Do you have a tale of medical incompetence?

[Kyn]

I found out today I was misdiagnosed with something 12 years ago. Twelve years of my life this illness has weighed on my mind, and it turns out it was a mistake. TWELVE YEARS. I've lived my life differently than I would have, I've taken medication it turns out I didn't need... I'm so confused and angry. I never told my family or friends, which means I can't rage about it to them, so I just need to vent about it for a minute somewhere or I'll explode.

I know doctors have a difficult job, but things like this erode my confidence in them so much. Especially added to my experience of a doctor wanting to amputate my arm when I badly broke it age 6. Fortunately for me, a visiting surgeon happened to be at the hospital and volunteered to operate on me instead. Decades later, my arm remains perfectly functional.

I know they're overworked, I know the job is hugely stressful, BUT THESE ARE OUR LIVES. Playing God comes with a higher level of responsibility than taking your best guess at what test results mean, or just doing what's easier for them and not what's best for the patient.

Sorry. Like I said, I just desperately needed to vent, even if it's just screaming into the void of the internet.

Does anyone else have any stories of medical incompetence they'd like to get off their chest?

[mcmahonfan85]

i was in the navy on deployment, got really sick for a few days. got over most of it, but was still very contested and had a really terrible cough. after about a week or week and a half go down to medical for sick call (which is a bitch to get to because they're only open for about 15-20 minutes right when everyone on the ship is supposed to be cleaning) and tell the corpsman whats wrong. gives me a bunch of pills to last two weeks, and says after the two weeks if the symptoms haven't change to come back because it might be pneumonia. two weeks and a couple days later pills are gone, cough and congestion remain, so i go back to medical. the first day the guy said i just missed sick call, come back tomorrow. the second day the guy said they're closed for training, come back tomorrow. the third day the guy said they're closed for cleaning (the CNO and MCPON were flying out to visit the ship), come back tomorrow. fourth day "You just missed sick call. Come back tomorrow". i stopped going and after a few weeks the problem went away.

a few years later, when i was at a different command (one that trains navy corpsmen), i developed this really bad stomach condition where i threw up after every meal. i'd eat and i'd be fine so long as i didn't move, but once i stood up and walked further than 10 feet it was a countdown clock until i threw up (usually just a couple minutes). it got so bad if i coughed a little too hard i'd throw up, if i was bent over too far i'd throw up, and for no real reason what so ever i'd throw up. i'd go to medical, tell them i keep throwing up, tell them this has been going on for weeks (and later months), and that this is a serious problem and i need help. and every time i was met with the same basic answer of "Well, you aren't throwing up right now. Come back when you are." in hindsight i probably should have taken my lunch to medical every day, and then when i got up to walk next door to work i'd throw up in their lobby. i'm sure after a few days of having to clean up puke they'd have been interested in helping me.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Had a buddy in BCT with me get one. Was told he had an ingrown hair on his right knee. Weeks later he can't walk. Gets sent to the doc and learns it was a Brown lacruse spider bite. He ended up getting a chunk of flesh removed from his knee.

[arrogantmodel]

Jan 27, 2018 0:27:40 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

Had a buddy in BCT with me get one. Was told he had an ingrown hair on his right knee. Weeks later he can't walk. Gets sent to the doc and learns it was a Brown lacruse spider bite. He ended up getting a chunk of flesh removed from his knee.

This happened to my dad when I was little. Except my dad's bite was, ummm, let's say...a little bit higher. 😬

[ayumidah]

ER misdiagnosed me as having a UTI when I actually had bronchitis.

[adamclark52]

When our first son was born we went with a midwife. She really only knew what to do in an "ideal birth" situation. When my wife went into labour five weeks early I remember sitting in the hospital pre-delivery room (or whatever it's called) watching the midwife read the instructions of some medical device that was supposed to help ease my wifes pain. Being a stressed out father to be who worked nights and had gotten no sleep I was pretty pissed off. After a few hours the midwife stepped aside so the hospital staff could take over. She stayed for moral support but I never even knew her name and my wife didn't care. I don't remember if her services cost anything.

Even when the midwife had stepped aside the hospital was so understaffed that it took them hours to finally get to delivering my son. He was so big that he should have been delivered via C-Section but the labour had gotten so far along that natural birth was the only option. So they literally ripped him out of my wife. His left arm was damaged during the delivery and he didn't move it for six weeks. Then he gave me a punch in the eye and it was a great feeling. He also had scaring on his head from a suction thing they put on his head to pull him out. But that healed too.

I don't blame that last paragraph on the hospital staff as much as I blame it on budget cuts that left the hospital so short staffed. The midwife was terrible though and with our second son it wasn't even an option.

[Nikki Heyman]

I went through this last fall.

Had a horrible cough but wasn't really congested. My doctor wasn't available so I saw a different doctor within the network I had never seen before. He told me it was the "Chicken soup" variety of cold and sent me on my way.

A few days later I'm coughing so hard I'm getting stars in my eyes. I go to Urgent Care and they tell me I have strep. I get those meds and lose a day of work over it.

