“We had a patient who came in insisting that her neighbor was poisoning her. Everyone dismissed her.”

"He scoffed. 'You don’t have that. Why would you think you have that?'

I told him my symptoms. He was doubtful, but told the nurse to get me a Coke, and made me chug it. Sent me to roam around the hospital for a little bit, then get bloodwork and come back. 

I came back, and his first words were 'This is so aggravating.'

"There was no loss of consciousness or other symptoms more associated with classic seizures, but I ordered tests anyway. 

Turns out she had been having multiple focal seizures."

"She remained in the ER on a psych eval. I ran all the standard labs on her and they were normal, but this patient would not budge. She was admitted to psych on a hold. 

At that point, one of the hospitalists said, ‘Why not?’ and ordered labs to test for several heavy metals and ethylene glycol. Her ethylene glycol level was 32. THIRTY TWO. I don't know if she was legitimately being poisoned by her neighbor or if it was self-induced, but damn, that patient taught me a very important lesson that day."

"He was like, 'Maybe I have a big polyp there or something.' Sure enough, he ended up having a 2.5 cm polyp that we removed from that exact area. 

I’ll never get to find out if that catching sensation ever went away for him, but I thought it was interesting that he was right."

"I took him to his primary and had a bag packed for the hospital in the trunk. The doctor told him it was likely a B-12 deficiency but that he'd do bloodwork to put my mind at ease anyway. I asked if the CBC was done onsite or not, and he said it was sent out. 

I asked if he planned to rush the CBC. He got very angry and said, 'There is nothing the CBC could show that would change my treatment plan.' Then he told my partner he needed to stop me from googling.

We got a call that night from the lab that his white blood cell count was dangerously high and platelets were dangerously low, and I had to immediately take him to the ER. I did, and he was diagnosed with acute leukemia."

"I told her cancer wasn't contagious like that, but she was so insistent that I ordered a CT scan in order to reassure her. Lo and behold, she had a huge colon mass. Very bizarre case."

"Super nice lady, but high anxiety. Really not in terrible health otherwise. She wasn't even feeling unwell and had the vaguest set of symptoms. 

I scheduled her the same day with her PCP, who ordered a CT of her abdomen to hopefully help alleviate her concerns... Nope. Metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was dead within 6 weeks. I'll never forget taking her initial call and trying to calm her down."

"[I'm a] lowly EMT, but they tell us this is a common sign of cardiac arrest. 'Sense of dread,' our book says."

"So I started feeling septic. Went to the ER, and they refused me and sent me up to the primary ward. They immediately sent me back down to the ER and ordered a CT —lo and behold, I had 500 mL abscess under my muscle crushing the nerves in my right leg."

"He called in other doctors and nurses to review my photos and case afterward. 😑"

"We refused at first because we did not think there was any need for it and thought it was a waste of resources. Eventually, we gave in and it turned out that he had a massive brain tumor (medulloblastoma)."

"We went to the hospital, and she started getting really sweaty, but there were no other symptoms/exam changes/vital sign changes. We dropped her off, gave our report, and went back into service...

A couple hours later, we went back to the same hospital. I asked if they ever found anything with the previous patient, and I found out she passed away. 

CT showed a ruptured aortic aneurysm, and they didn't have enough time to transfer her or the resources to operate at that facility. The bizarre thing is, ruptured aortas usually (as in, every other case I've seen/heard about/read about) have other symptoms such as high heart rate, low blood pressure (or both), dizziness/lightheadedness, pain...this woman had none of those."

"Long story short, she ended up with an MRI showing she had an advanced abdominal pregnancy (i.e. her baby was not in her womb but just sitting in her abdomen). On the MRI images, the baby did indeed have its hand holding a piece of her transverse colon. That was wild."

"He reported worsening mobility over the past six months. He had not had medical care in many years. I saw him, and to me, the lesions looked like a vascular issue; I suggested I would order testing but planned to send him urgently to a vascular specialist for an opinion. He said he believed it was leprosy. 

I told him I thought it was not likely, and pulled up some photos just to show him how unlikely it was. I hesitated when I saw some photos of milder cases and saw that there was actually a close resemblance. 

I asked if he had any contacts and he said no. I decided it was likely over-cautious, but I said I would be sending him to a dermatologist as well to ensure we were being thorough. 

Well, a couple of weeks later he did in fact get a skin biopsy that was positive for leprosy. To this day it is one of the rarest and most unlikely diagnoses I have ever seen in 10 years of practice."

"After the doctor wasted three weeks on antibiotics, he finally diagnosed her with congestive heart failure and started working on a treatment plan for her heart."

"I did some research and went to my PCP with my concerns. Hell, I didn’t even think I was right. 

After the biopsy confirmed it, we were all shocked. Even my eventual oncologist said she had only read about this, and hadn’t seen it in practice yet as a presenting symptom.

Go me because it was my only symptom, and I caught it early by about 4-5 months. :)"

"Thought he had some sort of trauma in his life and he internalized it and was going through a version of adjustment syndrome.

During the admission where I was involved, a MRI/MRCP of the pancreas found a small pancreatic cancer.

That’s when I learned a portion of patients with pancreatic cancer present with a vague 'overwhelming sense of impending doom' and not much else. That's always stuck with me."

"But I got an MRI for her, and sure enough, there was osteomyelitis (bone infection). So now for any of my diabetics who think they have an infection, I just put them on antibiotics 'cause most often they’re right. 

I do so many amputations, and it’s alarming how many people do not care about their health. So for those that give any concern, I’m on their side and will do what I can to help make us both sleep well at night."

"I asked him if he felt his irregular heartbeats. 'Nope.'

He then started with ten more theories, like: 'I ate salmon yesterday, did that cause the artial fibrilation?”

But his first guess was spot on, he had a TIA (transient ischemic attack)."

"It counteracts the histamine-mediated vasodilation."

Or, if you want to write in but prefer to stay anonymous, feel free to check out this anonymous Google form. Who knows — your answer may end up in an upcoming BuzzFeed article! 

Please note: some comments may have been edited for length and/or clarity.