With every visit to the doctor's office, the idea goal is to walk out feeling better. While confidence in one's own health has a good chance, emotional confidence is another story. Some meetings with a physician only end in disaster.
People looked back on the time their doctor visit actually made them want to die and shared the embarrassment to Reddit. Take these stories into consideration and be careful when choosing a doctor.
“He Had Eaten So Many Peas”
Roman Yanushevsky/Shutterstock
“This actually occurred shortly after I was born and we refer to it as ‘The Green Pea incident.’ My brother (2 years old) was moving to solid foods and absolutely loved peas. Mushed, boiled, fried, or in things, he loved them. One day, my mom noticed that my brother wasn’t going to the washroom. No big deal, she thought. It’s only been a day.
Two days later, nothing was coming out. He kept eating and eating, like the happy little fat toddler he was, eating all amounts of peas. My parents scheduled a day off work and took him to the doctor together. The doctor, of course, said that he must be constipated. It happens to the best of us.
At this point, it’d been four days since the little poop has taken one. The doctor gave him a large dose of prescription-strength ExLax, and suggested that they should probably keep an eye on him for the next while. As he was talking to my parents about what they should do, my brother started to poop. Bright, neon green poop.
He had eaten so many peas that the fiber had actually clogged him up, and now it was returning in force. The semi-liquidated poop started flying out, faster and faster like you see in those comedy movies. Eventually, it settled down to a light stream, but not before his poop-mist had covered the entire wall next to the examination table. Neon green poop mist. All over the doctor’s tools, his blood pressure stuff and his posters. It ruined the cushion on the table, and stank to high heaven. My parents never went back to that doctor again.”
“I Tried Everything In My Power To Stop It”
“I went to the doctor for some intestinal bleeding. My doctor is fairly new to the office and I’ve only met her once before this. I’m only 21 so I’ve never had a reason for a doctor to go knuckle deep in my rectum before, but the doctor insisted it needed to be done for some tests.
So, I bent over the table, she greased up, and dug around for treasure. I hadn’t pooped in a day or so because it hurt when I did, so I was a bit stopped up. Once she started to pull her hand out, I immediately realized what was about to happen and tried everything in my power to stop it. Too late!
The doctor pulled her finger out and, plop – out landed a turd, right on the floor. I was able to hold back the rest but the damage was done.”
“We Should Probably Look At His Behind”
“When I was 18, I went to Peru for a mission trip so we could bring the word of God to all the ignorant savages (blah blah blah). While swimming in the Amazon, a parasite became a warm and cozy stowaway in my foot. Good times.
Fast forward three weeks. I was back in the States, had incredible stabbing pain in my stomach, and had track marks all over my stomach, so I headed into my family practitioner to see what the heck was up. She did not know what was up and recommended me to the University ‘parasite’ specialist.
This ‘parasite’ specialist thought my stomach was the coolest thing he had ever seen. I was sitting in a stupid hospital gown and he couldn’t stop talking about how amazing this was. In fact, it was SO AMAZING that he called his colleague in, who then called HIS colleague in. Now, because this was a university hospital, every doctor had a couple interns hanging around and learned. All in all, there were 8-10 people in the room checking me out, including some very attractive women very close to my own age.
Smart-aleck bearded doctor (NOT the specialist): ‘We should probably look at his behind.’
I turned over, heard the snapping of rubber gloves, and feel my behind spread apart.
Smart-aleck bearded doctor: [disappointed] ‘Oh. We won’t be able to see anything down there… Too much hair!'”
“I Went Bright Red, And That Was It For Talking”
Communication is, arguably, the most essential element to the doctor-patient relationship. Our protagonist in this embarrassing situation learned two key lessons in communication with a physician: be careful what you say as assumptions could be made, and thank God for doctor-patient confidentiality.
“I had this rancid throat infection. It was horrific. After a week of being miserable, I went to the doctor to get it checked out. Now, I had never had a hot doctor before but the one I got was this lovely, mid-to-late 30’s blonde. Very steamy.
It came to the point where she had to take a swab of the back of my throat and she said, ‘I’m afraid this will make you gag.’ Then, I remembered a thing my housemate had told me that if you squeeze your left thumb in your left hand really tight it removes your gag reflex. So, I proclaimed this to her and, to her disbelief, went on to prove it works! Lo and behold, I didn’t gag!
She said, ‘Wow, where did you learn that?’ to which I obviously said, ‘Oh… er, some guy showed me.’
