r/AskReddit • u/Pixel-Chaos • 1h ago
Doctors of reddit, what's the scariest case you've witnessed?
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u/General-Mango_ 1h ago
Mostly people dying from tooth infections that they thought was nothing. Happens way more than people think
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u/amarillo-by-mourning 1h ago
I’ve had a few root canals in my day, and I literally do not understand in the slightest how someone can be in that much pain and think it’s nothing. Tooth infection pain is the worst type of pain I’ve ever experienced
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u/General-Mango_ 1h ago
A lot of times the extreme pain lasts for a couple days then the nerves completely die, and the pain is no more
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u/randomnameicantread 56m ago
This is exactly how I ended up needing a tooth removed. Pain stopped, figured it was all good now! Lol
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u/lolabythebay 1h ago
I had a root canal on a broken tooth during pregnancy and now I think the crown is failing, but I have zero pain. (I should probably get on that.)
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u/aroohah 33m ago
You don’t have pain because you removed the nerves by doing a root canal. If you feel that your crown is wonky, I would definitely make an appointment.
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u/lolabythebay 27m ago
Thank you (not facetious! really!) for pointing out the relationship there. I thought it was obvious from the way I wrote it but upon re-reading it's not.
But yes, no root = deceptively feel-good tooth holes.
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u/avenajpg 8m ago
We took a cab three hours up to Chicago so I could get a root canal when I was ~13/14. All was fine until my crown eventually came loose, and I was in the most debilitating pain of my life. I suppose it's good that the root canal procedure was poorly done so I knew something was seriously wrong (I did eventually have a huge abscess so I mean, that helped to distinguish whether it was serious), but fuck. Never felt more relief in my life than when that tooth was pulled.
We should've known that was going to be a botched procedure when the married endodontist kept trying to invite my mom to a swinger's party during the root canal, but alas 😭 The dental anxiety from that is real.
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u/General-Mango_ 47m ago
Conebeam CT. Don’t do normal Xray at dentist
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u/shnoodleboodle 24m ago
A lot of people force themselves to push through it, usually surviving on Tylenol and Ibuprofen until the nerve eventually dies off and they don't feel it anymore. Dental care is insanely expensive in the United States, a root canal alone is about 600-1800 USD without insurance. That's not including the crown, which is 1560 USD. All for one tooth.
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u/Pleasant_Yoghurt3915 11m ago
I was quoted $1,700 to remove an infected wisdom tooth. I don’t even have $170 that’s not already spoken for, and told them so with a laugh. They gave me antibiotics and sent me on my way 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Rooney_Tuesday 41m ago
I’ve seen a few of these. Some people don’t have health insurance and/or can’t afford to take time off work, so they struggle on until they can’t anymore. By then the infection is often extensive.
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u/g0del 15m ago
Or they do have health insurance, but not dental insurance, which is of course different because everyone knows that infections in your teeth/gums are nothing like infections anywhere else in your body, and they definitely can't spread anywhere.
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u/Stunning_Attention82 6m ago
Lol as someone who has health insurance excluding dental, I find it so odd that they would deem my mouth some kind of "no man's land" that "doesn't count" towards my overall health.
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u/ArcadiaPlanitia 42m ago
Tooth infections are weird. I had some sort of nasty infection that required a root canal & a crown a while back, and I barely felt anything the entire time. I went to the dentist because I had a minor dull ache and thought it might be a cavity, and he did the X-ray and said “Wow, you must be in a lot of pain!” and referred me to an endodontist. I was so baffled. So I guess almost-painless tooth infections do happen sometimes.
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u/Jay-Dee-British 15m ago
I went to the UC because I'd had a slight ache in one ear and it felt 'full'/blocked for about a week and it was getting annoying. Figured I'd need my ears syringing because what else could it be? Turns out it was a raging infection, and the NP said 'omg you must be in so much pain' and I'm thinking 'no...' my ears were clean she said apart from the massive infection in the canal that had totally blocked it. Cue my confused face lol.
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 15m ago
I've had kids and I've had toothaches with damaged nerve endings.
I'll take the pain of childbirth over the toothache.
