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46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
CuriositiesSEP 9, 2025

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”

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Honesty is the best policy. But not if you're sick or injured, apparently.
Reddit user Theedriplomat recently asked doctors to share the most obvious lie a patient has ever told them, but the thread quickly gained traction and received responses from nurses, paramedics, and other healthcare workers as well.
However, we don't mind it. The stories, each more ridiculous than the next, highlight a big problem: whether out of embarrassment, fear, or simple confusion, people are making their cases far more complicated than they could be.

#1

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Not a Dr, but a nurse of 20+ years. If a person is lying to you, I absolutely let them & am unbothered because they’re telling me what they want me to know about themselves.

If there is a lab or test result I need to base my care around the result, I rely on that result to give me the information to safely care for that person. If the result returned is the opposite of what a person is telling me, I know there is a deep shame, medical-based stigma, or defense mechanism in place for the person receiving care. Medical settings are not safe spaces for everyone. Let people lie. They’re going to do it anyway to protect themselves. It often tells you what you need to know and there is never a reason to shame anyone seeking care.
121points

#2

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Not sure if this counts, but while taking a new patient’s history back in 2011, he told me he was in a band.

I told him I was a musician as well. He got all excited and started to talk more about the others in his band. They were none other than The Beatles. He spoke of all of them in present tense, too.

It was a sobering moment. I never would have known he was Schizophrenic if I hadn’t asked him about his hobbies. Not up until that point, anyway. ❤️.
70points

These stories are by no means outside the norm. In 2018, two nationwide surveys of 4,510 US adults were conducted, and eight in ten respondents admitted they have not been forthcoming with their doctors about information that could be relevant to their health.

The people who were more likely to conceal the truth from their doctors were women, younger patients, and those who rated their own health as poor.

#3

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Dentist here! The man that owns the nail salon across the parking lot is my patient. Every 6 months I ask him if he smokes cigarettes. Every visit he denies it. And yet every day I watch him from my office - smoking a pack of cigarettes 🙃 Sometimes I wave 👋🏻.
70points

#4

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
I’m a physician and I have a colleague that had her prescription pad stolen. A pharmacist later called her to ask about a prescription she had apparently written: “MORFEEN, 1 pound”.
59points

#5

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
"I've been following my diabetes treatment plan"

Sir, your toes are falling off and your a1c is 14.
56points

Current-day numbers are likely even worse, as the public trust in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5% in April 2020 to just 40.1% in January 2024, according to another nationwide survey from the United States.

Some doctors reportedly "fire" patients after the first lie they notice. But if we as a society don't address the underlying causes, the cycle of secrecy and poor communication is likely to continue.

#6

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
"I didn't drink"


Sir your blood alcohol level would k**l a normal man and I can smell you from across the department.


Also you fell over twice trying to stand up.
55points

#7

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
I am a Medical Laboratory Scientist. I am the guy who plays with all the stuff your mother told you never to touch.

One day, a Labor and Delivery patient drops in and decides to have her baby. She had no prenatal care. The nurse draws her blood and sends it to the lab. I do a type and screen (Blood type and Rh). We do this on all patients because lab people are paranoid. Patient tests as A Positive; in the computer her history shows B Positive. I send the Phlebotomist to draw her blood because lab people are paranoid. Still A Positive. I dive into the history and, yep, two years previously, I was the one who typed her as B Positive.

This time, I draw her blood (because lab people are paranoid) and let the nurses know there is a blood bank discrepancy, call the physician. We can't give her type specific blood if she needs it, we will have to give her O Negative and start an investigation. (Blood types don't change except for very rare circumstances.)

As I am retyping her for the third time, (still A Positive), the nurse calls me, laughing. Our mama to be was admitted under her sister's name. She had stolen her sister's Medicaid card instead of getting one of her own. She didn't want her folks to know she was pregnant.
55points

#8

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Nurse here but I had a patient who claimed he had seizures. When he was having a “seizure” I went “I don’t know what give him to stop it” and the patient replied “fentanyl” while shaking.
54points

#9

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
My roommate from college works some hours in the ER and people still come in all the time claiming they slipped and fell a*****e first on [insert object].

I would think in 2025 this would be a thing of the past. You can literally order butt plugs online and have them shipped directly to you with no one knowing. There's no reason to keep sticking household items up there when we have so many things specifically designed to go in a butt.
51points

#10

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
I had a guy who had a lymphoma, came in not feeling well. His liver enzymes were trash, he looked like death, he was tachycardic and his blood pressures were very borderline. He kept telling me he felt fine and would be fine going home. We spent all day on the phone back and forth with oncology and infectious disease and the worry was that his lymphoma had transformed to a more aggressive type. Overnight his blood pressure tanked and he went to the ICU (for my medical people, his overnight lactate was 12). He wouldn't let the overnight resident call his family because "he was fine." He died the next day. Very, very sad case.

