Tough Guy
Who doesn’t love a good DIY project? Make a beautiful new table out of something trashy you found at Goodwill. Make your own cookie cutters from old coat hangers and nail polish (don’t ask for directions on that one). If you’ve got a creative streak, DIY is probably something you’ve attempted before.
Maybe you should just leave the DIY projects for the crafting parts of your life, though. Doctors don’t usually know that they’re about to see the weirdest stuff of their career until they walk through the door, and for many, patients’ DIY treatments are downright surprising (and a little laughable). These are the stories they just don’t tell you in medical school…unless you have a really cool professor. Then you’re way ahead of the curve already.
Vacuumed His Face
We had a patient come in for I&D of bilateral deltoid abscesses. He apparently had thoughts of being a bodybuilder, but instead of lifting weights, he decided to bulk up by buying some protein powder, you know the type of supplement that you get at GNC.
He would end up mixing it with water, drawing it up into a syringe, and injecting 20-40cc daily directly into the muscle. If bulk was what he was going for, it definitely worked, temporarily. A rip-roaring localized infection makes you look plenty swole. Reddit User: [RyanB612]
Not for Internal Use
My dad had an abscess on his face. It was huge, about the size of a golf ball. It kept getting bigger. My mom (a nurse) kept telling him to go to the doctor, but my dad refused. One day when she was gone, we noticed that a big white head had formed on the abscess.
My dad went out to the garage, got his shop vac, and proceeded to suck out the abscess. It worked surprisingly well and healed up after that nicely. Mom was still furious, though. She still won’t stop talking about what he did. Reddit User: Greeneggsandmandy
The Infection
I had a guy come in for coughing and shortness of breath for the past few months. His lungs sounded like absolute garbage. Got a chest x-ray that looked horrible, so I did a CT scan. Radiologist called it the worst case of necrotizing pneumonia he’d ever seen. Dude had like 15% functional lung tissue left.
The patient then mentioned that things had been worse after he started using a new “breath freshener” spray….He whipped out one of those BluntEffects concentrated air freshener bottles supposed to cover up strong smells. Labeled “Not For Internal Use.” Reddit User: Iamthewarthog
Duct Tape Fixes Everything
In nursing school, while I was on clinical rotation in urology, there was a man who ended up having his privates removed. It turned out he had an infection brewing for quite a while. Somehow he thought that the best course of action was placing a sock over the infected area.
He had this brilliant idea thinking it would heal on its own. He was confused and upset as to why this didn’t actually work to help the issue. The medical equivalent of turning the radio up when one’s car is making a weird noise. Reddit User: Psychnurse709
They Lived
Patient comes in with head pain. When I get to see him and ask him what actually happened, he removes his hat, and a chunk of skin about the size of my hand flaps off of his head. This guy managed to basically scalp himself, and apparently it had been like that for 3 days.
According to him, it was caused by him just falling in his bathroom. He had been previously duct taping it down, but apparently it wasn’t sticking all that well, and that’s when his wife convinced him to come to the hospital. Reddit User: Do_my_cat_daddy
Fishing Accident
Not me, but my boss (mother of the child I care for) is a nurse practitioner. I asked her what the worst thing she had ever witnessed was. She continued on to tell me the story of a man who had stapled his private area together and onto his body after “slipping with the razor.”
He had it like that way for days, just metal holding his pieces in place. It obviously got infected and gross, as you would expect, before he realized he had to come to a professional. Later, he admitted that his ex attempted to maim him. Reddit User: [redacted]
Makeshift Poultice
We had a guy come in with an abscess on his right thumb. When I asked him what had happened to his hand, he told me about a recent deep sea fishing trip he went on. He was given the responsibility of cutting the fish despite an open wound on his hand.
A sliver of fish ended up getting in there and became infected as it healed, so this guy got the bright idea of doing a little DIY wound drainage. He grabbed his pocket knife and cut it open, leading to an even worse infection. Reddit User: itsjakefromstatefarm
Leg Discrepancies and Seizures
Had a patient come into the ER. He had fallen on rocks while hiking that left a three-inch long, half-inch deep gash in his leg. I go to pull the bandage off, and as I’m peeling it away, I notice the skin is completely black. It looked necrotic, like it had been left alone for a week.
I look at this guy like he’s crazy as he tells me that the wound is only a few hours old. He explains that he created a makeshift poultice by chewing up leaves and moss, mixing it with river mud, and stuffing it into his leg. Reddit User: coffeeartist
German Shepherd Bite
My grandpa thought a “leg discrepancy” was causing my back pain, which was causing weird spasms. So what he did was, he put several pieces of cardboard in my shoes to try to even out my legs…which were already even. Needless to say, he was wrong about that.
