Going to the doctor is never fun. Patients get poked, prodded, and jabbed. If anyone has any embarrassing memories of these doctors office, these Redditors will make it all better after they share their absolutely most cringe inducing moment. Some of the stories have been edited for clarity.
Very Smooth. Not.
“I hadn’t seen my doctor in over a year, and he met me outside the examination room before I went in. He spread his arms, and I was a little surprised, but started to move in for a hug before he stepped back a little and a made a clearer indication that he was just politely gesturing me to enter the room before him. Embarrassed, I put my head down and marched into the room.”
The Doc Probably Still Tells This Story
“I had the mumps during my first year of college, and along with that, I got Orchitis (swelling of the family jewels caused by the mumps) in my left side, which swelled up to the size of a potato. It was really painful and heavy, so I had to carry it everywhere for a while.
So I went to the doctors, he checked my mumps and then I told him there was another problem. I dropped trow, laid on the bed, and he came over to examine. He laughed when he saw it, because it was massive, and said, ‘What seems to be the problem,’ jokingly.
It was at that moment that I pointed to my regular size ball and said, ‘This one shrank.’
Cue five minute laughter fit from the doctor.”
Never Eating Peas Again
“This actually occurred shortly after I was born, and we refer to it as ‘The Green Pea incident.’ My brother (2 years old) was moving to solid foods, and absolutely loved peas. Mushed, boiled, fried, or in things, he loved them.
One day, my mom noticed that my brother wasn’t going to the washroom. No big deal, she thought. It had only been a day. Two days later, nothing was coming out. He kept eating and eating, like the happy little fat toddler he was, eating all amounts of peas. My parents scheduled a day off work and took him to the doctor together. The doctor, of course, said that he must be constipated. It happens to the best of us. At this point, it had been four days since the little brat had taken one. The doctor gave him a large dose of prescription-strength exlax, and suggested that they should probably keep an eye on him for the next while. As he was talking to my parents about what they should do, my brother started to poop.
Bright, neon green poop.
He had eaten so many peas that the fiber had actually clogged him up, and now it was returning in force. The semi-liquidated mess started flying out, faster and faster like you see in movies. Eventually, it settled down to a light stream, but not before his demon-mist had covered the entire wall next to the examination table. Neon green poop mist. All over the doctor’s tools, his blood pressure stuff and his posters. It ruined the cushion on the table, and stank like you can’t understand. My parents never went back to that doctor again.”
“It Was The Biggest One He Had Ever Seen”
“So I used to always get pilonidal cysts when I was in high school. From between 13 to 18 I had it five times, which according to my doctor, is a lot. These things used to hurt BAD. I’d get them right above my tailbone and it would feel like the tailbone was broken. If I didn’t get it dealt with right away, I wouldn’t be able to walk from the pain.
The last time I ever got one was horrible. It was Halloween, and I was at my friend’s house when I noticed it starting to hurt. I knew right away what it was. The next morning I had my mom take me to the doctor office, but because it was a Saturday my family doctor’s office was closed, so we ended up going to a walk-in clinic. The doctor took a quick look at it, said it wasn’t the problem, and set me up for an x-ray.
By the time the x-ray was over, it was hurting beyond anything I could imagine. It felt exactly like one of the cysts, but I trusted the doctor’s word. Later that evening the pain was so severe I had to go to emergency room. At the hospital, the doctor took another quick look at it and told me it was nothing. He prescribed me some pain medication and sent me on my way.
That was night was horrible. I was terrified, I thought there was something severely wrong with me. I thought I cracked my tail-bone after I fell over a balloon at my friend’s house or something.
On Monday, after a weekend of intense pain, I could finally go see my family doctor. I remember the waiting room being filled with people. It hurt too much to sit, so I stood in the corner with my back bent weird because it hurt too much to stand straight. All of a sudden, I felt instant relief, followed by a smell that was quite honestly the worst smell I ever smelled in my entire life, even to this day. It smelled like death. The people around me could smell it too. Everyone started coughing, but trying their best not to offend. I could feel my pants were completely wet with the puss of my cyst. When my name was called, I was so embarrassed. Everyone knew the smell was coming from me, and now they could see my drenched clothing. I mean it was like I had just dipped the top of my pants and the bottom of my shirt in water, that’s how wet they were. The faces of the people were that of utter shock. They must have thought I peed myself.
Later in the doctor’s office, the doctor took one step inside the room and said ‘ah, another cyst?’ He knew just from the smell what it was. He took a look and said it was the biggest one he had ever seen. He signed me up for surgery and I have never had one since.”
Oh, Thats What They Are
“I recently had a sore throat, and when trying to get a good look at it in the mirror, I noticed these large, pink spots, all over the very back of my tongue. I spent a week fretting over it, wondering what they were and why they weren’t going away, until my mom got worried enough about them that she went with me to my doctor. Upon examining my throat and tongue, he pronounced that what I was seeing were…my taste buds. I have never seen my doctor, who is an incredibly stoic man, smile so wide before. My family is never going to let me live it down.”