She raised an eyebrow, I went bright red, and that was it for talking.”
“She Wanted Some Consensus Before More Testing”
“When I was 21, I noticed a lump in the right side of my chest. Being a broke college student, I ignored it for a while, and finally got it looked at while visiting home for winter break. I had never been to this doctor before, but she conducted what seemed like a normal examination, remarking that it was really unusual for someone my age to have a solid-feeling lump.
She apparently wanted some consensus before she sent me for more testing, so she called in another doctor. Fine. This guy said, ‘Hello, I’m Dr. “So-and-So” and this is my resident, and these are my medical students.’ Great.
I got to spend the next few minutes (felt like an eternity) in a tiny examination room, laying on a table in only my underpants and socks on, with five or six other people who all took turns feeling me up and going, ‘Hmm…. hmmm.’
Mortifying.”
“Do You Know What I’m Supposed To Do With This Cup?”
Going to the doctor for the first time by yourself is a momentous occasion that has a lot of potential for embarrassment. Is there a doctor out there with more potential for mortifying experiences than the OBGYN? This poor woman didn’t even get the chance to meet her doctor before she totally humiliated herself!
“I was at the OBGYN. I was 19 and this was the first time I’ve ever gone to a doctor by myself. They put me in the first room next to the bathroom. We did the check up stuff and my doctor asked for a urine sample. She said, ‘Go next door to the bathroom and then write your name on the sample and put it in the little window.’
I was extremely nervous because I usually cannot pee on command. Somehow, I managed to pee a little into the stupid cup. I wrote my name on it and then I realized I had no freaking idea what to do with this cup. I looked around the small bathroom and all I saw was a silver cabinet and a sink, no window. I walked out of the bathroom with this pee cup and bumped into this young pregnant woman.
I looked into her eyes and said, ‘I peed in this cup.’ She looked confused. ‘Do you know what I’m supposed to do with this pee cup?’ I asked. She stared at me a bit more. Then, her boyfriend walked up and said, ‘Uh… There’s a place for you to put it in the bathroom.’
I turned bright red and said, ‘OH!’ and ran back to the bathroom. I opened the silver cabinet and placed it next to all the other freaking pee cups. I walked out of the bathroom, avoiding eye contact with the pregnant couple, and walked back to my room. I opened the door and there was this pantsless woman. I said, ‘Oh! Um… sorry, I’m looking for my stuff… I thought this was my room… um…’ To which she replied, ‘What the heck?!’
I shut the door and saw the nurse standing at the end of the hallway looking at me. ‘This is your room,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that. We moved you and I didn’t catch you in time.’ The pregnant couple and the nurse laughed at me while I did my walk of shame out of there.”
“I Suddenly Became A Hypochondriac”
For the feeble-minded, even the simplest routine doctor’s visit is a nightmare. Plagued by a fear of the unknown, the patient second guesses every little problem, no matter how minuscule, unaware their psychological health is what may truly be at risk. Thankfully, our narrator was blessed to have a doctor that he could also call a friend and knew exactly what his friend and patient needed to hear.
“When I turned 30, I suddenly became a hypochondriac. I thought that EVERYTHING was cancer, or worse.
So, I was seeing my doctor (who was a racquetball buddy) for an annual physical and I mentioned that I was having some pains in the left side of my chest. I asked him, ‘I know this is rare, but could it be chest cancer?’
He felt around seriously, then – with an absolutely straight face – asked me, ‘Does the pain hurt worse when you have your period?’
That was pretty much the end of my year of hypochondria.”
“When You Try It, Be Safe”
“This one time, I was pooping some blood, so I went to a clinic. The 80-year-old, hunched over, male, German doctor had to have a feel around in my business. I’m a girl.
While this frighteningly decrepit gent was up to his knuckles in my behind, he loudly started asking me about my, um, ‘backdoor proclivities.’ I was shy and 17 at the time. I said, ‘No, no, I do NOT do that!’ and laughed nervously. He told me that he couldn’t find anything wrong, but gave me something for the pain.
While I was walking out through the clinic, past all the other patients who were waiting their turn, he loudly said, ‘You shouldn’t laugh about [backdoor stuff] that way. Many young women find they enjoy it. When you try it, though, be safe and use lots of lubricants.’
I skedaddled my bloody behind out of there right quick.”
“I Was Grounded For Months After That”
Approaching womanhood can mean an awkward life stage for a young lady, and an awkward time at the doctor’s office at that. But in the case of our 15-year-old narrator, the torturously embarrassing moment she would endure at the doctor visit she describes below was nothing compared to the wrath of her overbearing foster mother.
