Yahoo Lifestyle 15 People Who Received Medical Misdiagnoses Are Revealing What Their Correct Diagnosis Was, And THIS Is Why You Should Always Get A Second Opinion
Sadly, medical misdiagnoses are considered commonplace in our society — particularly for women and the BIPOC community. Oftentimes, uncaring doctors will simply diagnose a patient without listening to any of their concerns or suggestions. While it is usually best to listen to the advice of your doctor, some scenarios simply warrant a second (and better) opinion, especially when a condition becomes chronic...
This is why when Redditor Pharmer-Mo asked, "What were you misdiagnosed with? What ended up being the right diagnosis?" Thousands of individuals flooded the comments with their misdiagnosis horror stories in the hopes of helping others. From 'panic attacks' to food intolerances, here are 15 times a misdiagnosis could have turned deadly:
1."When I was 16, I worked as a nurse’s aide, and there was an older gentleman I would stay with after work to read to. One evening, I was exhausted and not feeling well, so I fell asleep while reading to him. I ended up in the emergency room, where the doctor told my mom that I was an attention-seeker — my parents were not happy with me."
"Despite feeling terrible, I pushed through and went to school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I was so drained that when a (very nice but annoying) guy got on my nerves, I hit him in the head with my chemistry book — which was completely out of character for me. That night, my mom made my favorite meal, but after one bite, I went straight to bed.
By Friday, I refused to go to school. My right arm wasn’t working properly, and I couldn’t stand straight. In the car, my mom handed me a comb and told me to fix my hair. I ran it through my hair once, then dropped it onto the floor. At that moment, she knew something was seriously wrong."
"Turns out, I had pneumonia in one lung and pleurisy in the other. I was admitted to the ICU, where I remained for weeks. Doctors from the Mayo Clinic traveled to see me, and I was eventually diagnosed with tuberculosis."
"After three months in the hospital, I was finally discharged, weighing just 89 pounds. My entire high school, along with my siblings' elementary school, had to be tested for TB. I had contracted it from one of my patients at the hospital. Unfortunately, the illness also affected my heart, leading to surgery three years later.
During my heart procedure, there was a complication — though I was never told exactly what happened — and one of my lung lobes had to be removed. I was placed on a ventilator in the ICU for a long time. Recovery was long and difficult. To this day, I deal with chronic chest pain, but I’ve learned to live with it and don’t take any medication for it."
2."I was misdiagnosed with an infected belly button piercing. In actuality, it was a very rare form of endometriosis called 'umbilical endometriosis.' The doctors accused me of piercing my belly button and made my mother leave the room so I would feel like it was 'safe' to tell them I had pierced it. All the while, I was literally pleading with them to listen to me; I don’t know why they thought a 24-year-old woman would be lying about a belly button piercing."
"They were all young male doctors who acted like frantic teenagers — it was an infuriating experience.
They sent me home with a piece of paper stating: 'Patient denies piercing belly button.' It made me angry because I was in so much pain I could barely move, and it was a chore to get to the hospital in the first place while blood was oozing out of my belly button."
3."When I was seven years old, I suddenly began having petit mal seizures. My parents took me to the emergency room during one of them, and I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. All I remember about it was the small room we were in and my parents crying. I didn't understand anything, but I knew the situation was bad."
"The doctors suggested a second opinion at a children's hospital an hour away.
So we went, and the neurospecialists told us there was a parasite on my brain, which I guess was a rare occurrence. I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and took medicine to kill the parasite. I have scar tissue on that area, like a little brain tattoo, and I have to take maintenance medication to ward off auras.
But, yeah, it was definitely not a tumor."
4."I went to the hospital feeling like my stomach was in knots — it felt completely blocked (this also happened during my period, and I have very heavy periods). So I went to the emergency room, and they gave me a pregnancy test, even though I had already told them I was having a worse-than-usual period and passing clots and hoped it didn't mess with the urine sample."
"The doctor told me, 'Oh, you're probably having a miscarriage!' Well, my urine sample came back negative for pregnancy, but that still didn't convince them, so they ran a blood test! Clearly, this much blood had to be a miscarriage, so they performed a blood draw, and guess what? I still wasn't pregnant. So what did they do next? A vaginal ultrasound — still not pregnant.
At this point, my pain was getting worse, but not because of my period. I had been there for four hours and given three pregnancy tests, so they finally moved on and began asking questions about why I was there.
I was eventually given a CAT scan, and two hours later, I was rushed for emergency surgery! My small intestines were blocked — I had been telling them I was having issues going to the bathroom and felt like I needed to throw up for the past two days.
After the surgery, they told me that if I had been made to wait a few more hours, it could have been deadly because I was already 99% blocked..."
5."I was misdiagnosed with Lyme Disease because I had been dealing with worsening symptoms for a month — tingling sensations, constant fatigue, lack of appetite, and sensitivity to bright light. Two deer ticks had bitten me a few months prior, and I did test positive for Lyme on my bloodwork, but the antibiotics I was given didn't help."
