Doctors Break Down The Most Obvious Lies A Patient Has Ever Told Them

Content Warning: Drugs, Drug Use, Drug Addiction

Those of us who are uncomfortable going to a doctor's appointment can attest to how hard it can be to talk to and get vulnerable with someone you don't inherently trust.

But some people lie or withhold information from doctors with very different reasons, largely because they're doing something they know they shouldn't be doing and are in front of a doctor, still hoping they won't get caught.

Redditor theedriplomat asked:

"Doctors on Reddit, what is the most obvious lie a patient has ever told you?"

Seizures As A Cover Story

"Nurse here, but I had a patient who claimed he had seizures. When he was having a 'seizure,' I went, 'I don’t know what to give him to stop it,' and the patient replied, 'Fentanyl,' while shaking."

- ManlyCannibalOG

"I have also witnessed a 'seizing patient' verbally reply as we were conferring around his obvious performance: 'Not enough Ativan, more, more.'"

"That is when the attending calmly took off his glasses, put his hand on the patient’s shoulder, and said, 'You don’t speak while seizing, absolutely not, never, go to rehab.'"

"The look on that patient’s face was… I can’t describe. Two hours later, the bed was empty, as the patient had eloped."

- GsGirlNYC

High Alcohol Count

"He said, 'I didn't drink.'"

"Sir, your blood alcohol level would kill a normal man, and I can smell you from across the department. Also, you fell over twice while trying to stand up."

- LegitimateLagomorph

"So, funny story, I took my husband to the ER because he was late picking me up. Had a coworker drop me off at his work. He was passed out in his car covered in vomit. He had all the symptoms of heat exhaustion."

"We’re in the ER for a while, he gets all the tests. He said he had the two taste tests at his work (he proofs and mixes alcohol) and the pint of beer for lunch. That was hours previously."

"We get an answer, and his BAC level is really high. He didn’t smell like alcohol, either; it was strange."

"Then my stepdad pointed out that my husband was proofing that afternoon. When that happens, he has to heat the alcohol up. It vaporized, and he was too close to it for too long. It was also 100% humidity that day in a not well-ventilated space (my husband should have had the fan on)."

"He literally got drunk by accident by breathing in alcohol vapor for a few hours… it was wild. I’m sure the ER still thinks he’s an alcoholic, lol!!"

- DemiGoddess001

Don't Waste Our Time

"Worked for a drug research clinic."

"We told the guys that a blood test would be done, and if they had any illegal drugs in their systems, they would show up. We told them not to waste their time or ours; if they'd used drugs, they should just come back in a week and be clean. No penalty, no judgment, you just need to be clear of drugs for a week."

"A full 75% swore 'no drugs,' yet the test results showed that was a lie."

- Redsquirreltree

"The pharmacology unit I did my graduate work in ran bioequivalence trials for new generics, and we used students from the university as healthy volunteers."

"Same story, we'd tell them when they phoned, 'We can't use anyone who has taken any drugs. Don't waste our time; we are the unit that screens for drugs for the prison services, for police forensics, and for suspected overdoses here at the hospital trauma unit, so if you have taken anything, we WILL find it. Likewise, it's for non-smokers, and we will find out from your piss test if you are a smoker.'"

"The amount of positives we would still get when recruiting for a study was insane."

"We had a long list of time-wasters and those who were blacklisted. As soon as they phoned up to volunteer for a study, we'd ask for name, student ID, and government ID number and check if they were on our 'Absolutely Not' list."

"Over the years, we also had to break the unexpected news to a handful of unsuspecting female students that they, in fact, were expecting."

- flyboy_za

Alcoholic Cirrhosis

"I was at the pub having lunch, and next to me was a guy five or six pints deep. I vouched for a sour ale he seemed unsure about. He ordered it. Still drinking it when I shook his hand and left."

"That afternoon, I walked into my exam room and that guy was sitting there."

"Me: 'Oh, hey chief, I met you at [X pub] earlier!'"

"Pt: 'Wasn't me.'"

