Article created by: Ilona Baliūnaitė
While it never hurts to have an open mind, there are certain professionals you really should listen to. These include, but are not limited to lawyers, plumbers, and, of course, doctors. The pages of history and countless interpersonal tales have all been told about the trials and tribulations of people who decided that they knew better than a medical professional.
But one netizen was curious to hear from people who decided to second guess doctors and, contrary to most cases, ended up not regretting it. From comical to tragic, people shared medical mishaps where they decided to trust their intuition and it ended up paying off. We got in touch with Dave deBronkart, activist, cancer patient, and author to learn more.
More info: Quora
#1
I was 22 at the time and a first time mom to a 6 month old baby girl. I was doing my best but things were very tight to put it mildly. My periods had not been at all regular since giving birth so when I found myself very late I went to a walk in clinic to get tested. The Dr walked in with my results and informed me I was pregnant. I was beside myself with anxiety about the very idea of having another child at this point in my life and asked him “what are my options?” aka, please point me in the direction of help. His response was unexpected to say the least. “I have two girls and I love them dearly" and that was it. I stared at him blankly thinking in my panicked 22 year old mommy brained state “but, I'm not married to a doctor"….and then he left. I did manage to find the help I needed, despite my clearly pro-life Dr's very unhelpful advice. To all that would choose to chastise my decision, don't bother. I am staunchly pro-choice, and this experience only solidified it. What would have happened to me and my babies had I been forced to give birth to another baby is no life I would wish on any child or woman, especially if there is another option.
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#2
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#3
After a motorcycle accident my doctor recommended the amputation of my right foot, claiming that I would never regain feeling in it, and it would be a bother for the rest of my life, I decided not to and see how it went, two years later, severe itching started, one year later, all feeling came back. 40 years later I’m still able to do everything, although it does still hurt a little when it’s starting to rain.
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#8
At nine months pregnant, my water broke at home. I called my OB and was told to come in and see her. She examined me. She said I'm 4–5 cm dilated and to go home and have lunch, take a nap, and enjoy the afternoon. This was 4:30 p.m. 'Are you sure? Shouldn't I head to the hospital now? I feel I should go straight there,' I asked. This being my second child, I felt uneasy with the advice. But, she's the expert. She got defensive and said, 'How dare you second guess me? I've delivered hundreds of babies!'" "I had no car. I took the bus home. By the time I got home an hour later, I was in active labor. Contractions were two minutes apart. Blinding pain. Panicked. Incredibly stressed and overwhelmed by the urgency for help. I got a ride to the hospital and almost delivered in the car. I had the baby within minutes of arriving shortly after 6 p.m. A huge and healthy 11-pound boy. I didn't even have time to take my jacket or shoes off. My pants had to be cut open by a nurse.
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#14
When I was 14 I had to leave school because my stomach was hurting really bad. Both my parents were working but I called my Mom. She told me to go to the doctor's office. When the old guy who was our family doctor saw me and heard my complaint about the pain in my stomach, without even touching me or taking my temperature he told me I was having my period and that is the cause of the pain. I was not having a period and I really did not know what to do but I went home and lay down on the couch. My Grandma came home from the store and took one look at me and took my temperature. It was really high. She heard the story of my trip to the doctor. Without further ado she put me in the car and drove me to the Emergency ward at the local hospital. She went in with me and quite loudly demanded I be seen at once. From there it was emergency surgery to remove my appendix! The surgeon told my Grandma that another hour or so my appendix would have burst. I refused to go to that doctor again even if he had been our doctor for donkey’s years. Good thing I did not really need a doctor for a long while after that.
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#16
After three weeks of suffering from what I thought was the flu and taking OTC meds, I made my way to the doctor. He informed me all I had was a mild head cold. It felt a lot worse than that, and I told him so. His response was, 'Nonsense. Go home, take a nice hot shower, climb into bed, have some chicken noodle soup, and keep taking the OTC meds.' Within a week, my so-called head cold had turned into a nasty case of bronchitis. I was sick as a dog for six more weeks. By the time I saw another doctor, she said it was borderline pneumonia.