"It turned out to be Stage IV brain cancer. The misdiagnoses almost killed me because I had a rapidly growing tumor the size of my fist, crushing my brain. One morning, my roommates had to call 911 because I was having trouble standing, vomiting, and losing consciousness. I was helicoptered to the Mayo Clinic, properly diagnosed, and operated on the following morning.
I was blacked out for nearly 48 hours, with the exceptions of the ambulance and helicopter rides. My heart rate had dropped to 30 bpm and was ready to fail — they had to stabilize it before I was flown out. I likely would have died within those 48 hours if my roommates hadn't made the call."
6."My 10-year-old was diagnosed as bipolar (after a one-hour consultation) and prescribed mood disorder drugs which tipped them into full, psychotic meltdowns — it was terrifying. I told their psychiatrist we needed to try something else, which deeply offended him. He told me to let my kid go cold turkey on the medication. So, we tried that, and within the next few days, they went into withdrawal, which led to a meltdown and borderline catatonia."
"We quit going to that psychiatrist, and to be honest, I should have sued him.
The next psychiatrist immediately suspected (correctly) that my kid was autistic —that’s it. Just autism (and possibly ADHD), but no signs of Bipolar Disorder.
That was a rough time for us, and I’m glad it’s over."
7."When I began menstruating, my periods would be so painful that I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days. I’d be crying, puking, missing school, etc., and I was basically told it was nothing. My doctor said I was 'dramatic' and should just take a Tylenol. I ended up using birth control to stop my period for over a decade after that."
"A few years later, after having an IUD inserted, I was in pain for weeks. So, I had an ultrasound to check that it didn’t perforate my uterus, and it hadn’t; I had it removed, and when they tried to pull it out, it got stuck because one of the IUD's 'arms' was folded down and acting like a fish hook. Needless to say, it was painful.
While trying (and failing) to have a baby, I was informed that I had a birth defect known as an unicornuate uterus; the left half was properly formed, but the right half was completely underdeveloped, and there was a pocket of endometrium that wasn’t connected to the rest of my uterus or cervix, so the only way menstrual blood could leave the right side was through the fallopian tube. That also explains why one arm of my failed IUD was folded down; my uterine cavity was the wrong shape for it."
8."A few days after I gave birth, I began vomiting every two hours and feeling lightheaded and generally drowsy — luckily, I was still in the hospital because I had a C-section. I knew it was postpartum preeclampsia because I’d been monitored and considered high-risk my whole pregnancy."
"But when I told the hospital OB about my symptoms, she said it was probably anxiety or COVID because I didn’t have classic preeclampsia symptoms such as a headache or blurry vision.
I asked for a blood test to find out what was wrong, and the doctor refused until I convinced the nurse I was dying. The results came back, and I was correct; it was postpartum preeclampsia.
I stayed in the hospital for another week because nobody could figure out how to get my blood pressure and vomiting under control. It’s been almost three years, and I’m still angry at the OB."
9."I was told I was having an asthma-induced panic attack in the ER — despite having no history of asthma or panic attacks. It was the equivalent of 'Calm down, little lady, it's not that bad!'"
"Turns out, it was a heart attack — 98% blockage. But I'm a woman, so the second I mentioned 'anxiety' as a symptom, all my other symptoms were dismissed.
To my fellow women, if you ever have anxiety for 'no reason,' fatigue, nausea, difficulty catching your breath, numbness in between your shoulder blades, or cold sweats, these are all common symptoms of heart attacks in women. Some of us don't even get chest pain, or if we do, it feels less like a heart issue and more like bad heartburn. Don't let anyone dismiss your symptoms."
10."Not me, but my husband. At age 42, we thought he was having a stroke in the middle of the night — his words were slurred, and his smile was droopy. So, I took him to the ER, where he was diagnosed with a mini-stroke and high blood pressure. He was medicated and sent home with instructions to follow up with our family doctor."
"A week later, he’d told me he had been having bad headaches, and nothing would make them go away. We didn't think anything of it; I took the kids to the local Christmas parade and returned to find him out of his mind. He was completely naked and repeatedly screaming: 'Help me, It hurts!' He could not see or hear me. I called 911, and it took four men to get him in the ambulance. He fought them at every turn, and they eventually had to hogtie them.
Once at the ER, the doctor told me she couldn't determine what was wrong with him, but her official diagnosis was going to be a 'break with reality.' She put him into a medically induced coma, and he was flown to the city, where he was placed in ICU. The next day, the doctor there finally figured it out — my husband had bacterial meningitis. Once the doctor discovered the correct diagnosis, proper treatment began, and my husband vastly improved. The doctor prepared me for the possibility that when the coma was lifted, there could be permanent brain damage, but thankfully, there wasn't. It was a scary time.
About five years after this happened to my husband, the same thing happened to a woman in our town. She was completely naked, out of her mind, and screaming that she was hurt. Her family reached out and told us they were so thankful that we’d been outspoken about our experience because it helped them figure out what was wrong with her much more quickly."