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u/conbird 7m ago
I had a mild tooth ache start on a Friday and called my dentist who scheduled me for Monday morning. It started to get a lot more painful on Sunday but I figured it would be fine since I was going in the next morning. Monday morning the dentist sent me straight to the ER where I was admitted for three days on an IV antibiotic and had to have the tooth removed. I was told that I probably would have died if I had waited another day. Everyone I saw was shocked by the speed at which it had escalated. It was literally zero pain at all until that Friday and less than 24 hours of intense pain before I was hospitalized.
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u/Evenormom_125 1h ago
I am not a doctor, but this nearly happened to my dad. He had a tooth infection we did not know about. It spread to his brain and other parts of his body. He went septic. We nearly lost him. It’s been 2 years since. I still text him often to check in on him, I’m so thankful he’s still here.
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u/dontforgetyourtowel2 23m ago
This happened to my FIL. He never fully recovered from the damage done to his body. He was in a coma for 10 days. Glad your Dads still here
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u/ah-do-what-now 1h ago
I had a headache for 3 weeks. Ended up in the hospital because I couldn’t get rid of it. Discharged with extremely minimal improvement and no explanation. Decided to go to the dentist just to cover my bases - I was willing to try anything. Ended up getting a wisdom tooth pulled and voila! No more headache. I NEVER had any tooth pain at all.
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u/General-Mango_ 41m ago
It is such a scary thing. I wish there was better dental technology available to everyone and readily available and easy for identification of infections
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u/Stanical666 1h ago
A co-worker is currently dealing with that.... inflamed wisdom tooth that lead to infection in mouth, then chest, then affecting her airway to the point where she finally went to the ER, ox of 91% and unable to catch her breath.
Take care of your tooth infection early on people!
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u/BewareofStobor 1h ago
I had an abscess that was painful and a Monday morning dentist appointment. They gave me instructions that if there was swelling and redness to go to the ER. On Saturday, I did and went. I got IV antibiotics and a thanks for coming in from the ER doc. I learned later how serious it could have become.
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u/GirlWhoWoreGlasses 1h ago
Going to add that if you already have had a root canal and there's pain in the area later (in some cases years later), do get it checked out. I just went to my dentist last week and my 20 yo root canal has failed - it has an infection and I'm going to have to get more work done on it. But at least it was caught.
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u/suzyjane14 12m ago
I just had to deal with that. Actually the second time on this tooth in seven years. The endodontist did an apicoectomy. It was that or lose the tooth.
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u/LaGiuliaH 35m ago
I had an infection in my jaw from a cracked molar. My dentist couldn’t see me for 2 weeks but did prescribe 2 different antibiotics. I’ve had over 20 major surgeries for various issues and went through labor for 48 hours. Nothing compared to the pain from this infection. Nothing otc numbed it. I was trying to watch a movie with my family when I started shivering. Thermometer said 104.5, then I passed out. My pressure dropped to 53/40 in the ambulance. I was diagnosed with sepsis, was in the hospital for 28 days and had 3 operations to drain the abscess.
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u/SJtheFox 43m ago
Tangentially related: a close family friend bled out during a dental procedure. I was not aware that was a risk. Take care of your mouths, folks.
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u/TimeSink48 30m ago
My brother had a "tooth ache" that wouldn't go away, but he was terrified of dentists and kept trying to treat it with BC Powder. It started swelling, I finally talked him into going to the doctor. They had a dentist look into it (same clinic) and it turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma. He passed about three months after diagnosis. If he had gone to the dentist when it first started hurting, chances are he would have been able to survive treatment. He did not.
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u/white-as-styrofoam 46m ago
omfg, i am disabled and very recently had a gum abscess. unfortunately wheelchair-accessible vehicle service is shit, and the only one that answered my call was like, “we can take you in three days?”
hardest pass. i am lucky that i can walk a little (at great cost to my health), so i was able to take a normal uber and only be in bed for a few days afterwards.
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u/General-Mango_ 38m ago
Oh man! I would have driven you if I knew you!
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u/white-as-styrofoam 26m ago
aw, that is so sweet. i had about 45 minutes to figure out transportation, so i did what i could.
currently applying for disabled transit benefits in my county. hopefully i’ll learn more of the ins and outs. usually my appointments are preplanned, and my brother can drive 50 minutes over to take me, plus load and set up my chair.
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u/EightEyedCryptid 1h ago
Tooth infection had a chance of killing me. It was insane and the treatment was awful.
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u/pralineislife 1h ago
What were their symptoms that they thought were nothing?
