33 DIY Medical Treatments That Violate Not Just the Hippocratic Oath, But Every Oath Ever Taken

Someone squeezed lemon juice in an unconscious man’s eye
33 DIY Medical Treatments That Violate Not Just the Hippocratic Oath, But Every Oath Ever Taken

While the state of health care in America is no laughing matter, it’s hard to hold back a chuckle when hearing that a guy was injecting protein powder into his muscles as an alternative to uhh.. consuming the protein powder or injecting steroids. It’s even harder not to laugh when finding out that this was his second time bulking up via this method, causing infection and literal pus to create abscesses in his muscles. 

The medical professionals on Reddit have disclosed some of people’s gnarliest attempts at DIY treatments, and at least one of these stories will change the way you look at a Shop-Vac. 

. 5y Not me, but my boss (mother of the child I care for) is a nurse practitioner. I asked her what the worst thing she had witnessed was. She continued on to tell me the story of a man who had stapled his ball sack together and onto his body after slipping with the razor. Не had it that way for days, metal holding his poor testicles in place, infected and gross as you would expect, before he came to a professional. Later admitted his ex attempted to castrate him. The balls lived ... 5.9k
Emerystones . 5y Worked in pediatrics for a few years and we had this one family come in with a kid who was burned by one of those microwave ramen soups. They put duct tape on the now blistered skin to keep it from popping in the car. ... 15.3k
Beek3r101 . 5y Dental office - patient comes in with veneers on her front teeth she made herself out of acrylic nails (the premade sets you can buy at Wal-Mart). Surprisingly it looked okay from a distance, but the amount of random glues she used in her mouth to get them to stay will probably come back to haunt her later. ... 461
ed_dsm_ia 5y dude came to the ED because his leg was swollen. i'm talking, like, twice the size of his other leg. it turned out that his 4th and 5th toes were getting caught on his sock, which, to be fair, sounds super annoying. so he CUT THEM the fuck OFF. WITH SCISSORS. and then it got infected. and he waited. and waited. and that's how he lost his entire fucking leg. ... 325
jumo02 . 5y Had a patient come to the ER for a cough. We did a chest X-ray that caught a little something in the abdomen/pelvis. Did a pelvic X-ray. Long story short she stuck a shot glass up her vagina for birth control left it up there long enough for it to calcify and we had to surgically remove it. ... 11.3k
randologin . . 5y Patient used to get boners in class and it embarrassed him so he used rubber bands to prevent it. Ended up killing the tissue in his penis and now he needs a catheter for life. ... 3.2k
. 5y Having once seen a commercial that oatmeal can lower cholesterol a patient started having chest pains and tried to resolve it with a bowl of oatmeal. ... 308
hbrumage . 5y Patient was told they had an infection from leaving their contacts in too long. Decided to clean their eyes out with hydrogen peroxide. 2 cornea transplants later... ... 190
gingerybiscuit . 5y White bread soaked in milk placed on an armpit abscess to draw out the infection. Needed an I&D and a couple weeks of IV antibiotics by the time he got to us. Either that or the guy who crashed his motorbike, scraped his leg all to hell, and then decided the best course of action was to self-cauterize it on the tailpipe. ... 17.1k
KelleyK_CVT. . 5y Woman I know has a dog that is epileptic but was not willing to medicate the dog for some time. She kept trying holistic remedies. One of which she informed me about was giving the dog all natural vanilla ice cream during a seizure to stop it. You know, because you should always try to put stuff in the mouth of a seizing animal. It didn't work. The dog is on meds. Seizures are controlled now. Imagine that. ... 11.9k
5y Guy had abdominal pain. Drank a bunch of beer and tried to give himself an appendectomy with a steak knife on his front porch. Wife calls 911 after she see him performing seppuko. We roll on on scene and ask him if he want treatment/ ride to the emergency department. Не looks up at us. Looks down and the mess he has made. Says, hang on lemme see if I can fix this first Не then tries to cauterize the wound he made with his cigarette. Realizing that that isn't working and goes, well shit, let's go, I
itsjakefromstfarm . 5y We had a guy come in with an abscess on his right thumb. When I asked him what happened to his hand, he told me about his recent deep sea fishing trip and was given the responsibility of cutting the fish with an open wound in his hand. A sliver of fish got in there and became infected as it healed, so this guy gets the bright idea of doing a little DIY wound drainage by grabbing his pocket knife and cutting it open, leading to a greater infection. ... 7.8k
iilumos . 5y Not me, but my mom. Had a gentleman walk himself into the ED one day after he tried to give himself a vasectomy with an animal neutering kit he bought on the internet. When she asked him why, he told her that his wife wanted to have a sixth kid and it was too expensive to pay a doctor to do it and how hard could it be to DIY.
C10sutton 5y I work in the er at a trauma center. This guy comes in with his little girl and says that she was bit in the face by the family German shepherd. I immediately take her back assuming that I need to control bleeding. What I encounter is a little girl with a laceration going all the way from over her left eye crossing her nose and mouth. It is not bleeding whatsoever and it seems to have a odd looking substance inside. So I obviously ask the dad what she got inside it. Не responds very proudly with,
frankiesausagefinger 5y When I worked in ER my colleague had to see a guy with an ear problem. Не had something stuck in his ear and had been trying to get it out. This wasn't a new thing, he'd been trying for some time. Turned out, he had completely removed his tympanic membrane, and the bits that were stuck in his ear and that he was trying to pick out with cotton buds and hair clips were his ossicles. Enjoy. ... 11.5k