He also happens to think that black beans cure everything. My dad thought those pesky spasms were a pinched nerve, so he would take me to the chiropractor (his girlfriend) to get my neck cracked when it happened. They were seizures. Reddit User: ambiguousmurmur
Horse X-Rays
This guy comes in with his little girl and says that she was bitten in the face by the family German shepherd. What I encounter is a little girl with a laceration going all the way from over her left eye crossing her nose and mouth. It is not bleeding whatsoever, and it seems to have an odd-looking substance inside.
So I obviously ask the dad what his daughter ended getting inside of it. He responds very proud of himself and says, “Ah yes, I packed the wound with tobacco from my cigarettes and super glue.” That was certainly not what I was expecting. Reddit User: C10sutton
Bloodletting
Saw a young child (about age 6-7) with a bruised, swollen, crooked forearm. He had fallen on the playground 3 days earlier, and another parent there was a vet and had horse X-ray equipment in his truck. That parent took X-rays and told mom he was probably fine.
So that was apparently good enough for the kid’s mom. She didn’t end up doing anything about it for 3 days while the poor kid was up all night screaming in pain. I ended up getting him real X-rays and a nice cast for his broken arm. Reddit User: doctorvictory
Appendectomy
There was a guy who had a rare condition that required bloodletting. He didn’t have the money to afford the treatment as often as he would need to have it done. So, like any rational human being, what did he do? He decided to build an apparatus at home.
He used a shop vac, mason jars, an IV needle, and surgical tubing to make it. No big deal, right? One day though, he isn’t paying attention and sets the vac to “blow” instead of “pull.” He’s very lucky that he didn’t end up dying. He just had a major stroke. Reddit User: [redacted]
Cornstarch and Water
Guy had really terrible pain in his abdomen. He decided to drink a bunch of beer and tried to give himself an appendectomy with a steak knife on his front porch. His wife wisely called 911. We roll onto the scene and ask him if he wants treatment and/or a ride to the emergency room.
He looks up at us. Looks down at the mess he has made. Says, “Hang on, lemme see if I can fix this first.” He then tries to cauterize the wound he made with his cigarette. Realizing that that isn’t working, he goes, “Well darn, let’s go, I guess.” Reddit User: Maelja
Superglued Dentures
I worked in an emergency room at one point, and a lady comes in complaining of having these bugs all over her. I read the nurse’s notes before going into the room with her. She had told the nurses that she had bugs in her hair and crawling under her skin.
When we went into the patient’s room, she was scratching aggressively and had made a paste out of cornstarch and water to smear all over her body. No bugs in sight; the medical term for feeling bugs crawling is formication. Turns out she was just high. Reddit User: [redacted]
Amputations Are Expensive
I had a patient once whose upper denture was loose, so what did this genius do? He had applied superglue to the denture, brought it to his mouth, and stuck it in! That worked great to stop it being loose, but obviously they couldn’t get the denture out again.
A couple weeks later, his wife forced him to come see me due to the smell coming from his mouth. The gum tissue became necrotic, and the patient lost all the tissue on the roof of his mouth. It didn’t feel very good to have the bone in the roof of his mouth exposed after the tissue rotted away. Reddit User: [redacted]
Lysol and Comet
I work as a nurse at a hospital. One time I had a guy come in who had severely broken his pinky. It was so badly broken that it was at the point of possible infection that the finger was going to have to be amputated. He asked us about the treatment options and cost.
When we gave him ballpark estimates for the surgical amputation, he refused treatment and left the hospital. About an hour later, the same guy came back requiring stitches on his hand after his friend chopped his pinky off with a hatchet. Reddit User: asweeney930
Screwdriver Massages
I used to work in a unit of a hospital that dealt with a lot of abscesses and flesh-eating diseases. This one guy came in because he had been treating an abscess on his back on his own. That’s never a great idea, by the way. It had started out as a pimple.
He kept on saying that he was disinfecting it on his own. By the time he came in, it had ended up spreading from one shoulder to his other shoulder. When I asked him what he used to disinfect it, he said Lysol and Comet. That didn’t work. Reddit User: elenabanana
Glaucoma Eye Drops
Patient was a serious athlete. After a workout, his forearm was really sore. Ice didn’t help much, Advil didn’t help much, so he decided to massage it. He thought the handle end of a screwdriver would be a good massage tool. Dug in a bit too far, ended up causing radial nerve palsy, aka wrist drop, in his dominant hand.