If a doctor asks to call your loved ones because they're worried about how sick you are, believe them!
48points

#11

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
NAD, but I work IT in a hospital. I had a ticket to replace a keyboard in an ER and got chewed out by a Dr. for response time (I was actually as prompt as possible for my part)… as I was working I overhear the same Dr was making small talk boasting about this and that when a nurse came in and explained some test results for a patient the Dr. had which proved that the patient wasn’t lying about being sober and actually having some concerning results.

The Dr laughed about it and said he assumed they were lying and drunk because they were so sloppy… and it was not said in a funny way, but a demeaning way.

All I could think about was how much I hated that if I were that patient I would hope the Dr would believe me when I said I didn’t drink but that my seeming drunkenness was worrying symptom. It scared me a bit.
47points

#12

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Not my case, but my mothers(we work together, we're both dentists). She starts extracting a tooth of an elderly lady after thougroughly going through what medication she takes, any chronic conditions, etc. She asks her if she takes any anti-coagulants(blood no stop if taken). Nope. She doesn't take any. Any Aspirin? Nope, no Aspirin. So my mum extracts the tooth and now the wound won't stop bleeding. My mum asks again about anti-coagulants, specifically. Nope. After 30 more minutes of this and an X-Ray to check if there were any root fragments left in the socket, the patient, now distressed that she still won't stop bleeding says something along the lines of "Maybe I shouldn't have taken (insert anti-coagulant brand name here) this morning". And that's, Reddit, is how I learned to suture wounds.
44points

#13

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Not a doctor but a former vet tech. The number of people who would swear to me up and down that they don't do d***s and there is zero chance their dog could get them...while their dog is obviously h**h on pot.

"Well, we do have this *potpourri* that is pot scented..."

Listen, for one: no one wants a pot scented air freshener. Two: I don't give a s**t, I just need you to tell me what it was so we can treat your pet. Three: maybe ease back on the w**d so you stop leaving it where your dog (and probably children) have access to it.
44points

#14

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Remember kids: tell the police nothing, tell the medical professionals everything.
40points

#15

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
I'm not a doctor, but a friend of mine works in an ER in Mormonville, Utah. Weirdly, per his stories, a lot of 110% heterosexual men will walk through their kitchen with no pants, slip on accident, and fall onto a cucumber that has lube on it! It's really weird, tbh. I'm not sure how cucumber accidents keep happening to ***definitely*** straight men with wives and kids.

Jokes aside, there is nothing wrong with gay or bi, ***and***!!!! nothing wrong with being a straight man who likes toys in the a*s. Please, just use something meant for a**l. Cucumbers are not meant to be put in any hole other than your mouth.
38points

#16

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
I've had a lot of pain that has landed me in the ER. I've been treated horribly at times. It's crazy when I tell them that intravenous toradol normally helps a lot, if I haven't had it recently. Toradol is a non-narcotic. I've never felt a mental effect (other than relief) from it. It works like an instant anti-inflammatory and just eases the pain significantly. I've had drs scream that I was " d**g seeking, and they weren't going to give me anything" change to " oh sure" when I mention toradol.
36points

#17

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Me: Do you smoke?

Patient: No

Me: But you're left handed, yeh?

Patient: How did you know that?

Me: You have tar stains on the fingers of your left hand.
34points

#18

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
Can I chime in but reverse? I had just had a baby and was recovering in hospital, and when bubs cried she would do this really h**h pitched scream. I’d get random nurses and doctors come in throughout the day asking me if I smoked, or had alcohol much while pregnant, or if I drank too much coffee? Asking how was I feeling? Checking my vitals? Really random questions. Finally a midwife came in and lo and behold she was my childhood friends mother! We had a chat, she cuddled my baby, she heard bubs scream cry and looked at my chart and laughed. She told me babies with such a h**h pitch scream are normally the ones suffering withdrawals. They thought I was a user of something 😭.
34points

#19

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
My sibling is a doctor and told me of a time a girl was very obviously faking seizures, and when another doctor said she was faking it she stopped mid-"seizure" and said "NO I'M NOT".
34points

#20

46 Delusional Patients That Thought Doctors Wouldn’t Find Out Their “Secret”
“I was just standing on the corner minding my own business when someone drove by and blew white stuff in my face. THAT’S why I tested positive for c*****e.”.
34points
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