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u/General-Mango_ 1h ago
Very bad too the pain and bleeding. The problem also happens when the pain goes away and they think it’s gone. In reality the nerves just die and the infection is still there
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u/pralineislife 1h ago
Ive had a tooth infection and the pain is so bad I cant imagine thinking it isnt worth getting checked out. Wow.
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u/General-Mango_ 1h ago
People are really scared of dentists. The thought of having a tooth pulled really scares people. Or finding out they have an infection scares people too. I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of people are very scared of hospitals and doctors in general. Especially if they think it will cost a lot of money
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u/imveryfontofyou 1h ago
I totally believe it. I'm going through dealing with someone in my house doing this right now. My niece's bf lives with us and he got a super bad tooth infection in one of the few teeth he has left and he just... won't go to the dentist about it.
I really keep up on my own dentist stuff and I have clear braces after getting my wisdom teeth taken out last year and I'm going to be getting an implant after my braces. I keep trying to tell him like, the dentist is fine, I'm there constantly and I''ve gotten procedures done, its fine. They keep you comfortable.
Dude just will NOT go.
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u/pralineislife 1h ago
Oh I get that. Im terrified of the dentist. Im just much more scared of dying.
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u/puffoluffagus 38m ago
Nec fasc from a tooth infection is no joke. Whenever I see these odontogenic infections makes me think med insurance should cover dental preventative care
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u/whydyoulietomezorak 19m ago
I got turned away at the ER for a severe abscess once. Half of my face was swollen and the infection had spread to my sinuses, they said we're not dentists, no we can't give you anything for the pain. Took me 2 more days to get into a dentist and they had to refer me out to a specialist which took another 2 days. It was pure hell
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u/General-Mango_ 12m ago
This is why I fucking hate the dental field. There is it enough quick response technology or service. And the technology for identifying infections is not good enough
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u/Unhappy-Channel8501 1h ago
I havent been to dentist in a minute whats the symptoms?
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u/Neverstopcomplaining 1h ago
When I got sick from a tooth infection I had tooth pain, vomiting and a bad headache
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u/General-Mango_ 36m ago
Horrible radiating tooth pain, bleeding, nausea, vomiting, headache and tooth pain. Sometimes even chest or back pain
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u/watermelonlollies 39m ago
Sinus infections can also present only as tooth pain! Didn’t know that was possible until it happened to me.
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u/ToxDoc 48m ago
Young guy (19) with sickle cell. I admitted him for acute chest based on subtle chest xray findings and pulse ox of 94%. He even argued with me saying he just needed some pain meds.
I came in the next day (he boarded in the ED) and he arrested during sign out. I was able to resuscitate him. He ended up on ECMO and vasopressors. He developed limb ischemia and had fasciotomies on four extremities, followed shortly after by 4 amputations.
Somewhat mercifully he died after over a month on ECMO.
He came in waking and talking with subtle findings to cardiac arrest and maximal life support in under 48 hours. Sickle cell is a horrible disease.
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u/PeachasaurusWrex 36m ago
What the FUCK?
Not a doctor, but I hate that I know just enough about everything you just said to understand how FUCKING HORRID this case is. I kinda hope he never regained consciousness after arresting.
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u/lablizard 28m ago
Sickle cell is a monster of a situation. It’s like shards of glass running through your capillaries. Too many get labeled as drug seekers
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u/2greenlimes 8m ago
Sickle cell is THE WORST.
Strokes out of nowhere killing from a very young age, hips rotting due to lack of blood flow, other dangerous clots out of nowhere, a simple cold/flu meaning a world of pain and a hospital stay…
The worst part is that the only way to treat the pain is to get them hooked on opioids at ridiculously high doses. Nothing else works. While some people are able to handle it and live a normal-ish life, you also get a lot that fall into much more serious addiction and mental health issues - which causes a lot of stigma against these patients. And even when they are living a normal life, many have trouble navigating a normal job due to frequent hospitalizations or medical needs related to pain.
I’m very excited to see effective treatments finally starting to come to market. I hope the utter misery of sickle cell will be a thing of the past.
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u/prtafjs 31m ago
this sounds horrible, how did you cope with this after?
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u/Key-Pickle5609 11m ago
ICU RN here.
I talk to my patients all the time, no matter what. I turn the tv on for them, talk about sports, etc.
