Doctors Share The Biggest Medical Mysteries They've Ever Solved

The body is such a mystery.

Every time we think we've learned it all, the body says... "Hold my spleen!"

Doctors learn in real-time.

That is a frightening concept, but necessary.

I pray my pilots already know it all.

That's a whole different thread though.

Sometimes discovering patient's issues and solving their traumas just takes good old detective work.

Paging Doctor Olivia Benson!

Now there is a crossover I'm ready for.

Redditor YaaaaaaaaasQueen wanted to hear from medical professionals about the times they saved lives through investigation, so they asked:

"Doctors of Reddit: what is the biggest medical mystery you’ve solved?"

Lungs

"Working out that someone’s occasionally coughing up blood was linked to their menstrual cycle, then finding it was from a patch of endometriosis in the lung. Don’t see that every day!"

- Neuromalacia

Disgusted Steve Carell GIFGiphy

They're so sour...

"Not a huge mystery, but one that drove me nuts for 4 years as a dentist was this guy who had severe acid erosion on all his teeth, but one area, in particular, was super bad. I figured he had to be obsessively eating something acidic and chewing it with one side of his mouth."

"I would interrogate him at every single visit (and there were tons of visits because he was totally destroying his teeth) to figure out what the hell was causing it. I probably asked the guy 50 times over 4 years if he liked to eat sour candy. Always said, 'Not really.'"

"One day we had a long appointment together and I just decided to name every sour candy I could think of while I worked. Captive audience. When I said Cry Baby's, he was like 'Mmm I like those, they're so sour!' Come to find out he was eating 1-2 bags a day. Dude. What did you think I was asking about when I asked if you liked to eat sour candy all of these years?!?!?"

- buccal_up

X-ray Away

"NAD, but saw this. The patient came with constant hiccuping that wouldn't go away and dizziness spells. Initially, they were told it was just hiccups and should go away, but it didn't, and it was *constant*. Their primary care and urgent care physicians kinda blew them off and racked it up to nothing. They wound up going to the emergency room and did a chest X-ray to rule out some kind of weird origin. So anyway, this patient had a permanent pacemaker placed some months ago."

"Chest X-ray showed the wire that goes into the heart to pace them had *punctured the heart, gone outside of it, looped its way around to the other side, and was sitting partially against the vagus nerve*. Their constant hiccups were from their dislodged pacemaker causing pulsations to the nerve that controls their heart rate and breathing. They wound up having the troubled lead/wire removed and replaced and their hiccups and dizziness were fixed."

- jack2of4spades

Building Issues

"Not my story, but an ER physician (D.r Mark Wahba) in Saskatchewan who recognized that the patient’s headaches were due to carbon monoxide poisoning, and because the patient lived in an apartment complex, he also made some calls and was able to save the entire building from carbon monoxide poisoning!"

- loganonmission

Disjointed

"Diagnosed lupus cerebritis in a patient who was basically comatose after being on ECT for depression for a couple of years. I think she still had some underlying psych issues but improved significantly after starting high-dose steroids.

"I was consulted as a resident on the ID service and noted the patient had persistent proteinuria and had been seen repeatedly for joint pains. My attending said we should sign off after the lumbar puncture was negative for infection, but I convinced him to let me order lupus labs before we signed off."

- heliawe

Freedom Fighter

"Psychiatrist here. In residency, I was moonlighting at a standalone Psych ER. A man who didn’t speak English was brought in by emergency services for psychosis. With some interpreter help, we were able to identify he was from Bhutan and that he had been a Freedom Fighter. But the interpreter said that he spoke very little that was comprehensible. I noticed some tattoos that seemed amateur and possibly from his time in combat."

"It dawned on me he could have hepatic encephalopathy from Hep C. I arranged a transfer to a medical ER. They were pretty upset with me about it. To their credit, they called back later that night to confirm I was correct, leading to a plan of appropriate medical care instead of inappropriate psychiatric care."

- Particular-Bat-6509

Hemorrhaged

"I'm a medical librarian. I had a surgeon call me about a patient she was completely stumped over. He'd had a device installed, but it needed to be replaced. The problem was the location. If she tried to remove it he would have hemorrhaged; if she left it in place he would have died slowly."

