Aimeé
Doctors see a of crazy things in their offices, because the body is wild. Accidents, emergencies, dire illnesses all make for a lot of human drama, which is why we have about two dozen TV shows that take place in hospitals. Amongst all the many people battling through issues of life and death, there are a small handful of folks who just plain don’t belong there: The Fakers.
Redditor LegoYoda420 posted on r/AskReddit because they wanted to know, “Doctors of Reddit, what’s the biggest case of ‘faking it’ you’ve ever seen?”
I expected a lot of these stories to be pretty much the same, so the variety of ailments, excuses, and real reasons for ending up in the hospital when they weren’t sick is pretty fascinating. Maybe someone should just make a TV show about these guys? I’d watch.
1.
Had a patient come in for a fall who now couldn’t move their legs at all. Did a bunch of tests, didn’t find anything. The patient was not at all phased by suddenly being paralyzed which was the first red flag. Didn’t really believe anything was wrong but the patient was still not moving their legs. My options are to admit for a huge work up or get them to walk. So I update them saying everything is fine, tests are negative, you can go home. Patient gets up, gets dressed and walks out without a word. —meropenem24
2.
We had a patient faking a seizure so my supervisor told one of us to get the “brain needle”. The patient made a miraculous and swift recovery without intervention. —Seraaphime
3.
Young (18-20) Woman went running into small rural hospital ER pretending to have abdominal pain. Police officer had tagged her going 40+km over the limit which was ‘stunt driving’ as per the new law in Ontario (impound and licence suspension automatic). Cop followed her into ER and apparently said he’d be waiting for her when she left.
Locum staff such as myself were housed at a small B&B about 15 mins away, and the ER had pre-printed order sets to be done before we arrived. When I arrived she flat out admitted that she just came in because she freaked out and didn’t stop. I told her we’d give her 45 mins to call her parents/family before I booted her.
Except, bHCG came back positive, and subsequent ultrasound came back showing extremely early ectopic. Officer figures out something is up when he hears air ambulance call come in over radio.
She was completely asymptomatic and just worked out that she dodged both charges and a life threatening issue by accident. It was definitely a WTF moment. —Graigori
4.
Not a doctor but worked in health care for nearly 20yrs. While taking a break from the ICU (due to it being emotionally draining) I worked in home health for a bit. I had a patient who clearly had munchausen syndrome. On a daily basis she would call her insurance to see what things would be covered if she was diagnosed with this or that. She called her Doctor’s office an average of 5x during my shift with her, she would report all kinds of non real symptoms. She pestered the doctors into do exploitive laparoscopic surgery, of course nothing was found. One day I walked in and she was rubbing her incisions with rotten cabbage trying to get it infected. She wasnt seeking pain meds (except to sell) really she was just as happy with antibiotics or stool softeners, anything, as long as they wrote her a prescription and she got to go to the pharmacy where she did a whole song and dance for them too, claiming allergies and reactions.
She always increased the exaggeration of her story too. One time she fluttered her eyes (after making sure I was looking) and said she lost consciousness in that half a second. She called the doctor and claimed she lost consciousness for 5mins, she called the insurance and claimed it was 10min, she called the pharmacy and claimed it was 30min, then she called 911 and told them she woke up on the floor after loosing consciousness for 4hrs.
The worst thing about her was she was a mom. Her son was 28 at the time and by all the stories of his childhood illnesses and all her saying how he is severely disabled I knew she basically fucked up his childhood with munchausen by proxy. She portrayed him as being severely disabled and that’s why he would never find a wife…I met him, he was healthy and of average intelligence. He wasnt looking for a wife, he was gay, but she refused to accept that.
Working with her was so miserable that I took a couple years off from any and all healthcare after that. —invisible_for_this
5.
Physical therapist here. Working mom comes into the clinic with her infant in a stroller. She’s limping like she’s got a nail in her foot. Wincing in pain and tears in her eyes. She’s crying during her visit with the PT. None of us think she’s faking it…
She limped out of the clinic. I glanced out of the window and saw this woman BOUNDING down the sidewalk. Hips swaying, full stride, going places. We were all fools. —dickhass
6.
Taking trauma call during surgery residency, had a prisoner come in after a fight and claimed he couldn’t move or feel his legs. All the CT scans and MRIs were normal, but we would shield his legs so he couldn’t see them and poke them with needles and other sharp objects, with enough force to cause pain- he never flinched or moved his legs at all. He was diagnosed with SCIWORA (spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality).
He stayed in the hospital for a week, no improvement. Always had one guard with him. One night they were down in the lobby watching some television but the guard needed to use the restroom. The patient said, “where could I possibly go? I’m paralyzed!” Guard left him alone for two minutes.
Patient last seen sprinting down the road, naked butt cheeks flapping in the breeze. Made it to a city four hours away by car before he was caught again. I have never seen anyone fake it so well. Truly playing the long con! —Wine_and_sunshine
7.
This patient comes in for back pain with “weakness” of the legs. Gets a full workup with MRI, standard blood work, and then some immunological things to look for stuff like myasthenia gravis. No neurological or immunological explanation for the “weakness.” Patient is seen by physical therapy and they are of the opinion that the patient is holding back intentionally.
Go to see the patient at the end of the day and prep them for discharge. Patient is infuriated that they’re being discharged. Yelling and screaming about how they aren’t better, how they’re disappointed in the institution, blah blah blah. They said one particular thing that still clearly stands out 3-4 years later. “I can’t believe you’re sending me home already. I haven’t even told my family I’m here, and now you’re going to send me home before they even have the chance to see me?”
My attending and I leave the room to arrange things with the nurses. We go back in and the patient is out of bed and standing up in the middle of the room. Miraculously the patient is able to walk with zero assistance when they had so much difficulty with any assistance over the previous two days. At that point, they were enraged was enraged we went in to the room without knocking. They were discharged home after a conversation regarding abuse of medical services. —Typhun
8.
Sorta along the same idea. Working at a pharmacy we saw a guy come in to try and get a refill on some pain meds that had no refill. After pleading that his ear really hurt we told him again we couldn’t refill it. One of the other employees saw his step into a side hallway and take a pencil and JAM it forcefully into his ear repeatedly, drawing blood. He calmly left and went to the ER. He came back a few hours later with a prescription for pain meds. —i_am_thewalrus
9.
My brother was an EMT for two years and he told me this: People will try to use the ambulance as a means for transportation from Fulton to Oswego (because the hospital is in Oswego), by faking seizures. Sometimes when the head EMT guy was feeling fun and knew that the person was faking, he’d say something like “man it’s weird that he’s having seizures but not peeing himself”. Apparently the person would kind of snap out of it for a second, weigh up the repercussions, then either pee themselves or stop faking. I thought that was hilarious. —-Stammers-
10.
A patient claimed to have all kinds of illnesses and would cough every minute or so. Have you tried coughing when you don’t need to? It’s like a normal cough but you take the subwoofer away. Now imagine that, but ten times more fake. —yMidget