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#19
My husband was having a problem with his arm. He was having a lot of pain! The PA comes in and asks him about the problem. My husband explained what pain he was having with his arm -- doing just every day things like getting dressed, etc. The PA walks up to him and jerks his arm back really fast. My husband screamed in pain. The PA says that it is no big deal. Just don't move your arm. He tells him to go home and stop moving his arm. My husband had to go to another doctor and it turned out that he had a pinched nerve,
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I had been feeling poorly and had a cough that wouldn’t go away. I visited several specialists trying to get a diagnosis. These included and internal medicine specialist, an oncologist, a hematologist and an ENT. After my exam the ENT explained that a cough irritates the throat and if I would just stop coughing I would stop coughing. And, for that bit of wisdom he needed medical school. Later I found I had non-hodgkins lymphoma, with the tumor located in the middle of my chest. This process took 11 months to get the diagnosis Ultimately chemo cured the cancer and the cough went away.
Not me, but my husband. He was suffering from a bad earache, so he went to a local doctor. The doctor’s wife was his nurse. She in all seriousness told him the ear pain was being caused by evil spirits. It didn’t take him long to get out of there and find a different doctor. People are nuts.
I had a knife stab in one side of my index finger and the tip was protruding through the other side. It was pulled out immediately and I knew it didn't feel right so went to see a doctor.
I told him it was hurting and I was having trouble bending it. He said it looks fine and to keep it clean. I reminded him that it does not feel right and it was stabbed through. He asked me very condescendingly if I wanted a bandaid with a smirk on his face. He applied one and said there ya go then he walked out.
About an hour later I felt something sharp. The tendon had been sliced by the knife and snapped going down my finger and into my palm. It required an initial surgery to open my finger and hand to find, feed up to the other end and reattach it, then plenty of stitches. I then needed physio to make sure I kept fluid motion in my finger.
A few months later I needed a follow up surgery to remove scarring from where it was reattached so I could get better motion bending it. Then more stitches and more physio.
Thank you for the fu#%ing bandaid and the condescending smile.
My wife was in a very bad car accident about 16 years ago. She was kept sedated in the ICU for 6 weeks, leg amputated, pins in her hip and pelvis, nerve damage in the other leg, infected de-gloving wound on her hip, etc. After stabilizing, she was transferred to the care of a hospital more to the liking of the insurance company. We met with the head of ortho there to find out the plan. We expected that he would talk about when to remove the pins since the well-respected doctor who put them in said they would come out when the new bone is strong enough due to the risk of infection.
Instead, this doctor said there was no reason to remove the metal. We should just relax, plan a trip to Tahiti and lie on the beach drinking Mai Tais. We left the office stunned and concluded that he didn’t expect her to live much longer no matter what they did.
Of course, the wound got infected, canceling a planned skin graft (that would likely have failed). We checked into the ER at the other hospital. They removed the metal and after many more surgeries, she’s alive and doing better than anyone expected.
Not me, but my husband. He was prepping for quadruple bypass surgery and the doctor's notes included administering a pregnancy test. We had a good laugh about it and when the nurse came in, we pointed it out, laughing. She didnt find it humorous and said that if the doctor ordered it, she had to administer it. She was dead serious. I demanded she get the charge nurse and finally the test was removed from his file.
Me to Military Doctor: “Sir, I've been having really bad headaches and a stiff neck after my parachute malfunctioned and I hit my head pretty hard and lost consciousness.”
Military Doc: “Maybe get your boyfriend to give you a shoulder massage. Next!”
I am a chronic pain patient, stemming from a series of accidents. I've had more surgeries and procedures on my mid and lower back than I care to recount. I see a pain specialist, and due to how quickly I build a tolerance (to everything, not only pain meds) combined with shifting insurance formularies, I have to bounce between different meds. Occasionally I try a new one; sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. After insurance changes forced a 4th change in 6 mo, I ended up in the ER with blinding headaches, vomiting blood. The ER doc told me just to stop taking the pain med, saying that if I have that much pain regularly, physical and mental detox should be easy. I just gaped at her, and asked if they could try to get someone from my pain clinic to second the recommendation, as I trust them implicitly. The heifer looked at me and said, “sooner or later you're going to have to come to Jesus!” I opened the collar of my shirt, brought out my star of David and told her that if she could show me what office to go to have a consult with Jesus, I'd be more than happy to, but I thought I was in a hospital not a church, and that maybe she would have better luck as a televangelist than as a doctor. The assigned nurse was right outside the door, along with a few other random people, and they about exploded trying not to laugh. The nurse got the on-call at my pain doc on the phone and the head doc came to the ER at 4am on a weekend to oversee my care, he had me admitted for 3days to do a rapid detox and be monitored on a new med to ensure there were no repeat issues. But yeah, treating people wasn't her job, because “Jesus Saves!”