The DIY treatment he did for a sore muscle led to him not being able to lift his hand, months of therapy, and more months unable to participate in his sport. Ice, Advil, and rest for a couple days would’ve solved the issue. Reddit User: paradisevendors
Cut Off Fingers
I work for a glaucoma specialist, and the craziest DIY treatment I saw a patient attempt was make his own mixture that consisted of the ingredients of a lemon, an onion, and ginger juice. He was trying to use it as an eye drop treatment, based on something that he read online.
He ignored how red his eyes were and thought the “burning sensation” was a sign that the mixture was working. Needless to say, after stopping all his regular eye medications to use his DIY treatment, he had to go into emergency surgery the following week. Reddit User: amandalinx
Cataract Removal
I got a patient in the ED once that had ended up cutting off all four of his fingers on his left hand with a buzz saw. He actually ended up handing me a ziplock bag with all the fingers floating in ice water. That was mistake #1, you know after the buzz saw.
If you cut off a finger, or any limb for that matter, place it/them in a bag, then in ice. We can’t do anything with soggy, waterlogged appendages. Number two, don’t use motor oil to try and stop the bleeding. It doesn’t work. We promise. Reddit User: docdathruhiker
Enema
I’m not a doctor myself yet, but I do come from a family of ophthalmologists, and I’ve heard some pretty whack stuff from my dad, my uncle, my grandfather, and my great grandfather. You wouldn’t think that eye doctors would have the best stories, but they do.
Probably the worst incident I heard of is one my great grandad told me last year about a dude who developed cataracts AND ATTEMPTED TO REMOVE THEM HIMSELF WITH A KITCHEN KNIFE back in the ’70s. Needless to say, it didn’t end well, and the man ended up losing his vision completely despite the doctor’s efforts. Reddit User: sankethraju
Cheese
I’m a nurse at a hospital. Just last week, one of my cystic fibrosis patients decided to give himself an enema after being backed up. Keep in mind that he is currently living in a hospital. But what he did was he rigged up some oxygen tubing to the bathroom faucet and made himself a DIY tap water enema.
I thought this was absolutely hilarious, because I have never heard of a patient doing this before. He could have literally just asked for an enema, since you know, he’s in a hospital. In case anyone was wondering, it was very successful! Reddit User: Imonlydyingrelax
Press-On Nails
I work with the homeless population, so the mental health focus is super high. One of the best ones was when we got a message from another site to keep an eye out for this guy who had this wound on his foot that looked infected and was “self-treating” with a piece of sliced cheese.
The patient ended up eating the cheese during the examination. One of the workers ended up throwing up. Can you imagine? A piece of cheese on an infected wound that has probably been there for a good two or three days wound up being eaten. Reddit User: ironcoffin
Leeches for Dead Blood
When I was still in dental school, we had a woman come into the clinic because she had a broken front tooth. When she opened her mouth for me to examine her, I noticed something odd inside. Her tooth had something plastic on it. I asked her what it was.
She had shaped a press-on nail in the shape of a tooth and glued it to the remaining part of her broken front tooth. She was seriously committed to this temporary fix, because she told me that she got the glue to adhere to her tooth by drying it with a hair dryer. Reddit User: nsjones76
Can’t Miss The Cruise
Home health nurse over here. I once had a patient’s family member just nonchalantly tell me that they were going to go get leeches from the flea market. I probably shouldn’t have asked her why. I certainly was not prepared for the answer she gave me.
Her husband had swollen veins in his legs, and she thought leeches were the best way to get rid of the “dead blood.” I laughed a bit and then showed her compression socks that she could order off Amazon. That was an awesome family to be around during work. Always kept me entertained to be sure! Reddit User: [redacted]
Ear Infection
During my fellowship in vascular surgery, I saw a diabetic patient that had 2 of her toes become gangrenous. She had already lost one toe on her other foot and didn’t want to go to the doctor. She said that she had tickets for a cruise and didn’t want to miss it.
She decided to do the brilliant thing and cut off her toes with scissors. She proceeded to do that and went on her cruise, but naturally got an awful infection (gangrene) and had to have an amputation below the knee. At least she got to go on her cruise, right? Reddit User: DrCut
Crayola Crayon
I was on a camping trip out of the country with my parents when I was a kid, and I started having some ear pain the day after swimming in the lake. My mom had brought along a cosmetics bag and tried to cure me by pouring various concoctions into my ear. Just anything that she could find.
You know, hand cream, calamine lotion, aloe lotion, anything. As you can imagine, nothing helped it. Yup, I had an ear infection, which wasn’t going away. Yup, the doctor had a lot of questions when he saw the inside of my ear was covered with pink stuff and lotion. Reddit User: toxik0n
Burn Scar
Some dude walks into the urology office I work at with an X-ray report and images on a disk. The dude has a stone in his bladder, and he is bothered by recurrent urine infections. So he decides to have the stone lasered out. During his surgery, they discovered something.
