14 Doctor Appointments That Went Totally Off Script

We trust doctors to help us feel better, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. From shocking misdiagnoses to being brushed off like it’s “all in your head,” these real-life stories from Reddit show that a trip to the doctor can sometimes be more memorable for all the wrong reasons.

DISCLAIMER: CONTENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
SEEK THE GUIDANCE OF YOUR DOCTOR REGARDING YOUR HEALTH AND MEDICAL CONDITIONS.

• I had a teenage patient who had been in the hospital for months after a fire. Understandably, she was very frustrated with life and being in the hospital. With the help of her nurse, she manufactured a glove/cup/straw contraption where all the fingers were tied off except the middle finger.
  Went to pre round, and the girl grabbed this cup, blew into the straw, and flipped me off! I just about died with laughter. © bearpics16 / Reddit
• It was before I got into medical school, I was volunteering in the ER. I walked in one night, and a tech was scrubbing a guy with road rash down his arm, his body, and his leg. It looked really painful, and I asked the patient what happened.
  “I was on my Harley, and I was being chased by the cops. I went around a corner, hit some gravel, and laid my bike down.”
  I noticed the man’s wife in the corner of the room roll her eyes.
  “How does that story sound?” He asked.
  “Sounds great,” I said. “What really happened?”
  “I was on my scooter going downhill and I fell off.”
  “Stick with the first story.” © angmarsilar / Reddit

• It was an orthodontist who decided to straighten my initially not-so-bad bite, and may not have been well-qualified in maxillofacial orthodontics. As a result, this led to clicking, crunching, and pain. I’ve heard that many people experience similar problems. © Proper-Blueberry-362 / Reddit
• It started with a very loud ringing in my ear, then violent bouts of vertigo. I went to my PCP because I was pretty sure I’d lost hearing in that ear. I will never forget, “28-year-old women don’t go deaf in one ear, you’re imagining things.” He said he could make a referral to a neurologist, but it would be 3-6 months.
  Paid out of pocket to go to an ENT, a couple of hundred bucks, who immediately ordered a CT scan. Thankfully, it was not a brain tumor, but nerve deafness, which could have been prevented by steroids. © RedReina / Reddit
• Not a patient at that moment but as an ER doctor. I had this crazy patient. After a long shift at approximately 3 am, this goth-looking musician came with some of his friends. He told me that someone cast a spell on him, and he’s been airing ever since.
  I did some tests, BP, glucose levels etc. While my nurses were in business, his face became red. He said he could not hold any longer and filled the area with an enormous (you know what). At some point while he was airing, I considered quitting my profession. It was that bad. © osemanu / Reddit

• When I was a child, I had recurrent UTIs, and they never did any tests, and just gave me antibiotics. They ended up having to remove the left kidney. I kept having recurrent UTIs after removing the kidney (and the doctors who operated on me kept denying anything was wrong).
  It was 3 years later that one doctor saw on the exams that they took me 3 years ago that I had urinary reflux (basically urine coming back to the kidney recurrently). He operated on me, and I never had any more problems.
  But I was left with one kidney with decreased function and a serious mistrust of doctors. © J7373adams / Reddit
• My five-month-old son had constant watery eyes and a running nose and cried non-stop like he was miserable. I took him back to the doctor three times. The first time, he said it was just a cold, gave him Tylenol for discomfort.
  The second time, it was probably allergies, suggested child allergy meds. The third time, he was like ’Look, kids get runny noses all the time, it’s common.’ A month later, I took him to a free clinic for shots, and that doctor said right away that my son had Glaucoma and needed eye surgery to relieve the pressure.
  Two surgeries later, and my son was a thousand times better, but for all those months, the meds that that worthless doctor told me to give my child were making his symptoms and pain WORSE, and it makes me so sad to know how my baby suffered. © Safia3 / Reddit
• I went into the exam room and stayed there for half and hour. The “nurse” comes in and tells me the doctor will be 15 minutes, and I said ’no thanks’ and tried to leave, and she said no, no, she would go get him.
  He comes in full of attitude and wants to know what is so important that I would interrupt his lunch by being rude to his wife. I just shook my head and smiled. Go eat your lunch doc. And I left. © InfoSponger / Reddit
  

• During a yearly check-up, the doc was concerned about my weight. I promised him I’d do better, and next year I would be back down to a healthy weight.
  Maybe a week or so later, my doc saw me at a local pub with a plate of hot wings in front of me and a pint of beer. He was a bro and didn’t say anything, but I could see the look of disappointment in his eyes. © show_the_maw / Reddit
• I had to get a shot. The doctor left, and a super cute nurse walked in and asked if I’m ready. She’s filling out papers as I undo my belt and turn around. As I’m getting a hip out, she turns back to face me and says, “Oh! Your arm will be fine...” So I pull my pants back up and lift my sleeve. © dwightgaryhalpert / Reddit
• My mom fell while she was 6.5 months pregnant. The on-call doctor tried to send her home, but she refused. He still left her without care for most of a day while she got her doctor on the phone (pre-mobile phones), and he organized care and travelled across the state to get to my mom. By the time he got there, we were hanging from a thin line. © anniemdi / Reddit

• One time, I went to the ER because my chest hurt, really, really, really, really, really bad. Worse than anything I have experienced, I could not lie down, laugh, or breathe without feeling like I was being stabbed. It was under my ribs, a little below my heart. It had been going on for like 2 days, and by the time I got into the room, it had passed for the most part. They said nothing was wrong. I wasted $300. © Unknown author / Reddit
• Guy calls for an ambulance to go to the hospital because he has excruciating back pain. We drop him off, and while in triage, he tells the staff he doesn’t have pain, he just knew if he went to the ED, they would call him a Medicaid (or is it Medicare) taxi so he could go to a pharmacy and get his pain med prescription filled. © Raincoats_George / Reddit
• As I got out of bed a few months ago, my neck made a “crack” that was loud enough to wake the baby. My wife got scared about how loud it was and convinced me to go to the ER. After a thorough exam and an X-ray, the doctor’s opinion? The bodies of men in their forties make noises. Sometimes loud. A complete waste of time. I apologised profusely. © tetzy / Reddit

There are so many types of doctors out there, but you can never know who you’ll run into. Sometimes, people’s experiences have been so weird that they felt like they were part of a movie.