Every day, doctors see all different types of medical situations. These can range from minor scrapes and bruises to life-threatening injuries. Sometimes, the doctors are able to tell if something is not as serious as it seems. But other times, they can be horribly wrong.
Patients on Reddit share the time when a doctor did not believe their medical emergency was real. Content has been edited for clarity.
It’s A Good Thing This Orderly Was There
“I went to the emergency room with intense chest pain. The young (new) doctor I saw first listen to my chest and immediately concluded I had pericarditis, but the supervising doctor decided I was faking it for narcotics for some reason.
The next morning, I woke up to a psychologist in my room asking all sorts of random questions. Suddenly, an orderly interrupted because the ultrasound guy was in and wanted to see me first thing (I think after talking to the first doctor I saw).
Turns out I had pericarditis and myocarditis, and the dude wheeled me out himself and told them to order an ambulance to take me to a hospital with a cardiac clinic.”
“I Could Barely Speak And Started Crying”
“A nurse thought I was faking that I could not swallow when I woke up from jaw surgery. When I came out of the surgery, I was panicking telling them I couldn’t swallow my own saliva.
The nurse just told me ‘Yes, you can. This surgery wouldn’t have anything to do with your ability to swallow.’
I could also barely speak and started crying. I was pleading with her to believe me.
I ended up having cranial nerve damage that paralyzed half of my tongue, trachea, esophagus, and vocal cords. It took eight months to heal. I drank thickened water (which is as gross as it sounds) for eight months. Having a healthcare professional not believe you during trauma is absolutely scarring.”
This Doctor Did More Harm Than Good
“I was accused of faking a broken arm. I was somewhere between four and seven, it’s a blur so I don’t exactly remember when. I had fallen off of a bed and into a nightstand at just the right angle to really mess my arm up, I was screaming, and cried out every time I tried to put pressure on it, lift it, or use it in general. My parents took me to a hospital and got me x-rayed, and the doctor asked me how much it hurts. Well, of course, the rest of the night I was subjected to the most intense pain child-me had ever had. At that moment, I wasn’t putting pressure on it, so at that exact moment on a pain scale, I had rated it a two. The actual injury was a 10 and testing it was definitely high on the scale.
Because of my low pain rating, the doctor told my parents I was faking and then proceeded to bill us an obscene amount. We got a call three days later (mind you, I was sent home, no painkillers, cast, nothing) saying that someone happened to peek at my X-ray and noticed that I had a pretty large fracture on my elbow. They said I had to come in and get a cast and more X-rays.
I’m still very upset at that doctor to this day, because he made child-me feel like a liar to my parents, made me feel like I was being a cry baby, and then made me have an untreated fracture in my arm for three days.”
“It Was Infuriating”
“When I had appendicitis, I thought it was a stomach bug and then the flu for the first couple of days. Then, I realized I hadn’t been able to keep down anything for probably two days and the pain was starting to get intense. I had to get a friend to drive me to the emergency room in the middle of the night. The emergency room wanted me to pee in a cup right away, which I told them I couldn’t do because I hadn’t had anything to drink in two days.
The doctor started poking and pushing around my lower abdomen, did an ultrasound type thing, and left for 10-15 minutes. He repeated that process a few times. Finally, I felt like I could pee a bit so I went to the bathroom and came out with not very much urine in the cup.
The doctor took one look in the cup, and said ‘Wow you’re really dehydrated!’
I looked him in the eye and told him ‘Well yeah, I’ve been telling you I haven’t eaten or drank anything in at least two days!’
They started me on IV fluids and kept up with the push around on my belly and ultrasound thing. Then, they left me alone for like two hours. It was infuriating. I never asked for any pain medicine, but it felt to me like they thought I was an addict looking for a prescription (which seems stupid to fake appendicitis for pain medication). Finally, I threw a fit and demanded they get a different doctor. When he finally showed up, he spent about 10 minutes with me and scheduled an immediate emergency surgery.”
This Nurse Should Have Listened
“I had crazy pain in my abdomen, like, really, incredibly bad gas or something. Sweat pouring was off my face, whole nine. A friend takes me to the hospital, and as she’s walking me into the ER, I’m blacking out with every step I take.
I get in, the triage nurse is talking to me, asking me questions. He very obviously thinks I’m messing around, he was a total brat to me. I’m over here telling him I’m in a ton of pain, and he’s talking about his military training (he was in Somalia in the early 90’s) and experiences.
I’ve had a few people ask me and my friend if I was normally ‘this pale,’ but I couldn’t answer that kind of question, all I could say was ‘I don’t go outside much!’