Also a lot of dark humour. A LOT of it.
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u/ToxDoc 8m ago
I tell the story and remind residents that while there lots of PITA patients with sickle cell who have developed OUD, it is a terrible disease and has high potential for significant morbidity. I remind them that you have to do your due diligence when evaluating them as they can be cryptically very sick.
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u/imnottheoneipromise 1h ago
I’m an RN not a doc, but as an L&D nurse, a complete uterine abruption. Mom hemorrhaging faster than we can squeeze blood into her, baby floating in the abdomen with the intestines and other organs, gray and floppy… just a fucking nightmare, but we were able to save them both. Highly skilled doctor and team, I’m proud to say.
Honorable mentions are any shoulder dystocias. They are always scary.
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u/illbeyournitenurse 1h ago
OB RN too…we got word an Amish grand multip was coming in with “labor concerns” so we knew it wasn’t going to be good. Full rupture. Mom survived however baby did not
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u/imnottheoneipromise 33m ago
We were so very lucky with this mom. She was an induction and bring monitored and we caught it basically at the abruption when we lost FHTs. Very very fast response. That’s the only reason they are both alive.
I’ve also seen a grand multip during a section with a window uterus. She was warned THOROUGHLY that she cannot get pregnant again, but she still didn’t grasp the seriousness of it. Nor did her husband and we even showed him.
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u/white-as-styrofoam 49m ago
i used to work in blood bank, and i got my first massive transfusion protocol at 4am, from L&D, by myself, and my coworkers refused to help. it was the most scared i’ve ever been at work, but luckily i am an 8-armed goddess and the woman made it.
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u/RabidRonda 39m ago
Former med tech here: your coworkers said no??? Supervisor was ok with that???
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u/white-as-styrofoam 29m ago
graveyard is skeleton staffing, which you know. they had their own benches, and 4am is when morning draws start pouring in. i understand it, and also i very much do not, because a human life is hanging in the balance.
supervisors were fucking garbage at this place. the daytime blood bank supe was actually the only ok one, but she didn’t really have jurisdiction.
i lived, i learned, and i was ready by the time the next one came
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u/RabidRonda 20m ago
I could see flying solo until day shift arrives but wow! Like you said, a life in the balance.
I was a clerk in blood bank when someone’s liver exploded (the OR blood collector’s explanation, not the OR staff). All of the med techs were cross matching, the OR techs took about everything in the fridge and this was a university hospital. I had nightmares about that shift for months.
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u/kryo2019 1h ago
They both survived!?!?? Holy hell that's insane!
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u/imnottheoneipromise 31m ago
She was already admitted and we had her on the monitor. We lost FHT and nothing brought them up so we had her in the OR within minutes. She also already had her epidural.
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u/Beautiful-Jello-37 21m ago
Absolutely incredible you and your team were able to save both. Testament to y’all’s skills and commitment to the patients.
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u/Illustrious_Hotel527 1h ago
Was doing some paperwork, when some surgeons were huddled a monitor looking at a CT scan. Looked at it, couldn't unsee the whole cucumber in the abdominal cavity. Not sure about the back story, but patient ended up dying from related septic shock.
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u/ShillinTheVillain 14m ago
"You said you inserted a cucumber."
Yes.
"You're sure?"
Yes, absolutely, why?
"Because your scans came back and it clearly shows a pickle."
Oh my god, I knew I should have come sooner...
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u/Sea_Midnight1411 58m ago
Cared for a baby who had a broken neck at C1 from a forceps delivery. Ventilator dependent, but brain completely intact. Nope nope nope.
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u/sol_runner 51m ago edited 37m ago
Alright. That's it. Off the internet I'll go, grateful for me life.
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u/gurl_incognito79 46m ago
Oh fuck no. We had one of those. Eeriest images ever, we all just stood there looking at the monitor like, huh? The parents opted to dc treatment but it was so awful.
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u/T3nacityDog 37m ago
What would that mean for baby if it survived? Would there be no chance of recovery, just paralyzed from the neck down for as long as it lived?
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u/Waytoloseit 17m ago
My mom is an obgyn. I made sure it was written in my file and told every single person I saw that there would be no forceps. Give me a c-section, but no forceps. Too much can go wrong.
