21 Wild Times a Patient Made a Correct Self-Diagnosis

‘I think I might have Eagle syndrome!’
21 Wild Times a Patient Made a Correct Self-Diagnosis

While it’s generally inadvisable to diagnose yourself with an illness, health insurance is expensive and the emergency room is chaotic. And so, sometimes you have no choice but to fire up WebMD and have a downward mental spiral about the strange wart you discovered on your back. Your googling can even narrow down the options enough to shock the doctor on duty. 

One Redditor remembers when a patient came in with throat pain that tests couldn’t determine the cause of. After a while, the patient returned and said, “I think I might have Eagle syndrome,” which was a disorder the doctor had never even heard of. But sure enough, she was right. She underwent surgery and is now pain-free, all because she googled her way to a diagnosis. 

Other Redditors have revealed the self-diagnoses they’ve witnessed, and we really need more affordable healthcare in this country.

donc_mxb 4y ago I had been battling stomach pain for years and it fluctuated between dull and sharp 10/10 pain every couple of weeks or if i ate something new/exotic. Also felt tearing in my abdomen and experienced bloating like crazy. Told doctor's i thought i had Crohns disease and they thought i had a hernia. Lo and behold moved cities and got a new doctor, doc schedules a colonoscopy and got diagnosed with Crohns right when it was finished. 193 ...
ChaplnGrillSgt 4y ago Patient came in with his wife for fever and malaise. I'm asking my history questions when the patient says I think it's Legionnaires disease. I just kind of chuckled as he said he wasn't in medicine at all and Legionnaires is extremely rare in my area (and quite rare in general). We tested for it anyways and sure enough, positive for legionella. + 220 ...
Constant-Ad649 3y ago Not a doctor, In secondary school one of my mates came in coughing, not able to breath easily etc etc, I thought they had a crackling lung which is a painful chest infection, what do we know? They come in 2 days later with a cracking lung, guess they were commited to the french lesson + 20 ...
baywchrome . 3y ago I had to diagnose myself with scabies. So gross. And was making me miserable for months lol. And all it took was one night of a prescription cream to kill them! + 32 ...
whitegirlofthenorth 3mo ago Noticed an abnormality on my eye with a lot of pain. Went to the ER, telling them I suspected it was a corneal ulcer. Doc said, nah it's just a viral infection probably. I said with all due respect... you can see the lesion with the naked eye. I reiterated my belief that it was an ulcer because I'd had one fifteen years prior and knew that it needed to be treated immediately to protect my eye. Doctor pushed back. I insisted on an ophthalmology referral and got it. It was a corneal ulcer, and a really
Funny-Cover6517 3mo ago Metal poisoning from defective spine hardware. You can't see it on a X-ray but I had all the symptoms for years. I then ended up breaking a rod thank God so the insurance company had to approve surgery. My back was black all inside and they had to scrape the metal black oxidized metals out as best as they could. To think, for years and years docs said I had anxiety. + 7.9K Reply ...
dedeenxo 3mo ago I injured my left knee during a volleyball game. I went to multiple different doctors and they kept telling me it was a popped knee cap, or it was just sprained and I'd be good to play in X amount of weeks. But every time I would just jump a little or pivot I would completely bail. I had never experienced this before and got so frustrated. After a handful of months I suspected I tore a ligament by doing my own research. I went into the doctors office again and got someone new. I told him
morcheebs50 3mo ago A tumor obstructing my digestive system. I knew there was something in there. I was scrawny and I could feel this weird pressure and pain in my side. I argued and suffered for a year. I was in my early 20s and female, so I obviously didn't understand how my own digestive system works. Right? Every doctor I went to told me I had IBS or was suffering from an ED. An oncologist told me I had a herniated peritoneum, but didn't provide a treatment plan. Finally a radiologist suggested exploratory surgery and they found a grapefruit
acenarteco 3mo ago My feet were really swollen when I was about 7 months pregnant. I know this is pretty typical of pregnancy but this was bad-I also knew it was a warning sign for preeclampsia. I brought it up at every appointment but the doctors kept dismissing it-they didn't even look. Guess who got diagnosed with severe preeclampsia and had to have an emergency c-section? I now have lingering blood pressure issues that I will probably have for the rest of my life. At least my baby is ok and absolutely adorable. Women really need better health care. 181
