21 Shocking Patient Stories Where Doctors Sensed Danger Before Symptoms Appeared

I had chest pain with physical exertion that would stop when I rested. Weight lifting and other non-cardio workouts were fine but I couldn’t run for longer than 10 minutes without the chest pain returning and having a bit of a hard time catching my breath. I went to the emergency room a few times growing up with these complaints and they’d always do an EKG, angiogram, echo, and MRI. They said I had a mild heart murmur. At 22 I presented post cardiac arrest while riding my bike to work on campus. After rechecking they found that I had anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery. It’s a very rare birth defect, 1 in every 300,000 live births has it, only 1 in 10 survive past infancy if it’s caught before the infant goes into cardiac arrest.

newnurse1989 , user25451090 Report

I was similar as a kid. After general anesthesia I’d sleep for 12-24 hours. My parents would routinely warn medical staff, and it was one of the biggest things they told my husband when we married. It got worse the older I got, nearly 30 hours asleep at 18 after a minor ear procedure. I’m generally fairly sensitive to things such as [relaxing medication] and [anti-allergy medication]. I’d take 0.25 mg of [relaxing medication] and sleep for 20+ hours. Half a normal [anti-allergy medication] puts me out 12+.

goins_going_gone23 , freepik Report

Had a pt who was post-op from a regular procedure. Her hand at the wrist looked like a Tetris piece. I asked her about it and she says, “Oh yeah. I went for a CT and had a tumble. It swelled up but I put some ice on it until the swelling went away. It doesn’t really hurt anymore. Should I get an x ray?”.

xmageforcex123 , Drazen Zigic Report

RT here.

I had a patient once tell me they have a CPAP but don’t use it. I asked why, and they said that it gives a copper/metallic taste, as if there’s something wrong with the CPAP.

I pondered this for a moment until I asked if they’re on well water. They were. They were using tap water to fill the humidifier.

nehpets99 , artursafronovvvv Report

I’m an ER RN now but when I was a firefighter paramedic we had a family drive up to the fire station in a panic. Their 12yo daughter was unconscious and unresponsive. Breathing 4-6x/min, pinpoint pupils. She’d had surgery that morning at a children’s hospital for wisdom teeth and was discharged alert/normal. Apparently she hadn’t metabolized the anesthesia fully and the reversal wore off first. We had to give her 8mg of [medicine] to bring her around, but she ended up admitted on a [medicine] drip for a couple days before being released!! I still have a newspaper article about it here somewhere. Wild stuff.

firefightin Report

My husband was recently admitted with sepsis. He fought me about even going in. At one point in the ED I mentioned that I was concerned about his rapid respiratory rate and he said he just needed to tell himself to slow his breathing. 😒.

rosietherose931 , pikisuperstar Report

We had a patient in the ICU that was unresponsive, ended up on a ventilator and remained unresponsive. They were trying to figure out what was causing her condition. Her husband would come in with their two small children and just stand there with a flat affect, no emotion whatsoever at the end of the bed. The second day she was there the nurse said to him that it might be best for their kids if they weren’t there seeing their mother like that. His reply was “they’ve seen her worse than this.” Huh? Worse? The interactions with him were very strange.

Dark_Izzlefoshizzle , DC Studio Report

I work in an ambulatory center and had a family tell me their 6 year old spikes a 102-103F fever at least once or twice a day for no known reason, he had full work ups with specialists and they still couldn’t find out why so they were hoping having his tonsils out would help. We had to cancel him bc how would we know if he was randomly spiking a temp or if it was MH…I felt bad but that was absolutely something that needed to be done in hospital setting.

kateleehoops , freepik Report

It takes me 30 hours to metabolize 20mg of [sinus decongestant]. I mention this to the anesthesiologist as a warning that I may process stuff weirdly.

Jumpsuit_boy , freepik Report

Peds PACU here…parents lie on purpose or omit things because of low IQ levels all the time. Illnesses, autism, allergies, etc. haven’t heard this one though!

Also, some anesthesia consults are so quick they would never ask this many questions to get to the bottom of something like this.

wonanddones , gpointstudio Report