I was vomiting blood and had severe abdominal pain. I went to the ER at one of the NYU hospitals here in NYC. The young doctor (not sure if he’s a resident or real doctor) gave me an ultrasound when he said he would give me a CT scan. I was not given a blood test or any pain medication. I was there for more than five hours. I got sent home with some medication that he said would keep my food down. Of course, it did not, and I kept on vomiting. Two days later, I was in so much pain that I could not even sit straight. I got picked up by an ambulance, and the EMS told me to make sure I get a blood test and CAT scan. My appendix ruptured, and it was almost too late for me as the juices were all over my other organs.
For years, I had such head-splitting headaches that they limited me more and more in my activities. I gradually stopped going to noisy, bustling places, I avoided the outdoors when the sun was too harsh, or even worse when the sky was a bright milky white. That felt like stabbing my eyes with daggers. And then the smallest effort that would increase my heart beat started triggering migraines, too. I used to live in a pretty large house and had twins, so I was constantly going up and down the stairs, but it came to a point when I had to sit down after climbing a single flight of stairs. My husband was a neurologist, but he was at a loss what treatment to give me given the severity of my symptoms, so he got me an appointment with a neurologist at a university hospital. I told that doctor about my suffering and he said : suffering as much as you describe it doesn’t exist and you should take up sport. You’re stressed, you need to relax. And that was that. Thank you, doctor. Did you hear a word of what I said?
In the early 2000s I got an ingrown toenail. It bled every day and wasn’t healing on its own.
I went to the doctor and he told me “Do the Ooh-Ahh Method. The ‘Ooh’ is when you lift the nail, the ‘Aah’ is when the pain goes away. It’ll heal.”
I did that. It didn’t heal. Doctor kept telling me to do that. I almost lost my toe, but 3.5 years later it finally stopped bleeding and healed.
For the record I didn’t have health insurance, so seeking more medical treatment wasn’t an option.
Get married! I had a skiing accident and had to go to a neurologist because I had landed pretty hard and messed up my neck and spine. After an examination, he remarked “what you need to do is get married”. What?? I had no idea how he thought that would help my problem, and of course, left and went to another doctor. Recently, I had to go to a neurologist again (Parkinson’s disease diagnosis) and made sure I walked right past this other neurologist’s office, remembering his stupid diagnosis.
Take Vitamin E.
I had horrific abdominal pain that I’d been trying to ignore for a while since I dislike seeing a doctor, but one morning I woke up around 3 am, with a raging fever and so much pain that I started to vomit from it. I finally agreed to see a doctor, but our normal doctor was out, so my husband took me to a gyno that was recommended by my SILs.
While waiting for my appointment, I vomited a few more times, then entered the office, doubled over in pain and sweating. The doctor pressed on my abdomen, did an ultrasound and said, “Yeah, your uterus is inflamed. It happens. You’re getting older, so this is normal.” (I was 35) He then prescribed Vitamin E.
Fast forward three days, my husband drags me to our regular doctor since I am curled up in pain and unable to move much at all anymore (he had to help me to the bathroom). Our GP immediately puts me on antibiotics, runs tests and then tells me that basically every system in my body was severely infected and if I’d waited one more day, I likely would have died. Getting old, my foot.