“Inexperienced, 15-year-old me was taking a bubble bath in my foster parents’ jacuzzi tub. The water jets got me a little… excited, so I started getting experimental. My foster mom had one of those tiny travel-size hotel shampoo bottles sitting on the side of the tub and I suddenly had the bright idea to try that out as a makeshift toy of sorts. Being inexperienced, it was a tough battle trying to get it in there. I pushed and pushed and pushed and finally, felt a POP and a gush of blood and a whole lot of pain. I knew that was normal, so I didn’t freak out, but the pain was enough to cut my experiment short.
Cut to two days later. I came home from school and noticed that I was still bleeding a fair amount and extremely sore. That was when I started panicking a little and thought, maybe I’ve messed up my lady parts beyond just popping my hymen. I was getting these mental images of infections and hysterectomies and infertility and generally just freaking myself the heck out. Finally, I gave in and called my foster mom at work.
‘Pam… I think I need to go to the doctor,’ I said.
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘I’m… bleeding. Out of my… you-know-what. And I’m not on my period.’
‘Are you sure it’s not your period?’
‘I’m positive. It hurts really bad, too.’
‘Did you “do it”?’
‘No! I never have.’
‘I need you to tell me the truth. You could be having a miscarriage right now.’
‘No! It’s not a miscarriage! I haven’t done it! I… kind of… experimented. And I think I popped my cherry.’
‘Oh god… With what?’
Not wanting her to know the extent of my weirdness, I told her I used my fingers. Eventually, she stopped asking questions and told me she was on her way home. The whole drive there, she was interrogating me yet again and telling me how my experiment was a sin and God would punish me for lusting.
I asked her, ‘So you’ve never once done that? Never?’
‘Nope,’ she replied with a self-righteous tone. ‘I didn’t have to.’
It was then I couldn’t resist keeping my mouth shut.
‘Didn’t you get pregnant with Michael [her oldest son] when you were sixteen?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And didn’t you have an abortion when you were fifteen?’
‘Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with what you’ve done.’
‘So, you’re telling me that self-pleasure is wrong, but premarital relations and teenage pregnancy is OK?’
‘I didn’t say tha-‘
‘And don’t you think if you’d have just pleasured yourself, you wouldn’t have ended up pregnant twice before you graduated high school?’
Yes, I was grounded for months after that. Yes, it was worth it.
So, we ended up at the ER, where there was this bored-looking lady with a clipboard standing at the entrance, at the front of the waiting room. When we approached her, she asked me why I needed to see the doctor. I whispered extremely quietly, ‘Bleeding down there.’ She then repeats back to me, ‘BLEEDING DOWN THERE?’ in the loudest voice imaginable as everyone in the waiting room looked up to stare at me with ‘I’m judging you’ written all over their faces.
Fairly quickly, we got called back to an examination room. They dressed me in a paper gown and had me put my feet in the stirrups, my junk spread open for anyone who opened the door to see. Then, the doctor came whisking in and started examining me after a brief introduction. Right after that, a nurse came in, leaned over, and whispered to him and he looked up at me and quickly said that there were some interns there that night and they were going to come in and observe, if that was OK. In my mildly comatose state of shame and embarrassment, I mumbled something which they took as a yes and suddenly there were twelve people in the room staring at my lady parts.
As I was considering suicide, the doctor asked me how this happened. I told him pretty much what I told my foster mom.
‘I… got experimental and put my fingers in there,’ I said.
‘…How many fingers did you use?’ he asked.
Not knowing how to answer that and still seem truthful, I just said, ‘… All of them?’
Suddenly, I knew I must have answered incorrectly because everyone’s eyes went wide and I could tell half of them were shocked and the other half was trying not to laugh. So, after this extreme period of torture, he told me the damage was normal and consistent with a punctured hymen and told me to just take it easy for the next couple of days. Of course, I never lived it down at home.”
“My Mother Went Into Fight Or Flight Mode”
“My mom had a heart attack about a year and a half ago. Her kidneys started to fail and she was getting a little loopy because of it so they decided that they were going to need to do dialysis. Since she had been getting a little kicky, they made the decision that the best place for the dialysis port would be right up in her carotid artery on her neck rather than the femoral artery.
When they went to put in the port, my mother went into full on fight or flight mode and since she couldn’t go anywhere, she started to fight. Hard.