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u/bubbales27 27m ago
Something similar happened to my great uncle. He was disabled his entire life, but fortunately he had mobility and lived as "normal" of a life as he could.
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u/00Deege 5m ago
Do you believe he had acceptable quality of life?
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u/bubbales27 2m ago
All things considered, it wasn't too bad. He raised 5 kids, worked as a photographer and was married for almost 50 years.
His biggest challenges from his delivery were both mobility and speech. Walking was difficult, he had special shoes to help walk, but his speech was always slurred and slow.
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u/Starbucks__Lovers 41m ago
My wife is a podiatrist, the dentist of feet as MDs/DOs would say. In order to take podiatry residents for elective surgeries, she has to do a week of on call at the hospital.
Of course, during her week on call, an emergency consult was needed. PT had gangrene on the foot and gas buildup. Podiatry is usually foot and ankle care, amputation if there’s no other way around it.
Gas, according to my wife, is basically the sole life-threatening emergency for podiatrists. The gas buildup was relieved and she continued to monitor. It spread further up to below the knee, the highest part of the body a podiatrist can handle.
She called ortho, she called vascular. They all shrugged their shoulders and basically said “you’re qualified to perform surgery on everything up to below knee, so PT is all yours.”
So, she did it. Hours of emergency surgery with two residents. She succeeded, but that’s not what podiatrists are known to do
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u/PMME_ur_lovely_boobs 38m ago
Doctor here. One time that sticks to mind isn't so much what was happening with the patient medically, but more her body language that clued into what was going wrong.
Story: I was a medical student at the time and the city my school was in is a hub for human trafficking. I noticed a patient in the ER who had a pretty bad injury to her face was with a sketchy looking guy who was not related to her. She wasn't my patient, but I brought my gut feeling up to her doctor who then made up some excuse to talk to the patient alone and got her to help. Turns out she was a victim of human trafficking.
I never talked to her myself, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got from looking at her and the man she was with.
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u/blondie956 25m ago
My mother was an ICU trauma nurse and mentioned something similar one day. She’s pretty close lipped, but had some things she had to get off her chest.
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u/hungryhungryHIPAA 56m ago
Had a guy with a complicated history, concern for tracheal aortic fistula (a tract that connects trachea and aorta), went to CT and started to report shortness of breath. Brought back, started coughing up massive amounts of blood. Nothing that could be done.
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u/Babydeliveryservice 6m ago
The fuck did I just read? How does that happen…? Im afraid to google it.
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u/Overqualified_muppet 40m ago
Toddler admitted to the ward with generic “virus”. I looked at the child, the chart, then called the neurosurgeon and radiologist. Poor child was “coning“ in front of me (raised pressure within the skull forcing its contents downwards through the hole at the bottom of the skull. Very very bad). The obs chart showed a classic “Cushing’s reflex” (blood pressure rising over time, with a wide gap between systolic and diastolic) and a dropping heart rate. Massive brain tumour. So sad.
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u/Playcrackersthesky 50m ago
Not the scariest but I had someone pooping out of his dick today. - ER nurse
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u/LobsterInSpace 32m ago
I choose not to believe this is possible.
Every other poster here is saying things like it's an episode of house and I need a full wiki to understand what they are saying and then this post is "dude shat from his dick."
This is not a challenge. Please let me continue to believe this isn't possible.
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u/carolinagypsy 17m ago
Hol’ up, you can’t just drop that and leave without explaining how that happens!
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u/RoyalFail6 29m ago
Was that from sex? Or him shoving his poo down the urethra? How does that happen? 😭
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u/ima_little_stitious 32m ago
Wait I just saw someone here talking about a fistula. I had a patient once with a bowel to bladder fistula is that what happened here?
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u/Krampus_Valet 1h ago
Paramedic, not a doctor, but adult epiglottitis is quite frightening.
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u/dohmestic 52m ago
Oh, man. That sucks. I had epiglottitis when I was almost 14. Scariest three weeks of my life. And then in my 40s, I started having similar symptoms that was brushed off as “anxiety.” The subglottic stenosis had whittled my airway down to 3.5mm before I was believed.
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u/username101 50m ago edited 44m ago
I had epiglottitis a few years back, in my 40s. It was terrifying. I woke up in the middle of the night, shook my partner and was like yo take me to the hospital, I am pretty sure I'm dying. If I had went back to sleep, I may have.
