Bemused Doctors Expose The Things People Most Commonly Lie To Them About (62 Examples)

I’m not taking anything else.’ I had a patient with recurring stomach pain that didn’t quite fit the rest of the picture. I went through their medications twice and everything looked fine. Later, while asking about their daily routine, I asked if they took anything for headaches. They said, ‘Only when I really need it.’ Turns out they were taking ibuprofen almost every day. They genuinely hadn’t thought of it as something worth mentioning because it was over-the-counter.

Vaping.

I’m an anesthesiologist and you immediately know by how much secretions are in the endotracheal tube, how much they cough when they get extubated, and how the heart rate and blood pressure respond because of all the nicotine.

Not a doctor - I’m a medic. There’s this thing called cyclical vomiting syndrome where people that are habitual, heavy p*t users develop. They smoke w**d, it makes them nauseous, they smoke more w**d (because in the past that helped with nausea) and they get more nauseous. The only thing that gives them relief is hot showers.

We know who these patients are. We deal with them many times over. Yet they’ll get in the ambulance and tell me they’ve been vomiting non-stop and the only thing that makes it feel better is a hot shower before swearing they haven’t smoked p*t.

Also, they usually smell like p*t.

I'm not the doctor, but my dad's a child psychiatrist. Parents will always lie about how often they argue, whether or not they're having problems in their relationship, etc.

ETA: It's also especially obvious when parents try to coach the child to lie about it too.

My buddy is a surgeon who specializes in bowel stuff. Patients routinely lie about cleansing the day before. He just goes in expecting s**t everywhere.

You didn't actually fall on that. You stuck it up your a*s impulsively and had no way to retrieve it.

Used to be a phlebotomist, we knew most of the time when people would give us fake p*e for pre employment screenings. I’d ask them once to give them a chance to be honest, telling them the test will tell us if it’s real and clean urine or not and each and every time they chose to insist it was real urine. I’m not a cop, I’m not gonna arrest you but when I tell the company that just hired you that you gave us fake p*e that’s gonna follow you for while (small area, employers would talk to each other and thus it’s very easy to gain a bed reputation).

Doctor here: almost everything. Like for real, we know bro. We're just not challenging you on it because I can't spend my day arguing with people. People don't understand that everyone lies to us constantly, our job is actually to try to suss out a reasonable history and treatment plan based on a mountain of less-than-credible info. I don't even trust other doctors diagnoses because people can be wrong. But lying to your doctor only hurts you. We don't judge you for not taking your meds or doing d***s or whatever, we judge you for lying right to our face and then expecting us to figure things out with incomplete information. It's maddening.

Sup. Dentist here. Mostly it's about brushing and flossing. Rarely is it at the frequency they say it is. Smoking and vaping is another one where people will lie about frequency.

When I told my doctor the amount of units I drank a week, he added 25%ish to it. I saw him do it, then I pulled him up on it, pointing out that the number I had told him was already quite silly. Why would I lie about that? .

Flossing for the dentists for sure. And smoking. The tannins are much different than those of coffee/wine.

Therapist here, you can tell me all day you did your exercises but when you've seen years and years of people who do vs people who don't it's obvious almost immediately. Also if you aren't progressing but you are doing your exercises, you should absolutely be telling us this because it could be a different issue. There's no shame in it, but lying about it makes us think you don't care.

I don't know if it's lying exactly, but it's amazing how far off people tend to be when telling you about their weight fluctuations. In our EMR you can easily trend weight, which I do whenever someone mentions a big weight change.

"I've gained 20 pounds in a year!" Trend weight: up 2 pounds since last year

"I've lost 30 pounds since January!" Trend weight: down 5 pounds this year.

Trying to explain it away as a basic UTI instead of an STI so they don't look like they were going wild in the sheets.

Illegally using Q-Tips to clean your ears. Doctors ask if you use Q-Tips WHILE they're looking in your ears. They can already see the cotton wisps in there! Don't lie! "yes, I use Q-Tips in my ear canal. Are you going to snitch on me?".

I had a patient with a routine lab analysis with elevated liver enzymes and muscle cell damage biomarkers shortly after starting a statin therapy for his hyperlipidemia.
I strongly suggested that the medication was causing it and for the next 15 minutes he was stubbornly denying it, straight up negating my explanations until he finally confessed that he hadn’t even started taking the medication.
It wasn’t obvious at first in this case however i can usually deduce when someone is lying about their medication adherence.

That they shaved their b***s! I worked in urology with a doctor who specialized in male fertility. He did in-office vasectomies. I had to prep the patients and assist with the surgery. Part of the prep was making sure the area on the s*****m was clean and clear of hair. 9/10 times I would ask the patient if they shaved, they would say yes, and when would lift the sheet, they would be full on hairy!! Then I would sigh and get out the razor. I never cut anyone, but I wouldn't have felt bad if I did.

Domestic violence… you don’t rupture your drum by “falling off the bed” as an adult in your sleep.

Taking their prescription meds.

How many hotdogs they have in a day.