It took me six months to recover from the infection. I could barely walk for several months and fell ill at the shake of a hat.
brought my newborn baby home with green slimy poop and in constant pain. After three days I called the pediatrician who was new to this country and did not speak English very well. He told me to feed him bananas. I said, “Doctor he’s three DAYS (not months) old. I can’t do that!” He insisted, “Ya, ya, feed him beenannas!” My mother-in-law who raised five children was there and asked what the doctor said, so I told her. I also told her I was not going to do that. I left to run an errand and when I came home my mother-in-law was feeding my three DAY old baby bananas. Thankfully he survived a young mother who didn’t know what she was doing, a mother-in-law who should have known better, and a pediatrician who did not understand English.
My 5 year old son was vomiting at least once a week for a full month and had chronic diarrhea. He acted normally and was eating/ drinking fine and didn't have a fever. The first week, I figured it was the flu/cold that everyone had. The second week, I called his pediatrician and asked to be seen.
The office told me to give it another week, BRAT* diet..yada yada. After three weeks, I called and insisted on being seen. They again told me to “wait it out," I requested that they at least do a stool sample, because no child should have vomiting once a week for three weeks. The nurse refused and told me to give him Imodium for the diarrhea. I said, “Did you even bother to read his chart?!!” She replied that of course, that she had it in front of her. I told her flat out that she was either lying or the doctor kept horrible notes, because he was severely allergic to Imodium!! Hives, epi pen etc.
I hung up on her and promptly brought him to the ER. The doctor was horrified that they hadn't even tested his stool, set me up with a gastroenterologist first thing in the morning. The gastro saw that he had lost several pounds over the three weeks and said that it was a classic sign of Crohn’s disease and was horrified the doctor let it go on so long. Luckily, he was just lactose intolerant, something that could have been figured out much quicker if he had just been seen.
*BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, toast
About three years ago, I was going through a little bout of depression. Nothing serious, just not quite feeling myself. (I wasn’t actually in for depression — just a regular annual check-up.) At the time, I was on Buspar, a mild antidepressant. I had agreed to see a resident physician, as my regular physician was on an extended leave of absence. Normally, if I am seeing a provider who doesn’t know me, I don’t come right out and tell them I’m a doctor (there’s no need for them to know that and I don’t want them to think I’m looking over their shoulder). My encounter with this resident was no exception.
The resident had took note of my PHQ-9 score, which indicated mild depression. He had taken the time to notice that and notice the antidepressant I was on, which could possibly be increased. Rather than increasing the dosage I was on, however, he recommended I try a different antidepressant and said he wanted to put me on Wellbutrin. The problem is, Wellbutrin is known to be very dangerous in people with epilepsy, which I’ve had for a long time and, although well-controlled in my case, is very clearly visible in my chart.
I had to come right out and have a teaching moment with this resident. Lucky for him I did that, or else he would have got a chiding from his attending.
Dr. Paul
I ended up getting a minor second-degree burn on my hand. Just some blisters, nothing too big. However, they started looking red and angry, and I was worried about infection, so I went to the town’s urgent care. It’s a small town, with an old-school doctor who I learned needs a definite refresher in medicine. My burn wasn’t infected, but the doctor told me it would never heal unless I popped the blisters. He said that blisters won’t heal unless you pop them. Not only that, but he said to pop them, I should get a wash cloth and gently rub the blisters until they popped! I was dumbfounded.
Anyone knows you should NEVER pop blisters if you can help it. Popping a blister is not only incredibly painful, but opens you up to infection and often results in longer healing time and scarring. He was serious! I just smiled and nodded and left, telling myself I’d never return and let everyone know to not go there. By the way, my burn healed fine without popping the blisters. Just goes to show you that popping them was a bad idea!
Use cornstarch for radiation burns from cancer radiation treatment. Geez. (It doesn't help).
I used colloidal silver cream instead. It worked!!!!
As an aside, during the time of the radiation treatment, I developed very severe hot flashes. Never had them before. While waiting for my treatment I quietly asked another (older) female patient if she experienced the same. She said yes. There were two older male patients in the waiting room as well; they overheard our hot flash discussion. Both weighed in, saying they were having hot flashes too!
The radiation oncology doctor, Dr. Cornstarch, said having hot flashes during radiation treatment isn't caused by the radiation. Hmmmm…. Despite four people saying otherwise?
The hot flashes ended when the radiation treatments were over.
I wasn’t the patient, it was my dad.
