys.
Edit 2: I feel I should share, he tried to cut his testicles out essentially. And yes, they did indeed put them back in the sack and he could still make babies.
Upstaged75 1 week ago
Thank goodness this person doesn't want to father any additional children. The world already has too many idiot genes floating around.
#31
Had a patient come to the ER for a cough. We did a chest X-ray that caught a little something in the abdomen/pelvis. Did a pelvic X-ray. Long story short she stuck a shot glass up her v****a for “birth control” left it up there long enough for it to calcify and we had to surgically remove it.
#32
Six words: ESSENTIAL. OILS. DO. NOT. CURE. CANCER
ETA: for some people, essential oils can do minor things such as calm headaches or reduce nausea. I’m not sure how much of this is a placebo, however, so if you want to try it TALK TO A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL (who does not sell essential oils, because duh). That being said, do not ingest EOs. Do not give them to children. Do not use them around pets. And if you aren’t sure whether or not you should be using them: when in doubt, go without.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 week ago
MANY essential oils are TOXIC TO PETS. Do not use them in humidifiers/nebulizers if you have pets - the oil molecules will adhere to the animal's fur and they will eventually ingest them when they groom themselves. Do not burn incense for the same reason. Do not apply tea tree oil to a dog/cat - tea tree oil is TOXIC to both species. Even citrus oil is toxic to animals. Please, please do a 10-second Google search to see what plants/oils are toxic to animals before you use them around/on pets.
#33
Am a doctor, but didn’t see this first hand unfortunately. However, my friend in ED saw a young 17 year old boy that came in with “personal” trauma and mild blood loss. She triaged him, taking him to a room with his parents and asked what he’d come in with. His mom turned around and said, “ go on, tell the lady what you did”. He then proceeded to tell her that he tried to circumcise himself with scissors for religious reasons as he hadn’t been circumcised when he was younger, but had to stop half way due to pain. Eventually the shame had grown enough that he had to tell his parents who immediately took him to ED.
Some antibiotics and a revision by urology later and he was able to be sent home.
#34
My mom once melted Vick’s Vapor Rub into my tea because she thought that would help my cold. It didn’t.
Susan Reid Smith 1 week ago
I put it on a shower head sometimes if I have a bad cold. The medicated hot shower helps me feel better.
#35
A little late to this thread but have a weird one. A patient was told by her doc that she had low magnesium and should consider supplements. Not uncommon. Instead of getting Mg supplements, she ate an entire tub of “homeopathic volcanic ash” and completely destroyed her electrolyte imbalance and ended up in ICU. We admitted her as a pharmaceutical o******e so Poison Control automatically follows up with you. It was hard to explain to them.
Edit. It was probably naturopathic, not homeopathic. I don’t know enough about specific differences. Think of a tub of protein power, but volcanic ash. Her husband brought it in for the poison control report. You were supposed to mix a scoop in water for the health benefits. She ate the whole tub and had a seizure and wrecked her kidneys. The activated charcoal/volcanic ash vomit that was all over her when she came from emerg was a b***h to clean up.
Robin Roper 1 week ago
It's not like magnesium supplements are hard to find or expensive - good lord!
#36
Had a patient try and buy syringes from my Pharmacy for injecting the dog. With what, you ask? Gatorade.
“My wife’s dog has been really lethargic the last couple of days so we were going to try and give it some fluids in case it’s dehydrated.”
The instinct for some would be that it was just an IV d**g user seeking clean needles but I can assure you this gentleman thought his logic was sound and in fact intended to murder his wife’s dog injecting it with sugary Powerade.
#37
Still a student (audiology), but I had a very elderly patient come in with broken hearing aids. He said they were dirty so he washed them in the sink with soap and water.
Protip: Hearing aids are not water proof. Yes, he was warned of this when he first got the hearing aids.
Thankfully he was still under warranty with the company and they were kind enough to let him slide on this one, otherwise that would've been ~$4500 down the drain.
#38
Paramedic here. Once had to explain to a family that putting lemon juice in the eyes of an unconscious patient isn't an approved treatment method.