They had a team of about five doctors and nurses trying to hold her down while she was flailing about and kicking like crazy. She’s about 5’4″ and 130 lbs and managed to lift a nurse off the ground with one arm and tried to bite her cardiologist. Eventually, they realized this was not going to work and ended up putting her on Propofol for the night.”
“He Left The Room With A Half-Smile”
Doctors are trained to be prepared for any medical situation. Therefore, in even the most minor of mishaps, they are expected to hold their composure and continue handling the work without a second’s hesitation. The patient in this story was under the same impression, but would discover that even some professionals do not have the stomach that matches their training.
“I had nasal polyps removed. When there are a lot of them, after the procedure, there are several follow-ups to get minor stragglers but mostly also to remove giant blood clots that have formed.
My otolaryngologist was busy digging and scraping and scooping, and some monster freaking aliens were being dragged out. I could see my nostrils expanding like I was passing a chicken egg-sized baby out of them. Then, they closed shut again.
Anyway, he was grinding and yanking at this one and it wouldn’t come loose. He rotated it a bit, gently placed it on a tray, and said nothing, but left the room with a half-smile.
Three minutes later, he came back and told us he had a silent freakout and had to wash up because a giant, bloody string of snot carried elasticity from the pull and slapped up against the length of his cheek like a cheap 25¢ toy from the bins at the front of a KMart.”
“It’s OK, Nothing Surprises Me Anymore”
For whatever reason, beautiful women in the medical field have become a fixture of the male gaze. A voluptuous, redhead in a skin-tight nursing outfit, for instance, may often appear in a curious man’s dreams. However, as our collegiate narrator would learn, sometimes our most pleasing fantasies can be the stuff of nightmares in reality.
“When I was in college, I went to the on-campus doctor’s office to get a physical. Apparently, the one in my records was outdated. I had no idea what I was walking into, and it didn’t even cross my mind that it was going to be a full, pants-down examination. To make a long story short, the doctor was a beautiful, 28-year-old blonde who was just out of med school or something.
After she performed all the different check-ups, a male nurse entered the room and she commented that he needed to be there for liability purposes. I was confused for a brief second, until I was told to drop my pants. She was on her little wheely stool thing with her beautiful face eye level and inches away from my junk. I closed my eyes while she touched my balls and shaft, trying my best to imagine she was a wrinkly old dude so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Unluckily for me, she grabbed the base of my shaft for some test and I let out a loud, very audible, moan.
I went red and she acknowledged my moan by giggling, ‘It’s OK, nothing surprises me anymore.’ I just stood there, shaking my head no in silence, red-faced, and accepting my shame.”
“My Doctor Looked Horrified And My Mother Was Near Tears”
“I went to my family doctor once because I was having extreme lower back pain, it hurt like a mother to pee, and my lady bits were burning like crazy. I have been going to this doctor since I was 10 years old (18 now) and he has always given me the best diagnosis and gotten me better ASAP.
I went there and he checked me out down there. He said there was an unusual amount of discharge and that he wanted me to give a urine sample. No problem. I went in the bathroom, tried my best not to scream and scare the whole hospital while I was urinating in a little cup, and exited said bathroom with tears in my eyes.
After about 45 minutes of questioning from the doctor and waiting for my tests to come back, he says there was a high amount of white blood cells and there was a ridiculous amount of blood in my urine. I should have assumed since it came out orange. He said I had a really bad kidney infection, a bladder infection, and, to top it off, a yeast infection.
He said he’d never seen something like this. To have that many infections just come out of the blue seemed unbelievable. He asked me what I might have done in the past week to cause this. I really couldn’t even lie at this point.
So, in front of my doctor (who has known me since I was 10) and my mother (who gave birth to me), I admitted that I had some ‘backdoor fun’ with my boyfriend and he went from my back to my front. My doctor looked horrified, and my mother was near tears. Long story short, my mother threatened to sew my behind shut if I ever did something that stupid again, and my doctor gave me 15 days worth of antibiotics.”
“When My Name Was Called, I Was So Embarrassed”
It’s always frustrating to go to the doctor when you know exactly what’s wrong with you, only to be told by a doctor that the issue causing you so much pain and discomfort is nothing serious, especially when you know for a fact that it is. Whether because the doctors didn’t take it seriously or because they were just in too much of a hurry to really examine this poor man, he ended up in a terribly embarrassing situation that could have all been avoided.