We were on a ski trip in another country and my dad was snow boarding on his own as I had split up with him earlier in the day. None of us really know what actually happened, the theory was he caught an edge dropping into a run but he was then found by ski patrol who suspected a spinal injury. They took him down off the mountain into the urgent care clinic at the bottom of the hill. Now knowing they thought he had a spinal injury, nobody ever bothered to actually x-ray or even check his back. I have no idea why. They told him “go see a chiropractor in 3 days” and sent him away. He walked back to our accommodation, by chance I’d gotten back just before he came in. He was in shock and a ton of pain, but he essentially lay down and then couldn’t get back up. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do besides turning the heating on and giving him a drink. I didn’t get the full story at the time, just gathered he had a back injury from snowboarding but I do remember him saying to me “it’ll be fine in a few days when the swelling goes down.” We later got the full story about what he’d been told by the doctor and even though I was only 15 I remember thinking ‘they knew it was his back, potentially a spinal injury, why didn’t they at least x-ray it?’ It just seemed odd to me that he’d been sent back home in his condition, especially when I found out he’d been told to see a chiropractor.
3 Days later he still couldn’t get up and swelling hadn’t gone down. He was just lucky my mum used to work in home care so knew how to help him able to help him. However, he was still in lots of pain and unable to even turn over. My mum and I made the decision to call an ambulance so that he could get checked out. Back at the same urgent care unit, there was a competent doctor who agreed that his back needed an x-ray. He had broken the L4 vertebrae, he was just lucky that it had perfectly broken in half and hadn’t become displaced. Had the wrong move been made or the fracture worse than it was it could have easily become a spinal case. He ended up in the main hospital about 2 hours out for about 5 days, was on the verge of needing surgery and faced a long recovery period.
To this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t check his back at all when they thought he had a spinal injury. But yeah “just go see a chiropractor” it’ll be fine.
When our son was about 6 months old, he stopped gaining weight. Eventually, our pediatrician referred us to a pediatric endocrinologist at a large teaching hospital. We were going there every week. Our son was growing taller but not gaining weight. I think we were stuck on 16 lbs 9 ounces. He was chubby when this started. The good news was he never looked or acted sick. After about two months of weekly visits, the doctor said he didn’t want to see us for 6 weeks.
I asked the doctor, “at what point does this become serious, ….. like… ICU serious?”
He answered, “ummmm, about 6 weeks.”
It was a Friday. We left the office, got on the elevator. That elevator door closed and I went ballistic… “ what kind of stupid f’ing plan is that??? Do nothing for 6 weeks and then put him in ICU!!! STUPID!!! That is BS….. we are not going to do nothing for 6 weeks then put him in ICU. We are going some place else Monday!!!”
That was the dumbest thing a doctor has ever recommended to me.
To finish the story, we left the hospital and went straight to our pediatrician. He had received the report from the pediatric endocrinologists. It concluded that our child wasn’t getting enough to eat. I asked, “what do you think about that Doc?”
He answered, “well…., this isn’t your first child…., your wife ran a daycare…., you are not some 16 year old novice… I think you know how to feed a baby.” (We were 37)
He set us up with a pediatric gastroenterologist Monday at the same teaching hospital. She saw us, wanted to have our son swallow a capsule on a string, with a knife inside, take a sample of intestine, knock him out and pull it back up. I stalled her off about 3 weeks, finally, she said, “we have GOT.. to get some weight… on this kid! Screw balanced diet… PUSH … the… calories!!! You take him home and feed him anything he will eat even if it is nothing but powdered donuts. PUSH!… the calories!”
By now, he is getting really skinny.. still getting taller, still not acting or looking like he feels sick. Took him home, sat him on the kitchen counter top, wife made him a glass of Nestles chocolate milk using whole milk. He chugged the whole glass… made him a second glass… he chugged it too. Right then and there, things started getting better.
Ultimate diagnosis was that he was allergic to all the formulas.
Today, he is 27, grew to 6’3” about 185. Made an engineer. Getting married in about 6 weeks.
After that episode, he was never chubby again. Up to 6 months old, he had stout legs, like a fullback. Afterwards, he was always thin.