And no, it didn't work. (It was an interesting moment when I had to explain why his eyes hurt).
#39
When I was unemployed, I gored my shin in a gardening accident. I couldn't afford to go bankrupt until I could get insurance, so I cleaned out the 1" deep gash myself, and wondered what I could do to stitch it up. I didn't have floss or any sterile thread, so on a crazy hunch, I used crazy glue.
I can't believe it worked. I had to cut open the wound a few times to clean it out and prevent infection, and the scar is now just a dark pigmentation. I expected a horrible scar.
Pisses me off I had to resort to that, but I had no job for a 2 month period (laid off with no warning). Had to go off all my meds, too, and I have diabetes and a bad heart condition. F*****g miracle I didn't die.
0/10, even with rice. Would not do again.
#40
Oh the stories I have even as a student.
One particular one that stuck with me was a lady who came into the hospital with back pain. Seeing as A&E is usually packed, back pain isn't considered to high on the list.
When she was finally seen to, we discovered the source of the pain. She had tried to remove a carcinoma from her back that spanned from her neck to the bottom of the ribs. It had gotten infected and to top that off, she had decided to use homeopathy to treat her cancer.
How she had neglected to mention that or had survived so long still surprises me.
#41
This patient wasn't one I saw, but my brother worked for a PCP in our hometown.
There was a guy who had a rare condition that required bloodletting, but he didn't have the money to afford the treatment as often as he would need it. Like any rational human being, he decided to build an apparatus at home using *a shop vac, Mason jars, an IV needle and surgical tubing.*
So he had no issues for a few weeks, just set the vacuum to pull the blood through the tubing via the needle and drain into the Mason jars. No big deal. One day he isn't paying attention and sets the vac to "blow" instead of "pull." Dude switched it off after a few seconds, but he still had a massive air embolism. He's very lucky he didn't die, he 'just had a major stroke.'
He goes in for treatment now the last I heard.
#42
Vet student here. We once had a family that came in when their dog ate a bag of Easter chocolate. We had to induce vomiting, but first asked if they had tried anything at home. They said they read online to make the dog eat a bunch of salt to make it throw up. This poor dog had a bag of salt repeatedly poured down it's throat before he came in.
Pro-tip: If your dog ever eats chocolate and you panic, have him ingest about 2 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide. He'll vomit out liquid/frothy chocolate, so put him in the bathtub immediately after. Save your dog. Save your carpet. Please take him to the vet also! The Hydrogen Peroxide is just in the event that you can't rush him in!
Edit: During my emergency rotation 2 weeks ago, we were told by the attending veterinarian that 30ml (2 tablespoons) of hydrogen peroxide is safe to administer orally in case of an emergency. I understand that there are contradictory opinions on this and not all vets may recommend it. Again, it's meant to be done in case of emergency; you should still take your dog to the vet! I'm not licensed to give medical advice, which I thought was clear when I said I was a vet student.
#43
We had a guy come in with an abscess on his right thumb. When I asked him what happened to his hand, he told me about his recent deep sea fishing trip and was given the responsibility of cutting the fish with an open wound in his hand. A sliver of fish got in there and became infected as it healed, so this guy gets the bright idea of doing a little DIY wound drainage by grabbing his pocket knife and cutting it open, leading to a greater infection.
#44
If I've learned anything from reading the comments here it's that some men will tolerate almost any amount of pain to avoid a doctor seeing whatever stupid s**t they've done to themselves. This is no exception.
I once spoke to a paramedic who went out to a man at 2am who had excrutiating pain 'down below'. The poor organ was wrapped tightly in soaking bandages, and underneath was a blackened p***s with large pus filled holes in it. The man eventually admitted that he'd shoved a chicken bone (a 'clean' one, whatever that means) down his c**k for pleasure. Predictably enough he couldn't get it out, and being too embarrassed to go to the doctor he'd left it and left it until he was in so much pain he couldn't walk, both from the rotted p***s and the fact he hadn't been able to urinate for days.
Apparently you could actually see the bone once the wound was clean, and although not an expert my friend couldn't imagine that what was left was salvagable.