The doctors end up recovering a Crayola crayon covered in stone and successfully removed the entire object. When the dude woke up and was questioned by the doc, he ended up admitting that he had placed it there on accident. Just why? Reddit User: [redacted]
Laxatives and Screwdrivers
This is a true story. No joke. This guy who lives in the mountains got a cut on his arm while chopping wood. He ended up developing severe gangrene, and was told he was gonna need to amputate his arm. He thought he had nothing to lose, so he went home and figured he’d try his own method.
What he did was he superheated a big knife, cauterized the whole wound, treated it with some herbs, and called it a day. Years later, he’s got a gnarly burn scar on his arm and a crazy story. But a functioning arm at that. That guy is my uncle. Reddit User: [redacted]
A Glass of Water and a Nap
I once had a patient who had abused laxatives for so long that he was chronically and severely constipated. I had a nursing student with me, and we were about to give the patient a soapsuds enema and then digitally clear him. But then I asked him a question.
I asked him how he usually handled his condition now that laxatives andstool softeners no longer worked. he said he used a screwdriver daily to break up the blockage. The look on my student’s face was priceless. If you’re wondering if this patient was joking, he absolutely was NOT. Reddit User: Joyjoy55
Neosporin, Toilet Paper, Ace Bandage, and Duct Tape
I had a patient come in who truly believed that his best bet for any condition at all was “a tall glass of water and a good nap.” The man had fallen while on his steps at home and ended up hitting the back of his head. He was on blood thinners, which was dangerous.
He decided to take a nap. When he came in he was barely conscious and was so caked in blood we couldn’t determine the location of the injury. What could have been a short stay in the ER ended up being a few weeks of in-patient care. Reddit User: mcardwell
The Stick of BUTTer
I work in the veterinary field. One of our canine patients had been bitten by a snake multiple times on his abdomen. I felt so bad for the dog. The client had taken pieces of toilet paper, and soaked them in Neosporin. She essentially stuffed the Neosporin toilet paper into his wounds.
She basically ended up creating a raging infection for the dog. On top of that, she wrapped the wounds with an ace bandage and duct tape. It was horrific, and she genuinely thought she was doing the right thing and declined our treatment and antibiotics. She then told us our treatments were not as good as hers. Reddit User: rkizz
Mustard on Burns
I’m not a professional healthcare worker myself, but my mother is an ICU nurse. This is her story that she told me, and I will never forget it. She once had an elderly lady that was about seventy or eighty years old who had had some severe constipation.
She was given some laxatives to help her out, but the old lady wasn’t convinced it would work. So some time later, my mom walks in while doing her rounds. She finds this elderly lady, behind waving in the air, trying to stick butter…up there. Reddit User: [redacted]
Ice
A guy came into the emergency room one time with bad grease burns on his legs from cooking barbecue, and when I went into the room, the legs were a strange yellow color. The room also had a very weird smell to it. Here’s what he told me he decided to do.
He proceeded to tell me that he rubbed mustard all over the burns because he had heard somewhere that it helped the pain. It didn’t work for him, and we had to give him loads of pain meds and clean all that dried mustard off his burned legs. Reddit User: whitep
Don’t Eat Sauerkraut
Ice solves everything. It was 1995, and I was only 9 years old. We were playing pogs in front of the TV. My buddy slammed the slammer a bit too hard. It bounced off the board, off the TV, then straight into my mouth. Broke my two front teeth off right at the gumline.
My babysitter decides that ice was the solution for everything, so she proceeds to pin me down and holds ice on the exposed nerves sticking out of my gums. She tells me to quit being such a baby while I am screaming my head off because it hurts so bad. Reddit User: entropyandcreation
Another Tooth
My wife likes to shower me with all her gross patient stories. She mentioned having one patient who had bad rectal pains. There was a little bit of a language barrier, but she said the patient kept on saying something about cabbage, but she wasn’t sure if she understood right.
When it came time to do the exam, the patient dropped his pants, lo and behold, a bundle of cabbage was stuck between the patient’s buttcheeks. It turns out the patient had an abscess and was using cabbage to treat it. Long story short, her patient gave me one more reason not to eat sauerkraut. Reddit User: zizzblant
As a self-diagnosing patient…One day I noticed that I had a white, hard, jagged object protruding from my back gum. I couldn’t believe that I was having a tooth come in, especially since I was 23 years old, and had all my adult teeth for a while now.
Also, I had had my wisdom teeth taken out years ago, so I didn’t know what this could have been. So I go to the dentist to get some X-rays done. It turned out to be a piece of…a tortilla chip. The dentist wanted to murder me. Reddit User: jaydogg85