Share your weird medical stories

[Arugula Latte]

Here is mine: I know a guy who had a "sinus infection" for months. It just would not go away. Finally, his doctor said he would do a little operation or probe around up there or something. Well, it turns out this guy had a large chunk of a particularly type of fungus growing in his sinus cavity -- and that in the vast majority of these cases, the fungus is either fatal or leaves a person's face completely disfigured (like flesh-eating bacteria will). I guess the fungus is fairly common, however, it usually does not move in with humans. The doctor was able to remove it all, and this man is one of only maybe three or four people known to have escaped death/disfigurement. Weird!

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. i had a friend with a similar condition

i don't know what it was exactly, but i thought it was a fungus as well.
he had the same scenario, lots of nasal problems and finally they operated and pulled out chunks of stuff.

[Merrick]

2. My mycology/parasitology prof. in college told us this one-

A guy he knew (or knew of) who had contracted a parasitic worm infection (I forget which kind). It was a species of little worms that tended to gravitate to the eyeball due to their photophilic nature, so everytime he saw one float across his eyeball he'd pinch it with some special little clamp, run outside, call a cab to the doctor's office and have it taken out.

Then there was a colleague of his who sought to prove that tube worms weren't necessarily harmful and could coexist mutualistically with man by intentially ingesting one only to have to undergo emergency surgery to relieve his blocked intestines several years later.

[pdx_prog]

3. I met a couple of people in the hospital

when my brother was in a coma. One guy....in the next room, woke up one morning and his shoulder and neck hurt. A couple of weeks later he was in this round traction device laying flat on his stomach with his head in braces and screwed down to the table. He stayed like this for a freakin year. While we were there he was taken off the traction.....the dude took off down the hall with a cane constantly and they just about had to go catch him everytime they wanted to examine him.


A woman I met there was in a car wreck in St. Louis the year before that. She was knocked from her car into a field and had a cracked skull. They sewed her up and several months later she started compaining about something sticking her in her head. They x-rayed her in Memphis and found something between her scalp and brain. They opened her head up and found a cockle burr in her head.

[Not_Giving_Up]

4. Holy crap, that's scary!

I've always had bad sinus problems, but I've been constantly plagued with serious sinus trouble for the last two months. I have two weeks to go until I have insurance...Come on January 15th!

[Beware the Beast Man]

5. NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH - here's a similar story:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/02/03/prosthetic.face/

This man had the same fungal infection, and they had to remove his entire face above the lip. Horrifying.

[commander bunnypants]

6. when I was a corpsman

a marine came into the clinic. He had tripped in the woods and a stick punctured the back of his throat and was sticking out. He was just sitting their with a piece of wood in his mouth. It did not even faze him

CB

[Book Lover]

9. Now *that's* a Marine! (nm)

[ktowntennesseedem]

7. Had appendicitis last April that turned out to be a lucky break

Hurt like hell, wife insisted it was just gas, finally convinced her to take me to the emergency room. Ruled out everything else, took out the appendix, all went well and was home the next day.

But when I when back to the doctor for a follow-up, he told me they found cancer on the appendix. Hadn't spread from anywhere else, nor spread to anywhere else, and he was certain he got it all. Said that if I hadn't had appendicitis when I did, we would have never discovered the cancer until it was too late.

(And my wife no longer makes fun of me whenever I do have gas!)

[UncleSepp]

8. My mom got bit by a bug

She was digging in her garden and got bit by a bug, or so she thought. There was a lump in her arm for a while. It swelled and started to hurt, then finally burst. A bunch of little worms or maggots came out. The ER doc said that the species that had put its eggs in her arm should never have been in her garden, since it was not native to North America. Her neighbor, also a gardener, makes trips now and again to South Africa and IIRC South America. We figure he must have brought a bug back on his shoe or maybe in a smuggled plant.

[commander bunnypants]

10. human bot fly?

SE Asia. Nasty litlle bug

CB

[AlienGirl]

11. My ex had a lung infection

The doctors started out by thinking it was bronchitis...a month later they thought it was TB...a month after that they were pretty sure it was cancer. They did a bronchoscopy and couldn't get a sample, so finally they did laparoscopic surgery to remove the mass. It turned out to be blastomycosis, a lung fungus that is incredibly rare except in a county in Wisconsin where we'd spent a weekend. Six months of terror, and it was a fungus...

Tucker