A little later, as I’m still in pain and they are still refusing to give me any kind of pain meds, they give me a cat scan.
I’m back in the room I was in with the emergency room staff. The triage nurse comes up to me really somberly and the first thing out of his mouth is an apology. He says something along the lines of ‘I’m really sorry I gave you such a hard time. Your cat scan shows that your spleen is ruptured and you are bleeding internally. We’re taking you into surgery NOW.’
He even came and saw me once after I came out of surgery, to apologize again.”
“Took Me Almost Three Weeks To Recover”
“I almost died from an untreated UTI (never had symptoms in the first place) that spread to my kidneys and blood. I had blood poisoning and infected kidneys, I could barely walk, was puking and feverish. However, the emergency room doctor wanted to send me home because he thought it was period cramps and I was overreacting.
I waited for more than six hours because the doctors were insisting on more tests (for some reason they wanted me to take like three pregnancy tests?) until a nurse finally took my blood and urine sample. After seeing the results, she instantly put me on antibiotics and IV. I was told I could’ve died the next day if left untreated. I had to stay for two days and was bed-bound for a week. It took me almost three weeks to fully recover.
I almost died because a doctor didn’t want to run a few tests because he didn’t believe my symptoms or pain.”
They Knew It Was Something Serious
“A few years ago, I went to the emergency three times in a month for upper acute stomach pain by my liver. All three times, the doctors thought I was lying.
The same doctor at the emergency room kept telling me, ‘Oh it’s just stomach acid reflux, take some anti-acid medication, and go home.’
The third time I went back, luckily I had a different doctor looking at me. Not wanting to go down the same road with the other doctor, I just told the doctor that I know what stomach acid reflux is. I had been eating oily and spicy food since I could walk, and it wouldn’t keep me crying, cramping, and rolled up in my bed for 4-6 hours.
Turned out I had a gallstone the size of a golf ball that was ready to burst any moment.”
“Never Had A Chance To Heal”
“My elbow was broken during a domestic dispute. Instead of taking me to the hospital, they took me to jail. Once released, I went to the emergency room because I couldn’t bend my elbow. They did x-rays and said nothing was broken and told me to take Tylenol and rest.
Two weeks later, I couldn’t take the pain anymore so I went to orthopedic urgent care. There, they reviewed the x-rays from the emergency room and said it was extremely obvious to anyone who could see that my elbow was in fact shattered in a few places. Unfortunately, no one at any point believed me, that my fat, swollen, black, and purple elbow was in fact not ok. It healed improperly and will never be right again.
So not only do I have the trauma of having my butt beat by a grown man, but I also have cops laughing at me, demeaning me. I also have doctors and nurses calling me a liar and leaving me to have a lifetime of issues with this elbow, because it never had a chance to heal properly.”
This Nurse Has Terrible Bedside Manners
“When I was having my son, I didn’t want the epidural at first. But halfway through a day of very uncomfortable cervix checks, I asked for one. An hour or two after getting it, I could feel my lower half again. I’d gotten one before and was completely numb. This time, I could feel every contraction.
So I would tell my nurse, who was being kind of a nightmare because I had denied the epidural at first (Seriously, the first thing she said to me after I had my son was that if I had taken the epidural sooner, he would have been born earlier the day before). But she kept saying wait twenty minutes. Then wait another twenty minutes. Then another. And another.
I finally screamed to get another one. By the time the guy came to give me another, I was already holding my son.”
“What Is Wrong With These People?”
“I went into a hospital with a kidney stone, it was like my 5th one and particularly painful. Usually, I pass them through my kidney in a few hours. But after about five hours, I was like ‘Forget this,’ and went into the Hospital.
I told intake that I was trying to pass a kidney stone, but it wasn’t moving, and I was in an incredible amount of pain. In triage, I told them that I’m not interested in any painkillers because of my past history with opiates, but the medication that relaxes or dilates the kidney or maybe even an ultrasound because, yeah, this is crippling.
After they admitted me, they grilled me about substance use; a nurse even asked if I was a junky looking to fix. I told like three nurses that I didn’t want any opiates, I can take the pain. I had thrown up in a trash can about three times already. I just needed help moving the stone along. Then I sat and waiting for another 90 minutes, and during that time the stone passed through my kidney and into my bladder. That’s when it stops hurting a lot and just feels kinda… itchy? I walked to intake and told them I don’t want to see a doctor and don’t bill me. They, surprisingly, didn’t bill me at all.