“I used to always get pilonidal cysts when I was in high school. From between 13 to 18, I had it five times which, according to my doctor, is a lot. These things used to hurt BAD. I’d get them right above my tailbone and it would feel like the tailbone was broken. If I didn’t get it dealt with right away, I wouldn’t be able to walk from the pain.
The last time I ever got one was horrible. It was Halloween and I was at my friend’s house when I noticed it starting to hurt. I knew right away what it was. The next morning, I had my mom take me to the doctor’s office but because it was a Saturday, my family doctor’s office was closed, so we ended up going to a walk-in clinic. The doctor took a quick look at it, said it wasn’t the problem, and set me up for an x-ray.
By the time the x-ray was over, it was hurting beyond anything I could imagine. It felt exactly like one of the cysts, but I trusted the doctor’s word. Later that evening, the pain was so severe I had to go to the emergency room. At the hospital, the doctor there took another quick look at it and told me it was nothing. He prescribed me some pain medication and sent me on my way.
That night was horrible. I was terrified, I thought there was something severely wrong with me. I thought I cracked my tail-bone after I fell over a balloon at my friend’s house or something.
On Monday, after a weekend of intense pain, I could finally go see my family doctor. I remember the waiting room was filled with people. It hurt too much to sit so I stood in the corner with my back bent weird because it hurt too much to stand straight. All of a sudden, I felt instant relief, followed by a smell that was quite honestly the worst smell I ever smelled in my entire life, even to this day. It smelled like death. The people around me could smell it, too. Everyone started coughing but trying their best not to offend. I could feel my pants were completely wet with the puss of my cyst.
When my name was called, I was so embarrassed. Everyone knew the smell was coming from me, and now they could see my drenched clothing. I mean, it was like I had just dipped the top of my pants and the bottom of my shirt in water. That’s how wet they were. The faces of the people were that of utter shock. They must have thought I peed myself.
Later, in the doctor’s office, the doctor took one step inside the room and said, ‘Ah, another cyst?’ He knew just from the smell what it was. He took a look and said it was the biggest one he had ever seen. He signed me up for surgery. Before I just had little surgeries just for him to pop the cyst, not a surgeon who was going to remove the skin around the area so it would never return. I have never had one since.”
“He Tried To Discreetly Tell Him He Needed Immediate Medical Attention”
Marijus Auruskevicius/Shutterstock
“When I was in the waiting room of the hospital for a broken toe, I saw a somewhat elderly man (50s-60s) come up to the nurse’s desk and cough quietly. She waved him off as a sign to tell him to wait a minute and he started to pace nervously. He was able to catch a male nurse walking by and tried to discreetly tell him he needed immediate medical attention. I was wondering why the guy was so antsy and that’s when I noticed it.
The guy had a mixture of brown and red fluid leak down the back of his thigh from his shorts. The male nurse asked him to speak up and even though he was quiet, I heard him mutter, ‘I’ve got an adult toy so far up my behind that I can’t reach it and I don’t want the entire hospital to know about it!’ The male nurse seemed to hesitate a bit and motioned him to wait in an isolated room.”
‘Well, About That Burning Sensation’
One should never be defined by their habits, but once their habits prove to affect their body definitively, it usually means it is time to break it. Yet, self-motivation often fails as an effective tool when quitting cold turkey. But, if anyone knows how to motivate a person to fix a bad health habit, it would be a doctor, even if that means they need to scare them.
“About ten years ago, I had a very…promiscuous…friend. He would sleep with anything ‘warm, wet and willing’ and half the time didn’t use any protection. One day he started having a burning sensation when he peed, more than your average UTI. He’d done it with a new random a few days ago, so he went to the doctor’s office to have some tests run.
Two days later, the doc’s office called him, and said that he needed to come in immediately. He rushed to the doc’s office, got sent to an exam room, and the doc came in with a clipboard and a very concerned look on his face.
DOC: ‘Well… about that burning sensation…’
My friend was nervous and said, ‘Yeah?’
DOC: ‘You work in a restaurant?’
FRIEND: ‘Yep.’
DOC: ‘You drink a lot of soda?’
FRIEND: ‘Yep.’
DOC: ‘Something citrusy? Like Sprite or Sunkist?’
FRIEND: ‘Yep.’
DOC: ‘That burning sensation when you pee is excess carbonic acid in your system being eliminated. Cut out the soda and stick to water and you’ll be fine in a couple of days.’
FRIEND: ‘Why’d you have to call me down here to tell me that, Doc?’
DOC: ‘So you’d stop doing it unprotected.'”