"Me:'I told you [X drink] was great. You ordered it?'"

"Pt: 'Wasn't me.'"

"I found it odd but skimmed the chart a bit (we don't get to do it beforehand sometimes) and figured out quickly why he was lying: referred to our hepatologist for evaluation and management of his alcoholic cirrhosis. The office scheduled him with me accidentally."

"He had indicated to the rooming nurse that he was sober for six months. I apologized for the scheduling mix-up, but warned him it was a bit pointless to lie about his alcohol intake. He still lied at his rescheduled appointment with the correct provider. Oh well, it's his liver, not mine."

- PartyCyclone

Lack Of Wound Care

"'I've been following my diabetes treatment plan.'"

"Sir, your toes are falling off and your A1C is 14."

- Sometime_after_dark

"I'm a wound care specialist. I can tell you haven't been changing this dressing properly. Because of the way it is."

"Also, despite all the nursing flows saying the dressing was completed, the dressing on that leg has my date and initials from last week."

"'Nothing seems to be working; they just can't heal.'"

"Mhm. Sure."

- Bearacolypse

A Hidden Diagnosis

"Not sure if this counts, but while taking a new patient’s history back in 2011, he told me he was in a band."

"I told him I was a musician, as well. He got all excited and started to talk more about the others in his band. They were none other than The Beatles. He spoke of all of them in the present tense, too."

"It was a sobering moment. I never would have known he was Schizophrenic if I hadn’t asked him about his hobbies. Not up until that point, anyway."

- PostScrollRepeat

Truth Too Late

"Not my case, but my mother's (we work together, we're both dentists). She starts extracting a tooth of an elderly lady after thoroughly going through what medication she takes, any chronic conditions, etc."

"She asks her if she takes any anti-coagulants (blood won't stop if taken). Nope. She doesn't take any. Any Aspirin? Nope, no Aspirin."

"So my mum extracts the tooth, and now the wound won't stop bleeding. My mum asks again about anti-coagulants, specifically. Nope."

"After 30 more minutes of this and an X-Ray to check if there were any root fragments left in the socket, the patient, now distressed that she still won't stop bleeding, says something along the lines of, 'Maybe I shouldn't have taken (insert anti-coagulant brand name here) this morning.'"

- ivanguliashki

Just In Case!

"I had a guy who had a lymphoma, came in not feeling well. His liver enzymes were trash, he looked like death, he was tachycardic, and his blood pressure levels were very borderline."

"He kept telling me he felt fine and would be fine going home. We spent all day on the phone back and forth with oncology and infectious disease, and the worry was that his lymphoma had transformed to a more aggressive type."

"Overnight, his blood pressure tanked, and he went to the ICU (for my medical people, his overnight lactate was 12). He wouldn't let the overnight resident call his family because 'he was fine.' He died the next day. Very, very sad case."

"If a doctor asks to call your loved ones because they're worried about how sick you are, believe them!"

- WoodsyAspen

Medical Changes

"I'm not a doctor, but a medical assistant, and they said to me, 'My blood pressure isn’t normally that high!'"

"My patient is panicking after seeing the numbers and swears up and down that the high BP is wildly abnormal and incredibly worrying."

"I don’t see any filled BP med prescriptions on their chart. I run the machine again, I get a manual BP, I get the nurse involved, we start checking in-depth for symptoms of a hypertensive crisis, we involve the doctor in case the patient needs to be admitted, and fifteen minutes later the patient comes out with, 'Well, I guess I haven’t taken my blood pressure medication at all in the past week. Could that be affecting it?'"

"They were under the impression that being prescribed the medication would immediately change their blood pressure, even before they actually started taking the medication."

"I’ve started asking about meds right away to head off the panicking when the BP comes back high, as it almost always does in our clinic."

- strangeest-crochet-17

Prescription Schedule

"The doctors I work with will ask if patients are taking their medication, they say yes, and once they’re under anesthesia, the doctor says, 'They never filled the prescription.'"