#45
I work in dental and years ago had a patient attempt to super glue her front tooth back on after it broke in half. She screwed up and ended up gluing the chunk to her upper lip.
veryvenasaur 1 week ago
Viggo Mortensen tried that or tried to try that so it can't be that uncommon.
#46
Had a dude try and pull out a rotted tooth with pliers.
Kid had a d**g test the following day so to “cleanse” his system he drank a jar of pickle juice and then busted open a bunch of niacin pills.
Patient with festering leg wounds that wrapped them with tampons and duct tape. First time I saw maggots in a wound.
Stuffing raw bacon in their nose to stop a nose bleed. (But it actually kind of worked??!)
Waaaay to many people with big pus collections under their skin that get drunk and stab them with broken glass or something else sharp. Many YouTube videos can demonstrate.
#47
An old lady told me the rain hurt her arthritis. That's reasonable.
She also swore that dog spit had healing properties so she let her dogs lick her feet when she felt it coming on. She then wanted to show me a video of said dogs licking said feet.
I swiftly and politely declined.
#48
In nursing school while I was on clinical rotation in urology, there was a man who ended up having his p***s removed. It turned out he had an infection brewing for quite a while and thought the best course of action was placing a sock over his p***s in hope that it would heal. He was generally confused and upset as to why this didn’t work to heal the issue.
#49
I'm a Physical Therapist, and this was more on accident than a DIY but I think it still fits. My patient was diagnosed with frozen shoulder and one day over the weekend he was getting in to his garage when his arm/hand got caught. The automatic door raised up and brought his arm with it. He came in the next week saying he was fine and no longer had problems with his shoulder. I joke with all my frozen shoulder patients that they should just try this at home.
#50
Former ER nurse here. I did the DIY for a homeless patient. Generally whenever we get a homeless person for medical treatment, as long as it's not life threatening, we don't go out of our way to treat them. Especially if they are self inflicted injury to obtain pain meds. Had a guy come in for severe constipation. He hasn't had a bowel movement in a month due to d**g use. We gave him laxatives and told him to drink lots of water and told him to be on his way. He kept on begging for help and refusing to leave without some treatment. It was a slow night and didn't want to have a scene, so I told the charge nurse I'll take care of it if it was ok and to ignore the medical items charges. She was cool with it since he WAS in actual pain given how stiff and distended his abdomen was. So I took a urinary catheter and a 50cc syringe to the bathroom with him. Filled the sink with water. Had him strip down, some lube, and up the butt with the catheter. Took a good 20 flushes for him to finally have a bowel movement. He went from looking like he had 4 turkey dinners to a skinny featherweight.
The one thing I loved about working in the ER was, many times it comes down to DIY for things we don't have a procedure for.
-Edit: Everyone is asking why I didn't use an enema kit. We didn't have them and the squeeze bottle kind would have been dangerous. Plus the catheter/syringe/lube was cheap and the charge nurse was ok with ignoring the loss. A gravity enema wouldn't have worked on him since his impacted stool was so bad, the tube would have just been blocked. The syringe was needed to force the water inside and around the stool to get things started. It worked mainly because the 50cc syringe and the catheter fit nicely.
Atom Bohr 1 week ago
"Generally whenever we get a homeless person for medical treatment, as long as it's not life threatening, we don't go out of our way to treat them" that is effing inhumane. And they're saying that a different enema wouldn't have worked because of how bad it was, but they just wanted him to leave with laxatives? I really hope this one is made up
What do you think ?
Trundle 1 week ago
Got halfway through the list before I realized this wasn’t just guidance and health tips from the US secretary of health
murmelinpaiva 1 week ago
If we had universal health care here in the US, some of these people might not have been so desperate as to self-treat their medical problems.
MonsterMum 1 week ago
I'm sure free, easily accessible health care would have prevented many of these.
Trundle 1 week ago
Got halfway through the list before I realized this wasn’t just guidance and health tips from the US secretary of health
murmelinpaiva 1 week ago
If we had universal health care here in the US, some of these people might not have been so desperate as to self-treat their medical problems.
MonsterMum 1 week ago
I'm sure free, easily accessible health care would have prevented many of these.
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