professorfunkenpunk 3то ago Not so much couldn't figure it out, but was surprisingly incurious. Sleep apnea. Told my doctor I was tired all the time and their response was basically you should just lose weight, it's like you're walking around carrying a bag of water softener salt all the time. FInally managed to get a sleep study. Sleep apnea was off the charts. + 448 Reply ...
trebor1966 3mo ago My son ,13 at the time, said his neck hurt. GP said take some ibuprofen you strained your neck. Next day he came to me and said he thinks he has meningitis. Went to an emergency at a different hospital. They looked at him for 2 minutes,left came back geared up. Viral meningitis he spent almost 2 months in the hospital.p + 1.3K Reply ...
madkeepz 8y ago Had I girl come in my consultory saying Doc, I've been having this sores in my mouth for quite a while now and they come and go and well, I've been reading online and uhmm I think I have syphilis Checked her mouth, she had nothing, and I told her that primary syphilitic lesions didn't usually reappear but still ran the labs because syphilis is known for having unusual manifestations Next time she shows up, saying Uhmm doc I got my results and... I have syphilis. She did 381 ...
gavilin 4y ago Edited 4y ago I had a spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung) that came out of nowhere when I was 17. Had to go to the hospital and get a tube hooked up to my thoracic cavity to reinflate my lung. A week later I was in statistics class and I felt my other lung collapse. I immediately knew what it was. Kind of a weird but very distinct feeling of pain and shortness of breath. Cut to me in the school nurses office trying to explain that I had a spontaneous pneumothorax and I need to go to
AgentCooperPie 4y ago My mom is a nurse supervisor at a nursing home. Multiple times, patients have walked up to her and said goodbye, that they're going to die that night. Even though these residents have been perfectly mobile and with it they have always been right. + 8.9K ...
SquilliamFancySon95 4y ago My sister had a lump behind her ear that was causing her pain and was growing. My mom used to be a nurse and she thought it didn't look right, it wasn't just a cyst so she kept monitoring it and started to become worried that it might be cancerous. For a whole year my mom went back and forth with doctors asking them to take her seriously and one doctor finally agreed to go in and biopsy it. Lo and behold my sister had stage 1 cancer, and it was a rare form at that. +
3MXanthene 8y ago I had a guy come in who said, I think I have diabetes. I have a shop out back with no bathroom, so whenever I take a pee break I just piss on the ground. Every time I take a piss the bees all come and land on it. Не was right. + 1.8K ...
KFCsecretpolice 8y ago Patient came into ER complaining at first of indigestion but causing severe pain. I asked what he ate, he said taco bell, and I made a slightly inappropriate poop joke regarding that. Не laughed and said he was having a heart attack. Obviously he just thought I was super funny. Turns out I'm not. + 947 ...
ElvisPresleyLove 4y ago A man came in, saying he had an aggressive cancer on his back. Не also told us that he'd run no tests, so we were skeptic, tbh. When we ran the test, though, we saw he was right. Seriously. + 5.7K ...
jochi1543 8y ago Had a patient who was plagued by a bizarre throat pain. Mono tests, throat culture swabs, gastroscopy...nothing. One day she comes in and says I think I might have Eagle_syndrome! I had never even heard of it, but hey, what did we have to lose. Send her to ENT, Eagle syndrome confirmed, she has surgery, and now she's pain-free. It's super-rare and it's really awesome that with the help of the internet, she was able to self-diagnose successfully. + 1.2K ...
Chaoticpsychosis 4y ago Edited 4y ago I had an abscessed tooth that the infection had become so severe that I lost vision in my right eye. Went to the ER and they told me it was pink eye. I tried explaining that over a couple days I literally felt the infection move from my tooth, through my nose and into my eye. They said that doesn't happen and sent me home with eye drops. 3 days later I had a face that was swollen twice the size it should have been, they removed the tooth and put me on antibiotics.
lindan44 4y ago I have a chronic headache for 10 years, after watching an episode of Dr.House where the patient had also a big headache. I called my doctor and asked for a head&neck MRI to check if I had an Arnold Chiari. Some weeks after I passed the MRI, my doctor called me while laughing, you were right, you have the thing you saw in Dr.House. 174 ...

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