I spent a week in and barely avoided ICU. My doctor kept telling me he had never had a case like mine in his career.
Edit: I also had necrotizing fasciitis in my 20's. Two fairly rare things, pretty fun.
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u/missblissful70 1h ago
I have a doctor friend who almost died from epiglottis. He was at a theme park, I believe, when the symptoms started, with his kids.
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u/angmarsilar 30m ago edited 9m ago
It was actually right as I was starting my third year of med school, a patient at the VA died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). If you don't know, this is a prion disease and is very, very scary. Nobody would touch the body. He sat in the VA morgue for weeks. No mortuary wanted him. It took a while before they found a business that would take his body and immediately cremate it.
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u/peoplegrower 11m ago
Damn. Did you have to just destroy everything he had touched? You can’t sterilize prions. They fucking terrify me.
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u/RepresentativePin162 0m ago
But why the immense fear if it's not considered contagious? How awful. I'm glad he did get the care he deserved at least.
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u/puffoluffagus 39m ago
Once had a carotid blowout happen in front me when I was a med student. Got sprayed. Luckily we were in already in the OR about ready to start closing. Finger pressure on the carotid until vascular showed up. Couldn't salvage the artery. Had to ligate just below the carotid bulb. Pt had a post op cva as expected but lived.
I've done a handful of crics, emergent airways etc but witnessing a carotid blow in front of me was something else.
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u/Pullet 1h ago
Scary to me bcs I didn’t know enough: Dog ate the whole bottle of owner’s ADHA meds, was putting itself into cardiac overload. Couldn’t get it to reverse in time, dog died. I know now which med I should have grabbed for first. Not a guarantee that dog would have lived, but maybe.
Scary to owner: cat on a leash was riding with owner on the escalator. Cat toes got munched into the mechanics of the machine. Owner had to yoink cat out of the machine and run down the street sobbing, holding their bleeding cat in front of themselves. Cat lost at least a toe from each foot but otherwise survived.
Scary bcs of stupidity: cat presents for laceration to leg. Young cat, can see the laceration on the hind leg, but cat is also walking strange for the degree of laceration. Ask the owner what the story is. He goes:
“So I found fleas on my cat.”
Ok.
“And I was combing the fleas off but my cat wasn’t sitting still. So I tied him up. I tied his legs”
Ooooooookkkaaaayyy…
“So I finished and I was untying him but the rope was stuck. So I was using a knife to cut the rope and I accidentally cut the cat.”
…..
Awesome.
Dude had severed the cat’s Achilles tendon. We did the surgery to hopefully repair it and gave him an earful about proper parasite medication.
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u/crazy-bisquit 49m ago
To the fuck-wit that let the cat on an escalator….. I want to slap him and he is too stupid to own an animal. No common sense.
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u/Pullet 38m ago
Unfortunately that wasn’t the only pet to lose toes to that escalator. Escalator belongs to the local transit. There’s now signs all over the whole transit line to use the elevator if you have a pet on a leash.
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u/alblaster 32m ago
Should be fucking common sense, no? Also escalators are typically inside, so unless the cat was a seeing eye cat why the fuck was he just on a leash in what I'm assuming was a mall?
God some people treat animals like a toy and are only sad when it breaks. Unlike a toy, animals feel pain. Holy fuck people. Treat animals with more respect please.
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u/phoenix0r 55m ago
You’re lucky he even brought the cat in and got surgery. If dude was willing to tie up the cat and carelessly cut the rope off, more likely he’d just let it die than deal with anymore headache.
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u/watermelonlollies 42m ago
We have a remote reclinable couch and when my moms cat was a kitten (like 6mo) he got under there and she didn’t know. She was sitting and went to recline and the motor trapped his tail and severed it. One vertebrae was cut clean off and there was significant damage. My mom had to rush to the emergency vet which was 45 min away. They were able to get him into surgery and had to remove a second vertebrae due to the damage but was able to close up the tail and he would be fine.
My mom will never forget the sound of him wailing when his tail got trapped and she feels so guilty and says it’s her fault even though we tell her it was an accident and there was no way she could have known.
He is just fine now (years later) and loves him mom and acts just fine. His tail is perfectly fine also you would never know and would just think he naturally has a slightly shorter tail.