Two weeks later I'm STILL coughing hard and I still can't see my actual doctor. This next one decides to give me an inhaler and some other asthma-related meds. I told her I wasn't asthmatic and didn't understand how this stuff would help me at all.

Turns out it was strep + a nasty cold virus in my area in my body at the same time :/ still irritated me that I had to go through that many mis-diagnoses.

[The Unconquered Sun]

1) the oncologist that treated my dad ruled out pancreatic cancer when he diagnosed him. My dad lost 30lbs. In 2 months but, no, it couldn't be cancer in his pancreas. 22 days before he passed another doctor figured it out in with one test.

2) when my daughter was born there was a problem with her blood sugar. She spent the first 12 days in the hospital. On the 12 day my mother in law ( who use to work in that department in that hospital) and I grilled the doctor about what was going on and what was being done. Mysteriously, later that day the doctor said "ok, she fine, she can go home tomorrow." 

3) this is the one that pisses me off the most. My daughter is autistic. But when she was 6 we had to change her doctor. This new doctor reused to believe the diagnosis. Nope, my daughter wasn't autistic, she couldn't hear. The doctor made this diagnosis after a mere 5 minutes of seeing her, even though we had 2 other doctors and 3 special education specialist confirm this. Nope, those other were wrong even though they had spent much more time with my daughter. 
Oh by the way, my daughter 's hearing, she's got Daredevil like hearing. If I'm listening to something on headphones, she can hear it. 

So to sum up, do a background check on your doctor before the 1st visit, save yourself a lot of trouble.

[Natural Born Farmer]

My Mom is a doctor. When I had my appendix out she apparently had some words for the surgeon on their post op, but I was off the planet at the time.

[MC Blowfish]

I was having issues with my stomach at the time. I went to the doctor and told him what was going on. He told me that I had IBS. Other than that, he told me to start taking fibercon and that would help. You know what my issue was? My diet. Once I started fixing my own food and stopped eating out so much, my issues cleared up.

[Rave]

Prone to bad ear infections as a kid, eventually diagnosed with what's called swimmer's ear, which is basically that getting water in my ears leads to problems.

Clinic I was going to at the time would bounce me around between doctors, so I ended up with a real winner who told my mother that she should clean out my ears with water. He persisted in this even after being informed about my swimmer's ear, even saying that he studied under the ear/nose/throat doctor that I had been regularly seeing at the time who'd strictly advised peroxide for ear cleaning.

Next time I had an appointment with the ear/nose/throat doc, he heard about this and called the guy an idiot.

[Sephiroth]

Took a hit from a baseball as a kid, gave me a pretty good shined. Went to the school nurse for ice. First thing she did was stick the damn thermometer in my ear and say “Huh, no temperature!” like it was some kind of surprise.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I’ve never told you guys this, but, due to a horrible mixup years ago, I have an arm for a leg and a leg for an arm.

[67 more]

Jan 29, 2018 4:03:28 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

I’ve never told you guys this, but, due to a horrible mixup years ago, I have an arm for a leg and a leg for an arm.

Mr McGreg?

[willywonka666]

I want to believe in my doctors, but I went through 8 months of pain and hell before things got to a point that I had to have surgery that wiped me out for a month. I'm better now

[Dub H]

When I got checked for Swine FLu(H1V1) the medic said: "We were gonna have the results in a week, until then don't leave the house, after 7 days if you got nothing,you are safe to leave".Got nothing after 7 days,sweet i resume my life.

30 days later I receive a letter saying I have(had at that point) the Swine Flu.

[Shy Guy]

excessive blood tests because my knees hyperextend, my arms are double jointed, and bad posture

[jagilki]

Not a full blown Doctor.

6th grade, we were playing football during lunch. I got tackled and somebody stepped on my arm.

Went to school nurse "Oh, it's just sprained. Put some ice on it"

After School. Go to doctor. Arm was broke in tw places.

[willywonka666]

Jan 27, 2018 9:54:38 GMT -5 MC Blowfish said:

I was having issues with my stomach at the time. I went to the doctor and told him what was going on. He told me that I had IBS. Other than that, he told me to start taking fibercon and that would help. You know what my issue was? My diet. Once I started fixing my own food and stopped eating out so much, my issues cleared up.

Mind if I ask what your diet was and is now-I’ve been diagnosed as having Chrons

[Powerline]

I recently swapped doctors because the one I had would get annoyed by my questions and always give vague answers to stuff. He'd tell me I needed bloodwork done, and when I would ask why he'd say they needed to "check for a few things", and if I asked to elaborate he'd just repeat "a few things".

The only BAD one involved my teeth and went across several years. I had a wisdom tooth growing crooked and was on a course to mess up the molar I had there. Whenever I'd go to the dentist he'd say "we need to monitor that, but we don't need to work on it now, there's gonna be complications pulling it when it's this small", etc. And this went on for years and years. A couple years ago, my molar started hurting there, I went to a different dentist (the previous one retired) and he said "Yeah, that wisdom tooth needed pulled years ago, it's damaged that molar beyond repair, it all needs pulled".