#1
Iris Gorfinkel, M.D., a general practitioner, medical researcher, and the founder of PrimeHealth Family Practice and Clinical Research, told Bored Panda that she herself looks "for changes in regular patterns, especially if something is unusual and really sticks out. For example, it's easy to say, 'Oh, I just have a fever' at the beginning of an infection, but if it's really persistent, well, that's different, and that should be checked."
"The same is true for any type of pain, whether it's chest pain, abdominal pain, or pelvic pain," the doctor added. "Fleeting pains are really common and mostly not of concern, but anything that's persistent or extremely severe should get checked."
"Consider a common cold. Everything's fine if it lasts 7 to 10 days and there's a smattering of symptoms like a runny nose, sore throat, and a bit of a cough. That's a typical common cold. But if there's shortness of breath, a terrible cough, chest tightness or wheezing, these are signs of something more sinister," Gorfinkel explained.
#2
Patient: "Do you think it might be the flu?"
Me: "It's possible but unlikely; it's really out of the typical season (it was June)"
Patient: "Yeah, I guess I wasn't sure it was; I've been spraying Lysol everywhere and it doesn't seem to be doing any good, and it says it k**ls the flu virus"
Me: "Well, that's something that could help disinfect the house and keep the virus from spreading"
Patient: "I guess, I just wish it didn't burn so much"
Me: "…what do you mean, 'it burns'?"
Patient: "You know, when I spray it up my nose it burns so bad"
Yep. My patient thought that since Lysol k**ls influenza the best way to nip it in the bud was to flush her sinuses with it like a saline spray. It did not work, for the record. The fact that I didn't immediately fall over laughing and instead seriously counseled her against ever doing that again is still the greatest feat of composure in my entire career.
TL;DR When the label on Lysol says "not for internal use", they mean it.
#3
Hint. Don’t do this.
Another thing is head trauma. Gorfinkel said we should always get checked out if we experience confusion, loss of consciousness, or seizures.
"That's actually a big one because people don't understand at what time they actually need to go in because sometimes severe head trauma is something that cannot be seen from the outside."
If we're talking about individual signs, a bad one is persistent, unexplained fatigue.
"Fatigue is actually one of the most common signs of underlying cancer. Of course, most fatigue is not going to be caused by that. It could be caused by mental illness or mental struggle. It could be caused by a myriad of things, but it is important to get that checked. The same goes for unexplained weight loss."
#4
This guy comes in with his little girl and says that she was bit in the face by the family German shepherd. I immediately take her back assuming that I need to control bleeding. 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 a odd looking substance inside. So I obviously ask the dad what she got inside it.
He responds very proudly with, “ Ah yes, I packed the wound with tobacco from my cigarettes and super glue. “
Poor thing.
#5
We'd get "code green" paged to us for "please come to delivery room as able" and "code pink" paged for "please come to delivery room STAT". There was a pager that was the standard one that got paged for this, and usually it was whichever of us med students who was on call carrying it. Our job was then to get one of the Nurse Practitioners and possibly a second nurse and head over with the incubator etc. to take the baby and get him/her to the NICU.
About 6PM one evening as we're doing handover rounds, that pager goes off with a code pink. Then the NP's personal pager. Then the neonatologist's personal pager.
The next 10 minutes are a bit of a scramble and not particularly interesting from the point of view I had (as I was assigned to send pages to additional people and fetch things), but in short:
A teenage lady of local aboriginal descent had come in suffering from very premature labour (I want to say 20 weeks, but could have been 22 or so). She and her ex-boyfriend had recently gotten back together. He had discovered she was pregnant. Believing that the baby was not his, he attempted to abort the baby by inserting a bamboo stick and trying to "fish it out". She did not want said abortion so he attempted while she was asleep.
Baby and mother survived. Relationship did not.
Later testing showed the baby was indeed his for those wondering.
#6
Then, there's a change in the stool habits or urination. According to Gorfinkel, these signals should not be ignored. But even your mood — which so many of us brush off — is really important as well.
For instance, "it's natural to have some thoughts of death. But if there are thoughts of s*****e or harming someone else, especially when those plans are concrete, in other words, there's a specific time or a very specific method in mind... These are reasons to go to an emergency room," the doctor said.
"A lot of these are impulsive thoughts. It's not that people genuinely want to die, although it can feel like that in the moment, but the key is to try to get help at that moment because that help is out there, and it's just a matter of trying to simplify your life."
#7
#8
Turns out, there are DIY instructions on pinterest on how to do this. This should go without saying but please don't do this. Go to a professional if you want it removed!!!
edit: In Canada so it's not like she couldn't afford a good doctor, as it's literally free!!
#9
He also thinks black beans cure *everything*
My dad thought those pesky spasms was a pinched nerve, so he would take me to the chiropractor (his girlfriend) to get my neck c*****d when it happened.
Seizures, people. They were seizures.
People put off going to the hospital and take matters into their own hands more often than you might think. A study released by Co-op Health revealed that two-thirds of UK adults (66%) had chosen to delay or put off making an appointment when they actually needed one.
Two-fifths (38%) revealed they didn't feel their problem was bad enough to warrant an appointment, a third (30%) thought they would just get better without their GP's advice, and a quarter (24%) said they couldn't get an appointment that was convenient for them and just gave up.
When looking at the impact this had, a quarter (23%) admitted it resulted in their symptoms becoming much worse, a fifth (22%) claimed their illness lasted much longer than it should have, and a tenth (9%) had to go on antibiotics due to their decision to delay seeking medical advice.
#10
#11
When considering why people may avoid visiting their GP, two-fifths (41%) admitted they feel negative about going to the doctor. A third (29%) said visiting their GP makes them feel anxious or nervous, almost a fifth (17%) said it causes them to feel stressed, while a sixth (15%) said it makes them feel frustrated. A third (32%) of Brits revealed they don't even know the name of their own GP.
Some groups are more stubborn than others. A survey by Cleveland Clinic revealed that 72% of men would rather do household chores—like cleaning the bathroom or mowing the lawn—than go to the doctor.
Seventy-seven percent of those who are married or in a domestic partnership would rather go shopping with their wife or significant other than go to the doctor.
Twenty percent of men also admit they have not always been completely honest with their doctors.
#12
Turned out, he had completely removed his tympanic membrane, and the "bits" that were stuck in his ear and that he was trying to pick out with cotton buds and hair clips were his ossicles.
Enjoy.
#13
However, Gorfinkel said, "The beauty of a hospitalization is that it simplifies life tremendously so that all of a sudden a person doesn't have to think about all the mundane things that they normally have to do, but that adds up as stressors."
"Instead of doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, et cetera, the person is just concentrating on their well-being, and that's what's so great about hospitalization. It provides time to focus on getting better."
#14
It didn't work. The dog is on meds. Seizures are controlled now. Imagine that.
#15
#16
Drank a bunch of beer and tried to give himself an appendectomy with a steak knife on his front porch.
Wife calls 911 after she see him performing seppuko.
We roll on on scene and ask him if he want treatment/ride to the emergency department.
He looks up at us. Looks down and 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 and goes, “well s**t, let’s go, I guess”.
#17
...and 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. They got almost a liter of pus mixed with liquified protein powder out of each deltoid.
This also wasn't the first time he'd been in for this problem.
#18
Either that or the guy who crashed his motorbike, scraped his leg all to hell, and then decided the best course of action was to self-cauterize it on the tailpipe.
#19
Edit: it didn't work, he actually came in for the ensuing infection in his belly button.