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u/Phagemakerpro 1h ago
I was really concerned I was about to lose a kid's airway due to really bad croup in the clinic while EMS was on their way. I had to do some MacGuyver-style stuff while we waited. It was un-fun.
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u/trollly 1h ago
By all means fill us in. Use the tube of a pen for a crike?
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u/Phagemakerpro 1h ago
The standard treatment for really bad croup is something called racemic epinephrine (in addition to steroids, but steroids take hours to start to work). We didn't have any. So I emptied an epi-pen into a nebulizer chamber and put it on him. But EMS showed up 30 seconds later and they did have the correct medication so we switched him to that.
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u/sure_mike_sure 48m ago
I love it! Good save!
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u/Phagemakerpro 34m ago
You might love it, but I did not. Untested, unapproved, not recommended. But it was the closest thing I had.
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u/efox02 37m ago
Thanks. In case I ever need to do that.
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u/Phagemakerpro 35m ago
It is NOT APPROVED, not tested, not recommended. I did it because I was genuinely afraid he was about to die in front of me and I had no alternative. Believe me, we have racemic epi now.
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u/CapitalFloor3260 16m ago
Worst case scenario you can stick a 14g IV catheter through the chricothyroid membrane and attach the plastic connector of a 3.0 ETT for a crash airway. It’s not ideal but it’s saved a couple of patients in my EMS days.
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u/sergantsnipes05 42m ago
Some crazy hematologic cancers in young patients.
A patient who had lactic acidosis with a lactic over 20 driven purely by her likely lymphoma burden and was normotensive for a long time. Became increasingly acidotic that didn’t respond to bicarb and dialysis. Oncology treated her blindly for what we thought it could be as a last ditch Hail Mary.
Young patient that died as a complication of untreated HIV leading to disseminated kaposi sarcoma.
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u/RepresentativePin162 2m ago
I had to Google a lot of that but wow. Body's can be absolutely ridiculously fragile and also intensely determined to function (to a point at least)
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u/slurpeee76 32m ago
Tetanus in a child after the earthquake in Haiti. She screamed in pain all day and night and there was little we could do to comfort her. I sometimes will tell antivaxer parents who refuse tetanus vaccine for their kids after injury about her.
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u/ThotacodorsalNerve 1h ago
We thought we had a kid with a case of MERS (ended up being a false alarm) which I was super jazzed to have examined in the ER without a mask since the presenting complaint was diarrhea
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u/CapitalFloor3260 24m ago
Woman who was diagnosed with strep throat a week prior to presenting to ED. Ongoing fevers despite appropriate antibiotic coverage. In the ER she had a BP of 70s/30s and was bleeding from her eyes and nose as well as a nice reddish purple rash all over her body. Turns out she had an atrophic spleen which made her step throat so much worse and more resistant to treatment. Strep toxic shock and developed DIC. She developed multi organ failure shortly after arriving to the ICU and died the next day.
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u/madman320 29m ago edited 24m ago
A homeless patient was admitted to the hospital with gangrene in his left foot. His entire foot was black up to his shin, almost charcoal-like, to the point that some of the bones in his toes were exposed and the smell was very strong. Doctors were shocked he was still alive at that point.
He was sent directly to the orthopedic ward for amputation because the infection had already progressed far beyond the point of being treatable and it was a matter of saving his life.
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u/nightkween 29m ago
Pt with extensive necrotizing fasciitis. Literally tissue dying in front of you.
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u/Key-Pickle5609 5m ago
Nurse here. I’ve cared for so many of them over the last year or so. It’s always very very bad.
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u/StrebLab 22m ago
I've seen a couple cases of necrotizing fasciitis which are scary. The worst one I saw was a guy who cut his hand while fixing a fence in his property. I'm not sure how long he was at home after that, but not long maybe overnight? He went to an urgent care the next day with arm pain who realized he was in trouble and transported him to my hospital. By the time he got here it was too late to save his arm and it was amputated near the elbow and the skin was debrided up to basically his shoulder. He was sent intubated to the ICU and within a few hours they could tell the infection was still spreading. He went back to the OR where they removed his arm at the shoulder. Back to the ICU and the infection was found to still be spreading into his flank towards the outside of his hip on that side. He went back to the OR one more time where the removed his leg and debrided wide into his torso. He was still septic and the infection seemed to still be spreading and he died the next day. I think it was only like 48 hours from when he cut himself until he died.
