If there is one person in the world you should be completely honest with, it’s your doctor. That goes double if the thing you’re thinking of lying about is the thing they’re currently assessing/treating you for.

These people just couldn’t summon the courage, though, and now their doctors are spilling all of their secrets on Reddit.

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Impossible!

Patient: “I haven’t drank alcohol in months!”

Patients family: “It’s true I’ve been with her the whole time.”

Me: “Ma’am your alcohol level is 0.325.”

Patient: “Impossible! I would never lie to you!”

There are too many stories.

Not a doctor – but in patient care nonetheless.

Guy comes in, between 17-19 years old for “pebble hits penis”. Pretty odd. He says he was doing yard work when the tool knocked a Pebble into his penis, he went to check it, and now it was making pus. Nurse clarified that he was wearing pants. Denies s*xual history. He stands by that he got hit on his penis by a rock through his pants that made him produce pus. He had chlamydia.

Guy says he was forced to do meth (or something similar) at a store. Came in because he thought he was dying.

A fun bonus: a frequent flier comes in for “his stomach hurting from eating this chili he had”. While continuing to eat said chili in the lobby.

Seems like a bad idea.

One my favorite things I wrote my first year out of medical school:

“Please note patient has stated multiple times that he wants to leave and would leave AMA(against medical advice). He asked multiple times whether he could eat and stating he is hungry. Explained to patient that we would like to start a full liquid diet first and if he tolerated it well, would transition to regular foods. However, pt ordered chinese food delivery instead. Then, patient was complaining of a headache. Was given Tylenol for the headache. Patient stated that this did not help him. His sister at bedside went to the nearby pharmacy and bought Goody powder (aspirin). Sister did ask whether she could give him Goody powder. She was told not to give patient the Goody powder. She supposedly did not.”

For context, the patient had a catastrophic GI bleed from taking too much aspirin.

Yep…there it is.

Woman comes to emerg with complaints of vaginal discharge and discomfort. Pelvic exam initially reveals significant yeast infection, but there appears to be a foreign body in her vagina. “Is there something stuck inside?” “No, I don’t know what’s in there…”

Speculum examination reveals a very soft mandarin orange, peel still on. “Oh, that! We heard it would improve our fertility…”

You can’t make this s*%t up.

Don’t call them a liar.

“Do you smoke cigarettes?”

“No, I quit!”

“When did you quit?”

“This morning”

Every time.

“Do you have any medical problems?”

“No”

“So no diabetes?”

“No diabetes”

“What medications are you taking?”

“Metformin. For my diabetes.”

I facepalm every time

An important lesson.

It’s not so much a patient lie as it is me being dumb, inexperienced and uncomfortable asking necessary questions

I had a hypothetical patient during residency that was a very manly veteran and I was admitting him for rectal bleeding. He was in the age where it more than likely colon cancer, so I didn’t think it was necessary to ask a s*xual history. Folks at this particular establish were known to at times be homophobic and I had been yelled at by patients previously for asking “do you have s*x with men, women or both?” It ate away at my conscience, though, so I went back in absurdly nervously and asked him. He answered “son, I’m as gay as a rainbow. I’ve been at the bathhouse for the last couple of nights but I wasn’t sure how it would go over to admit it. That’s when the bleeding started”

It was a very important lesson for me

Definitely don’t do that.

Meth use prior to surgery, he did not survive.

Don’t leave us hanging.

I had a lady tell me she had no idea how she got a rash she had on her face.

I left the room, gave report to the MD and when I walked back in with the doctor she looked at me and said “I didn’t think you’d be coming back in the room” and then proceeded to confess that she’d been cheating on her husband and thought she had herpes.

She did not have herpes.

Maybe it was both.

Guy came in for a wound on his lower leg that he said came from a biking accident. X-ray revealed a bullet inside his ankle joint.

The wound was from shooting himself by accident while holding a gun. Still don’t know how he didn’t fracture anything.

Nevermind the Vaseline.

My little brother was a nurse for about a decade. He has said many times that people stick anything up their butts. From light bulbs to hairbrushes to a golf shoe. And at first it’s hilarious. Then after a year or so it’s not funny because you’ve seen way too many distended buttholes.

Then after a decade or so it starts to get funny again because you think you’ve seen everything and then one day a 45 year old man is driven to the hospital by his wife and he has a golf shoe up his a$$ and he told his wife that he and the boys were golfing and he slipped in the locker room and it got rammed up there completely disregarding the fact that the part of the shoe that is inside him is covered in Vaseline…

Corn counts.

Part of my job is dealing with medical records- my favorite part is when you are reading the doctors notes and you can tell they are fed up with the patients bullshit from their tone.

“Patient in for routine colonoscopy, asked if solids consumed in 24 hrs prior, patient confirms no. In process of procedure, several dozen kernels of corn are discovered in colon and cannot continue. Patient specifically instructed not to consume corn beforehand as this happened prior visit.”

Think about why, though.

Their identity. Insurance fraud using a friends/ relatives insurance card. As a resident in a very large east coast hospital I was tasked to figure things out when the blood bank called and said their blood type changed.

When confronted with getting the wrong blood that may kill them they almost always tell the truth. This type of fraud has also resulted in people who have been dead (and autopsied) raising from the dead and “appearing” in a clinic or ER.

It was a miracle.

One dude lied about being paralyzed after a lumbar puncture. Get a call from nurse patient says he can’t move legs following a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). I called the team that did the procedure and they assured me there was no indication of this sort of injury happening during the procedure but agreed with my plan to get an urgent MRI.

I go to examine him and nurse says she thinks he moved one of his feet. Next thing I know he says he can actually move his legs again but they are feeling weird.

Then this weird feeling turns into intense pain and he asks for intravenous narcotics (dilaudid). I tell him no because this story makes no sense.

By god it was a miracle I tell you when this man walked himself right out of the hospital after I refused the iv narcotics.

Also, the MRI was normal.

Beware.

Penis modification. The case was an elective above the waist surgery, and he denied piercings. However, when the nurse went to place the foley she found the patient had modified his penis and it was split/bifurcated with multiple piercings to look like a cobra.

The nurse did not know how to insert the foley. The piercings also limited the ability to use electrocautery. In addition, he also imbedded a metal implant inside his testicle that looked infected with a possible abscess.

Canceled case, called urology consult for infection/abscess evaluation.

A good reason.

Did co**ine the night before elective surgery, didn’t disclose at pre-op. Cardiac arrest. Beta Blockers and cocaine don’t mix well.

There’s a reason that “Do NOT give beta blockers for a co**ine overdose” is in bold in med school textbooks.

For those curious, you have alpha and beta receptors to help vasoconstrict and raise blood pressure. Blocking the beta receptors (with a beta blocker) lowers blood pressure in most people, except cocaine stimulates alpha and beta receptors at the same time.

If you block just one, the other one keeps on going and it can make blood pressure go dangerously high and cause a heart attack or stroke.

Yeah, I mean, I get it.

But still…trust your doctor, friends.