My ex-wife was also grilled when my second kid was born about substance use. While in labor. Like, what the heck is wrong with these people?”
Did The Ice Cream Help At Least?
“Ever since I was little, I get terrible cluster headaches so I was always missing school. My parents couldn’t tell if I was faking it, so they brought me to a doctor.
The doctor did some usual tests like checking my blood pressure and found everything was normal so she started asking me some questions.
Here’s the problem with that; as a shy 7-year-old, I really was bad at explaining myself. First, I didn’t know what a headache was so I always told them I felt ‘dizzy.’ Then the doctor asked me what I would do to make myself feel better when I’m dizzy, I genuinely didn’t have an answer because I never knew how to fix it. But I thought every question required an answer so I simply said ‘Eat ice cream’ for no reason whatsoever.
From then on, the doctor concluded that I was faking it for ice cream. Since then, whenever I would get these horrible cluster headaches, my parents still forced me to school. I’m in my 20s now, and I still get these headaches but I haven’t bothered going to the doctors about it.”
“Adults Should Listen”
“I was at my friend’s kids’ one-year birthday party. They had one of those kid mazes with slides you go down, and there were some padding and a soft fence at the bottom. Well, when they say these are for kids, adults should listen. I went down the slide and landed hard on my butt. Broke my coccyx. Not like shattered, but either hairline fracture or just very, very bruised.
The next day, the pain was really unbearable. I went to the emergency room to get checked out, and the doctor was asking me all these weirdly invasive questions. Things like if I have a history of opiate abuse is the pain really that bad since people often fake injuries to get pain meds. Eventually, I pulled out a video my friend’s mom recorded of what had happened.
When I landed, I literally shouted, ‘Oh my god, I think I broke my tailbone.’
He told me there’s not much they do for broken tailbones, and they usually just heal on their own. He went to check it to see, and he pushed his finger upon it. When he did, I jumped and screamed so loud. I think by then he figured I really wasn’t joking. So, he prescribed me 800 milligrams of Motrin.
Now, I didn’t go to the emergency room for pain medication (opiates), but to figure out if I really did break my tailbone. After he told me they usually heal on their own, I was ready to leave and just sit on a donut for a few weeks. It did take about two weeks for sharp shooting pain to finally go away if I moved the wrong way sitting, and about a full month for me to be back to normal.”
An Interesting Family Issue
“A lot of doctors often think my family is faking. For an unknown reason, when there’s something wrong with our organs, our white blood cell count doesn’t go up. My younger sister got appendicitis when she was in her early teens. Crying from the pain, but blood work showed nothing was amiss. If it hadn’t been for other tests and my dad’s insistence on them, she might not have been treated in time. So they open her up and surprise! A gross appendix that was close to bursting.
My dad insisted because of an operation he had just had to remove his gall bladder. He was in so much pain that he was vomiting, could hardly walk. It had been building up for a while and he was pretty sure what it was. He went to the doctor, but blood work showed his white count was normal. My dad had to scream in agony on their table for ages before they finally gave in and took him to surgery. They go in, see a perfectly healthy-looking gall bladder. They pull it out, cut it open… and sand spills out. Dry sand. We learned later that it had completely stopped working and totally filled with protein chains. It was removed before it started killing my dad in earnest.”
“Maybe He Should Listen To His Patients”
“About a year ago, I went to see my primary care doctor because I was having pain down my right leg. I went to see him because I needed a referral to see a neurologist. When I went to the appointment, I explained that in high school I herniated a disk in my lower back. Then seven years later (in 2017) I had a microdiscectomy on my lower back. He proceeded to tell me that what I was saying was some utter nonsense, and I needed a blood and urine test. I told him all I wanted was a referral to the neurologist because I have had this pain before many times, and I need to see them and have an MRI done.
Fast-forward four months and I had my second microdiscectomy for a herniated disk. I made sure to inform that horrible doctor he was completely wrong, and maybe sometimes he should listen to his patients.”
It’s A Good Thing Dad Stepped In
“In 2nd grade, I twisted my ankle at recess, I went to the nurse, and according to her, because I could walk I was ‘fine.’ I spent the rest of the day limping. Well, I woke up the next morning and couldn’t move my ankle in the slightest. My dad took me to the hospital and I found out not only did I have a twisted ankle, but I had also pulled a muscle causing my ankle to mildly swell.
My dad took me to McDonald’s after because I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. But that wasn’t the best part. I was able to go back to school three days later (I was still in my cast and on crutches). The first thing my dad demanded was to talk to the nurse.