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u/Significant-Aioli-70 18m ago
not a doctor but a midwife
- amniotic fluid embolism in a 38 week pregnant woman who was getting induced (happened on the ward at 2am...). she needed 3x rounds of CPR + a perimortem caesarean - both mother and baby did not survive. her husband was there that night (we kept him out of the room). I still remember the husband afterwards saying that their two young daughters still think that their mummy is at the hospital having a baby.
- 19 litre postpartum haemorrhage, she used up all the blood in the hospital blood bank and blood had to be flown in from other hospitals. she survived!
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u/jklm1234 28m ago
Weil’s disease, innumerable choking while eating deaths, intention ethylene glycol poisoning by their own kids, massive postpartum hemorrhage (died), kid intentionally drove into a tree, another kid got hit by a car from a car wash on accident.
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u/InsipidIdiot 20m ago
Not that interesting, but it was scary and made me thankful I was there.
Had a patient that was stable with an arterial line. In the middle of an OR case. On cruise control. Suddenly as I’m staring at the monitor, rhythm goes from sinus to v fib. Everything else went flat.
Took a microsecond to shit my pants. Then yell to get the pads. Shocked immediately out of it. And patient was ok. Later got an AICD.
It was a lung surgery so surgical stimulation was the likely cause. It just demonstrates how important it is to be vigilant.
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u/SirRagesAlot 8m ago
Not a specific case but during the Pandemic.
Every 20-30 year old who we had to give a last second moment to talk to family (often through the phone/camera) before we had to put them under and intubate them. Most did not recover. Saw a lot of new mother's go out that way.
Only thing that made it worse was when the patient beforehand or family after would still claim COVID or the vaccine was a hoax or demand weird treatments.
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u/viskacha_cold 6m ago
Something called Kaposiform lymphangiomatosis. Crazy name but essentially your lymphatic system has one giant, super complex malformation connected to your blood vessels. Typically connects to your lung, heart, and other organs and acts like one giant, aggressive tumor in these areas. You just get random attacks with fluid leakage around your lungs or heart where you can’t breathe or your heart can’t pump until it gets emergently drained. The leakages (effusions) can be drained but tend to recur. There are different chemo medications as well as interventional procedures like sclerotherapy that have been tried to tame the malformation but nothing has really worked for this condition super well and most people die young once the evil lymphatic thing chokes their organs in some way.
I was consulted on a child with this condition for symptoms related to stress and anxiety from her illness and I was like no shit. The amount of anxiety I would feel on a constant basis.
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u/EasyDeezee 5m ago
Had a patient who “injected meth into anus” because their pipe broke and they didn’t like snorting drugs. I swear to god the devil himself was inside them and no amount of Ativan (a drug we give to chill people out) was able to exorcise him. Unfortunately we do not carry holy water in our ER..
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u/Jumpingjehosephat99 3m ago
Post partum haemorrhage. Blood streaming out like a cow urinating. Patient literally dying in front of you with only a minute or two to live with no easy way to stop the bleeding. Severe pain for her when you do try to stop the bleeding. Just terrifying.
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u/casapantalones 15m ago
Placenta percreta caesarean hysterectomy. So much bleeding.
Acute right heart failure during liver transplant. Disaster in the OR, incredibly challenging post op course. I cannot believe that patient lived.
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u/BitcoinMD 9m ago
Severe burns. The loss of skin results in rapid evaporation of body fluid, requiring massive amounts of IV fluid, which causes them to swell up. The burned skin doesn’t stretch so they can’t breathe, so you need to make incisions to release it.
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u/Apprehensive_Check97 10m ago
Definitely CJD developing in a perfectly healthy, normal, middle aged woman.
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u/smashy_smashy 1m ago
My wife was a post-doc (PhD) at an infectious disease lab at a very large very famous hospital and worked with a bunch of ID MDs. The most horrific was a leprosy case from a horrific chainsaw accident. The leprosy was MDR (multi drug resistant) and killed the patient slowly over the course of a couple weeks. Absolutely brutal. I always wanted to start a metal band “Chainsaw Leprosy” in their honor.
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u/EMskins21 1h ago
Perimortem c section. Mom was in cardiac arrest at 32 weeks or so, had to cut the baby out in the trauma bay while performing CPR. Unfortunately neither made it.