- Maleficent-Orange438

A Shifting Blood Type

"I am a Medical Laboratory Scientist. I am the guy who plays with all the stuff your mother told you never to touch."

"One day, a Labor and Delivery patient drops in and decides to have her baby. She had no prenatal care. The nurse draws her blood and sends it to the lab. I do a type and screen (Blood type and Rh). We do this on all patients because lab people are paranoid."

"Patient tests as A Positive; in the computer her history shows B Positive. I send the Phlebotomist to draw her blood because lab people are paranoid. Still A Positive. I dive into the history and, yep, two years previously, I was the one who typed her as B Positive."

"This time, I draw her blood (because lab people are paranoid) and let the nurses know there is a blood bank discrepancy, and call the physician. We can't give her type-specific blood if she needs it, but we will have to give her O Negative and start an investigation. (Blood types don't change except for very rare circumstances.)"

"As I am retyping her for the third time, (still A Positive), the nurse calls me, laughing. Our mama-to-be was admitted under her sister's name. She had stolen her sister's Medicaid card instead of getting one of her own. She didn't want her folks to know she was pregnant."

- MLSGeek

Denied To The End

"Ugh, I had a guy adamantly denying that he smoked pot. He kept coming in every few days for what was clearly hyperemesis syndrome from pot. He REEKED of marijuana."

"I told him I do not care if you use it. I medically just need to know. He refused to admit that he was using it and had to go through a whole GI referral and a scope and all this unnecessary stuff."

"The way I caught him was I just said one day, I’m just going to state I know you said you don’t use pot. My concerns are that you have this textbook syndrome."

"Whether you are or aren’t using it, I don’t care, but if you are using it and stop, you will get all better."

"I saw him a couple months later. No longer smelled of pot. He told me that he just got all better and he didn’t know why."

- saturatedscruffy

The Source Isn't The Most Important Detail

"Not a doctor, but I imagine any doctor who works in a clinic that treats STDs has had a lot of married men claim to have gotten an STD from a public restroom toilet seat."

- PapaEchoLincolhn

"I’ve started saying, 'You got xx, I don't care how you got it, but you gotta take these meds and your partners need to be tested and be on the same.' Just straight up cut them off and spare them the stuttering."

- BuscopanV

Kids Say The Darnedest Things

"I asked a five-year-old how a bead got in his ear. He claimed he didn’t know."

- efox02

"As a preschool teacher, I could believe it. I could see another child sneaking one in or a child putting one in and forgetting about it."

- misslostinlife

"When I was five, my nose hurt inside. I told my teacher. She asked if I had put anything up there, like a bean. I asked her why on earth would I have put a bean in my nose. She said sometimes people do that."

"I decided she was an id**t, and I judged her relentlessly the rest of the year. I just couldn't fathom anyone would do that, not even a child, so I thought she was just a moron who put beans in her nose."

- sylvanwhisper

Skin Hydration

"'Your skin is really dry today; I’m worried that’s what’s contributing to your itchy skin. What lotion do you use?'"

"'Oh, I use this brand. I just didn’t put it on today' (as I try not to breathe in the snow of dry skin flaking off my patient's legs)."

"Seriously y'all. Regular lotion use will save your skin. I can’t tell you how many patients I see daily for an itchy rash on the legs due to dry skin."

- atelectaisdude

"Pharmacist here. Lotion contains 80% water, which is as helpful for dry skin as a hot shower with lots of soap, which is not at all. It will make the skin look more hydrated for half an hour, and that's not the effect you're looking for."

"You need a fatter/oilier product. I recommend baby oil with only one or two ingredients (check the label!) and a damp washcloth to spread it with. You can use a squirt of the oil on the washcloth, wipe your leg, then squirt for the other leg, etc. It should be fast to cover your whole body. Apply it after a (short and not too hot) shower, and you'll see much better results in a few days."

- Apotak

It can be hard to open up to a doctor and trust that they're there to help us, but explicitly lying to them, especially when it's pretty obvious that we're lying, is a whole other level of ridiculousness.