"Did a bunch of research, and even called the device maker and spoke to them; finally found a tiny bit of a thread online which eventually led to a YouTube video of the exact procedure she needed, and she was able to remove the device successfully."

- FallsOffCliffs12

Bruising

"Shout out to the doctor who recognized that my toddler had leukemia. She had an ear infection with a low-grade fever that her PCP had treated with antibiotics. A week later, we took her to urgent care because she still had the fever whenever Tylenol wore off. The infection was gone, but she had been developing a lot of bruises in the weeks prior."

"Her PCP had dismissed the bruising when I asked if it was something to worry about (some kids just bruise a lot!), but the doctor at urgent care noticed she had bruises on her back and sent us straight to the ER for a CBC. We are 9 months into treatment and doing quite well now thanks to her."

- rutsh95

Sans Uterus

"My doctor figured out that my recurring episodes with defecating alarming amounts of blood were due to endometriosis in my colon. I had my uterus taken out due to cancer, so we had no way of knowing that each month I was 'menstruating' (sans uterus) from my colon."

"Yes, it was very painful."

- KuchiKopi-Nightlight•

Be Aware

"We had three generations of people with health problems. Fatigue and pain in hands and feet. My cousin’s eye doctor saw something odd, whorling in her cornea and 9 family members all ended up being diagnosed with Fabry disease. I’m just putting this here to spread awareness."

- 2515chris

The Echo

"Not me, but my attending. We had an older guy with new severe hip pain but his x-ray and MRI was normal. Things were just… off and she felt like there was more going on. We got an MRI of his spine and lo and behold he had a huge honking spinal abscess. Most of the time you would expect to see weakness or sensory changes with a spinal abscess - he had none of that."

"We imaged his whole spine and found a couple more spots of infection. So we imaged his brain. Big old abscess. We also got a heart ultrasound (echo) that ended up showing a massive infection sitting on one of his heart valves. He had literally zero symptoms except for this sudden onset hip pain."

"Long story short we think his bad diverticulitis let some bacteria into his blood and he was unlucky enough to have it seed his heart valve. He ended up doing great with a truckload of antibiotics!"

- WoodsyAspen

3 Hands In

"My kid was born with a rare lung disorder called congenital lobar emphysema. At the time, less than 50 cases had been seen in the world. Son shouldn't have lived past 2 weeks but our pediatrician finally diagnosed it at age 5 months. Son had surgery (left upper lobectomy)."

"The following year, our pediatrician was at a huge conference with around 700 MDs in attendance and the speaker threw out the symptoms of my kid's disorder. Only 3 hands in the room raised to acknowledge they knew the diagnosis... and one was our pediatrician!"

- Noelle305

Sky High

"I had a patient once come in with tinnitus and, on a hunch, decided to check an aspirin level - it was sky high, and we got her into emergent dialysis. Super lucky catch."

- DrBearcut

people love GIFGiphy

Non-scented ONLY!

"The patient was seen 5 or 6 times in our office as well as her OBGYN for vaginal swelling, pain, and redness with workup for the typical culprits like yeast, BV, STDs, Trich, etc all negative and no response to empiric treatments. Spent about 20 minutes going through her whole history including new underwear, brands of pantyliners, detergents, douching, etc. finally managed to figure out that she started using scented toilet paper, and all of her issues resolved as soon as she stopped."

- dangledor5000

The Rarest

"Had a patient who had been dismissed repeatedly as having low appetite and weight loss from depression. Otherwise well with pretty unremarkable labs or vital signs. No other symptoms. Spent some time chatting with her and she was a beloved home cook in her community - but suddenly she couldn’t stand the smell or taste of the spices she normally used."

"Just felt off to me and ended up diagnosing adrenal insufficiency! My appetite came back within days of the proper meds."

"Definitely not anywhere close to the rarest thing I’ve diagnosed but one of the ones I’m most proud of."

- sekhmetsdaughter

Medical stories always shock my heart. I don't know if it's my fear of blood, death or knowing how fragile we all are.

Now, every time I sneeze, I'll fear my lung will fall out.

Why?

Because it's possible!

The amount of trauma from these stories will last me a lifetime.

Now I have to read more.

In the end, knowledge is power.

Do any other doctors want to weigh in?