11."In my 20s, I was told I was allergic to spicy food because I would have pain in my side after eating peppers. I stayed away from spicy food for years, even though I love jalapeño poppers. Every now and then, I'd eat a few of them and drink a lot of milk afterward, but it didn't help. My side would hurt so sharply, I'd want to throw up."
"When I was 34, my side began hurting even though I hadn't eaten anything spicy. I started throwing up uncontrollably at work, so I went to the ER. Turns out, I was having a gallbladder attack. It had become a 'Porcelain Gallbladder' and had to be removed because it was infected and larger than normal. The doctor said that it had been like that for years.
Bonus: I can now eat spicy foods!"
12."I was misdiagnosed twice by a dermatologist for a bruise-like rash that showed up on my leg one day. The first time, they told me they couldn't biopsy it and that it was a condition called 'dark spots' and it would go away in six months."
"A year later, I went back, and they biopsied it. This time, they misdiagnosed me with an autoimmune disorder called morphea. I had to go to a rheumatologist, take an autoimmune suppressant and steroid creams, and undergo bloodwork constantly. However, the spot always looked the same, so I gave up on treating it and learned to live with it.
This diagnosis sat wrong with me from the beginning because certain things about it made no sense. Morphea is a type of scleroderma that generally leads to muscle deformities, but that never happened to me. So, one day, after speaking to my sister (who's in the medical field) about it, I fell down a rabbit hole and discovered what we believe to be my final, actual diagnosis: Linear atrophoderma of Moulin.
There are roughly 50 documented cases of LAM, which is why it makes sense I was misdiagnosed. Similarly to me, the patients in the research papers were misdiagnosed with morphea first. It was on different parts of their bodies, but it still looked like my skin condition.
We're pretty sure it's permanent, so I guess it's kind of neat."
13."March of 2024, I was resting on the couch, and my heart rate spiked to 190 on my Apple Watch. My husband called 911 because he thought I was going into cardiac arrest. The paramedic told me I was 'having a panic attack' and that I needed to 'calm down.' I went to my primary care doctor, and she referred me to a cardiologist who ordered an echocardiogram and a heart monitor."
"The echo came back clean, but my heart monitor showed multiple periods of tachycardia throughout the day. By the end of May, I still hadn't received any solid answers. A few weeks later, I began having what can only be described as stroke-like symptoms with tachycardia — no triggers. My heart rate would be over 180, I would lose vision in my left eye and the ability to speak, my left arm would go numb, and my right pupil would dilate. My primary doctor then referred me to a neurologist, who ordered an MRI of my brain. It turns out my vertebral artery had become twisted and was causing massive compression on my medulla oblongata and cranial nerves 7-10.
She sent me to a neurosurgeon who said it was extremely rare and scheduled a craniotomy with vascular decompression. So, in October, I had the left side of my head operated on; the artery was untwisted off the nerves, and the medulla was tacked up and moved away from the nerves. My surgeon said it was one of the most complex operations he had ever performed, and without it, I would’ve suffered a fatal stroke because the blood flow to my brain stem was significantly affected. While I was coming out of surgery, they thought I had a heart attack; the whole experience was a nightmare."
14."My doctor constantly diagnosed me with urinary tract infections and prescribed antibiotics even though I never got better — at one point, she even accused me of not wiping appropriately. One day, I began throwing up, and it would not stop, but she still claimed it was a UTI. When I got to the point that I couldn't keep water down, my husband took me to the ER (around six weeks after the vomiting started)."
"I was septic and in renal failure because huge stones were blocking both of my kidneys — my right kidney was essentially a bag of stones. I was so dehydrated they had to give me two bags of fluids before they could even get a blood sample.
I had emergency surgery that day and subsequent surgeries to remove my right kidney, gallbladder, and more stones in my left kidney. It turns out a calcium-secreting tumor on my parathyroid was causing the stones."
15."I was first diagnosed with Nursemaid's Elbow when I was 13 months old. The doctors popped my elbow back in and made me wear a brace. I then dislocated my other elbow, and they diagnosed me with Nursemaid's Elbow again. It happened multiple times over the next 15 years, yet they still called it Nursemaid's Elbow. I had other dislocations, but they were all brushed off."
"At 12, I was also diagnosed with Mitral Valve Prolapse, and four years later, I was diagnosed with Mitral Valve Regurgitation. When I was 15, I began developing severe stomach issues and was told it was IBS. However, I also began getting dizzy and passing out, but doctors told me it was because I was dehydrated from IBS.
Finally, I decided to research different medical conditions because the doctors were telling me I was overreacting. My favorite from an ER doctor was, 'It's just regular teenage hormones,' causing my horrible stomach cramps even when I wasn't even on my period. I couldn't find anything until I stumbled upon Marfan Syndrome in an episode of Untold Stories of the ER one day. It led me to research Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and two years later, I was diagnosed with Type III EDS. Doctors weren't doing genetic testing at the time due to the cost, and they didn't know much about EDS back then. However, I later got genetic testing and was rediagnosed with Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome."
Did any of these misdiagnoses surprise you? Have you ever been misdiagnosed by a dismissive doctor? What was your accurate diagnosis? Tell us in the comments! (Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can answer using this Google Form).
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