Do_my_cat_daddy 5y This happened when I was still a med student doing a rotation in the ED. Patient comes in and is pretty vague about his actual complaint, something about head pain but he looks just fine sitting waiting to be seen. When I finally get to see him and ask him what actually happened, he removes the hat he was wearing and a chunk of skin about the size of my hand literally flaps off of his skull. This guy managed to basically scalp himself, and apparently it had been like that for 3 days. According to him it
rosequarry . 5y A little late to this thread but have a weird one. A patient was told by her doc that she had low magnesium and should consider supplements. Not uncommon. Instead of getting Mg supplements, she ate an entire tub of homeopathic volcanic ash and completely destroyed her electrolyte imbalance and ended up in ICU. We admitted her as a pharmaceutical overdose so Poison Control automatically follows up with you. It was hard to explain to them.
arbysjuggernaut - 5 5y My step father thought he had an boil of some sort on his arm a few years ago. So he did what any middle aged dad would do, cut the sucker open and poured hydrogen peroxide on it. Turns out it wasn't a boil but a form of skin cancer. Also turns out that hydrogen peroxide doesn't do much to help with melanoma. After a lot of one sided discourse he went to the doctor to get it checked and treated. He's now cancer free! ... 1k
coffeeartst 5y Had a patient come into the ER with a makeshift bandage on his shin. Не had fallen on rocks while hiking and left a three inch long, half inch deep gash in his leg. I go to pull the bandage off and as I'm peeling it away I notice the skin is completely black and there's dark chunks of fungus falling out of the wound. It looked necrotic, like it had been left alone for a week. I look at this guy like he's crazy as he tells me the wound is only a few hours old. He's
Greeneggsandmandy 5y My dad had an abscess on his face. It was huge, about the size of a golf ball and horribly red. It kept getting bigger. My mom (a nurse) kept telling him to go to the doctor, but my dad was a ridiculous cheap ass. One day when she was gone, we noticed that a big white head had formed on the abscess, and it was apparently ready to bust. My dad went out to the garage, got his shop vac, placed it over the white head, and proceeded to suck out the abscess. It worked surprisingly well
okaycitizen . 5y Adult patient had gas and poked a hole in his belly button with basically a knitting needle to release it. Edit: it didn't work, he actually came in for the ensuing infection in his belly button. ... 10.5k
tlcyummum . 5y As a child I got really bad sunburn. The person looking after me coated my sunburn in baby oil to help it heal, and sent me back out into the sun. I realised when I was older why my mum went nuts. ... 18.3k
Ravager135 . 5y I saw a patient used a bell pepper as a pessary. ... 1.3k
ARi055 . 5y Putting a sex toy up the rectum to better reach another, larger sex toy. ... 10.5k
RobTheMedic . 5y Paramedic here. Once had to explain to a family that putting lemon juice in the eyes of an unconscious patient isn't an approved treatment method. And no, it didn't work. (It was an interesting moment when I had to explain why his eyes hurt) ... 2k
rxjen . 5y I work in oncology pharmacy. I had a patient die of totally treatable breast cancer because they decided to treat it with mistletoe instead of chemo. All because Suzanne Sommers did. Yeah. The thighmaster lady. Don't take medical advice from the thighmaster lady. ... 2.1k
12awr . 5y I work in dental and years ago had a patient attempt to super glue her front tooth back on after it broke in half. She screwed up and ended up gluing the chunk to her upper lip. ... 7.1k
. 5y In nursing school while I was on clinical rotation in urology, there was a man who ended up having his penis removed. It turned out he had an infection brewing for quite a while and thought the best course of action was placing a sock over his penis in hope that it would heal. Не was generally confused and upset as to why this didn't work to heal the issue. ... 1.2k
jbertsch . . 5y Am a dental student where we see mouths in pretty awful condition. One guy came into the emergency clinic with teeth half rotted off from decay and told me he has been putting gummy bears in the holes to make it less sharp on his tongue.... ... 18.6k
lamthewarthog 5y I had a guy come in for coughing and shortness of breath for the past few months. His lungs sounded like absolute shit. Got a chest xray that looked horrible, so I did a CT scan. Radiologist called it the worst case of necrotizing pneumonia he'd ever seen. Dude had like a 15% functional lung tissue left. The patient then mentioned things had been worse after he started using a new breath freshener spray.... Не whipped out one of those BluntEffects concentrated air freshener bottles, supposed to cover up weed smell. Labeled Not For Internal Use. Apparently he
5y Anesthesiologist here; we had a patient come in for I&D of bilateral deltoid abscesses. Не apparently had thoughts of being a body builder, but instead of lifting weights or knowing someone who could hook him up with some quality steroids, he decided to bulk up by using some protein powder at GNC... ...and mixing it with water, drawing it up into a syringe, and injecting 20-40cc daily directly into the muscle. If bulk was what he was going for, it definitely worked, temporarily. A rip-roaring localized infection makes you look plenty swole. They got almost a liter of
chibimorph e 5y One of my first clinic patients was a dude who was injecting a mixture of testosterone, human growth hormone, sesame oil, and sunflower oil into the base of his penis as a DIY penile enlargement therapy. Well, it got infected so he ended up going to the ED for incision and drainage. I saw him as a post-ED visit and at that time, he figured that he shouldn't be injecting into his penis while it was healing. So instead, he was injecting his oil + sketchy hormones off the internet concoction everywhere else into his body (arms,
stebus88 . 5y Pharmacist here. Worked in a shop where a woman asked for some advice about potential UTI or STI. Told me she had bathed her vagina in bleach for 5 mins to try and kill any bacteria. Miraculously, she hadn't done any lasting damage. ... 438

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