We walked in, and she goes, ‘Oh my, what on Earth happened?’
My dad was extremely upset and said, ‘What the heck is wrong with you?’
He continued to insult her until someone from the staff stepped in and told him that’s enough.
Nearly 15 years later and sometimes my ankle randomly gives out when I run, or I just get random sharp pains when standing. The moral of the story is that if something hurts, it freaking hurts okay?”
“Should Have Sued That Doctor”
“After my wisdom teeth surgery (I was 18 and naturally tiny, like 99 pounds), I hadn’t eaten for a week due to intense pain in my throat. About seven days after my surgery, we go in for the post-op appointment and doc says everything’s fine.
I’m usually not such a baby when I am in pain, so my mom took me straight to the emergency room because she didn’t believe the doctor.
I was prepped and ready for surgery (including enough diluted to make me loopy as heck) within 30 mins. Of walking into the emergency room. In Brockton, MA no less. Normally, I would have had to wait there for three hours.
Anyways, I was fine and just had a small scar from emergency throat surgery due to an abscess’ in my throat causing a blockage. It was growing so rapidly I would have died in my sleep had nothing been done.
I should have probably sued that doctor.”
He Knew What Was Happening
“So, I had a stroke a bit over three years ago. The first hospital just kept asking me what narcotics I was on (none), how much I’d been drinking (exactly three and a half Bud Lights, which I repeated ad nauseam). They gave me a substance test three darn times (I looked at the medical records after the fact, all came negative and my blood level was exactly where it should have been for three and a half drinks).
Long story short, they gave me zero medication for the excruciating pain I was in. Well, they tried to give me Tylenol, but I was unable to swallow due to the stroke. So, I just choked and it got spit-up and lost in my bedsheets. Orderlies lifted me from a wheelchair and placed me in my wife’s car eight hours after arriving (again, because of the stroke. I had to relearn to walk). My wife looked up the best neurologist in the city and drove me there where he diagnosed me with Wattenberg Syndrome (a type of stroke in the brain stem).
I spent the next month in the hospital, and it took a year and a lot of therapy to get well enough to return to work. But I’ll never really be the same, and I have horrible nerve pain along my face (similar symptoms as trigeminal neuralgia) What really makes me mad is that I knew I was having a stroke. I’m First Aid certified, I manage construction projects for work so I know stuff like that. I knew within 10 seconds what was happening. I was in the ER within 15-20 minutes of onset. They could have saved me a year of hardship and a lifetime of pain from my neuropathy if they just freaking treated me. All they had to do was order an MRI. They would have seen it then.
I remember wondering what was wrong with me, worst-case scenarios running through my mind. Multiple sclerosis, genetic disorder, prion build-up, any number of other terminal illnesses; finally being told I’d had a stroke was honestly a relief. I literally sighed and smiled when they told me. I can work to recover from a stroke, it wasn’t going to get worse than it was at that moment. I wasn’t going to die. It was the worst day of my life, and if I think too long about what could have been different if I got treatment for the clot right away I get angry/sad. I doubt I’d even have understood the bullet I would have dodged that day.”
“He Wrote A Scathing Letter”
“My poor husband was dying of back pain. He had a scan at an orthopedic surgeon but the results weren’t back. It was a Saturday so the doctor said to go to urgent care. The doctor there accused him of substance-seeking behavior and sent us away.
Three days later, we learned his spine was full of cancerous tumors from neck to waist. He wrote a scathing letter to that urgent care doctor. We had begged him to phone the orthopedic on-call doctor, as she told us to tell whomever we saw. He said he was TOO BUSY. I hope to heck he learned something from that.
Eight weeks later, my husband was dead.”
Things Got Better In The End
“I was 14-years-old and afraid of swimming class, so one day I swallowed a lot of air right before. Told the teacher that my stomach hurt and that I was dizzy. I was sent to the doctor who diagnosed me with stomach flu and sent me home. The key here was, that I was truthful about the symptoms, and that swallowing air leads to a lot of movement and sound in the intestines.
Sometime later it turns out I was right to be afraid of swimming class (and my karate classes), as it turns out I had undiagnosed asthma caused by physical exertion. Highlights caused by it were: My PE teacher in the swimming class shouting at me at the top of her lungs to ‘get the heck out of the water’ (I was starting to turn blue), and my Karate sensei telling me that I was ‘cold to the touch’ after an extremely exhausting warm-up, which should make anyone sweat like no tomorrow. My sensei then told me that this was extremely dangerous
After that, I was diagnosed with my asthma and things improved massively.”