At Least It Was A Soft Landing
“When I was in high school, I had to get blood drawn and I do NOT like needles. I went in, got my blood drawn, paid and started to walk out. I got to my car and realized I didn’t have a note to get my absence excused so I went in and got in line to get one.
I was standing in line and started to sweat, and get cold and started to get really dizzy, all the sudden I started to have tunnel vision and stumbled into this lady that must have weighed 350 pounds and was like 5’2. She turned around and looked at me like I was an idiot and then I started to go down fast. I am 6 feet tall and fell over like a tree, face first right into this lady’s giant sweater kittens, bounced off her and hit my head on the floor. Woke up 2 minutes later in the back of the doctor’s office. On the way out I made eye contact with my motorboatee. She was not amused.”
Waiting Rooms Are Bad Enough Without That
“My doctor wanted to check me for polyps in my colon. He used a proctoscope, which they use to pump your colon full of air and then take a look. The doctor proceeded to pump air up my butt, and it started to gurgle like a huge fart coming. I giggled about it, not really thinking about the fact that I had this guy looking up my butt. He finished, and I went to the bathroom to wiped up.
Not really thinking about the fact that there was lubricant up my bum, and there was still air trapped in there as well, I walked through the waiting room to leave. About halfway across the waiting room, it got ugly. I ripped this massive, wet fart that sounded like I’d just soiled my pants. I’m not sure who was more horrified: me or the people in the waiting room.”
Wait How Many Of You Are There
“When I was 21, I noticed a lump in my right chest. Being a broke college student, I ignored it for awhile, and finally got it looked at while visiting home for winter break. I had never been to this doctor before, but she conducted what seemed like a normal examination, remarking that it was really unusual for someone my age to have a solid-feeling lump.
She apparently wanted some consensus before she sent me for more testing, so she called in another doctor. Fine. This guy says ‘Hello, I’m Dr. So and so, and this is my resident, and these are my medical students.’ Great. So I got to spend the next few minutes (felt like an eternity) in a tiny examination room, laying on a table in only my underpants and socks, with 5 or 6 (can’t even remember now) other people, who all take turns palpating my love sacks and going, ‘hmm…. hmmm.’ Mortifying.”
Poor Admiral Nelson
“This isn’t my story but, a friend of a friend was the doctor and, it’s hilarious.
Middle aged man comes in presenting with severe constipation. Doctor examines him and discovers that there is something in the patient’s rectum. The doctor gives the patient an anesthetic to make removal less painful removes the object and then leaves the patient to recover for a bit.
On examination, the object in question turns out to be a souvenir model of Nelson’s column (a large granite column in London with a statue of the 19th century navel commander Lord Nelson on top). Normally, patients volunteer some sort of excuse for how things accidentally get stuck up their rectum (often claiming that they fell on them while in the birthday suit) but, this guy hadn’t. The doctor, being a bored A&E doctor and, worrying that this could have led to damage to this guy’s rectum, decides to ask how the situation came about. He is holding the model at the time. Instead of coming up with some explanation as the doctor expected, the patient grabs the Nelson’s column model from the doctor, turns round (still wearing his hospital gown) and quickly re-inserts it into his rectum. He then matter of factly explains to the doctor, ‘That is Nelson. He lives up there.'”
I Should Have Gone To Law School
“I’m a surgical resident. A bunch of us are sitting in teaching rounds in the middle of the day and the head of general surgery trauma walked into the room unannounced (he’s a comical type of character with a funny South African accent). He was wearing a grin of the smuggest variety as he surveyed the room, we were all looking at him wondering what’s up when he posed the one liner, ‘So, who here has the smallest hands?’
All heads went down except the keen first year female gen-surg resident who squeaked, ‘I’m a size six!’ (that’s a small glove size). The boss simply smiled and said, ‘Follow me.’
We later heard it was a morbidly obese female with a still-vibrating toy so far up the butt the poor first year was in to her elbows.”
Isn’t That Technically Cheating?
“I had to go to a urology specialist due to pain in my junk. My wife, who is awesome, accompanied me for support. The doctor was at a teaching hospital, so he asked if a couple med students could observe the exam. I said OK (my dignity was already at a new low anyway, so why not?).
I dropped trow and the doctor started yanking and pulling on me. He took some notes and then directed the two med students to cop a feel right where he did. I looked over at my wife who was trying to stifle a smile while watching three dudes essentially whack me off.”
Wait, That Can Happen?
“I’m going to tell a friend’s story, since I don’t have any embarrassing stories of my own.
About ten years ago, I had a very… promiscuous friend. He would sleep with anything ‘warm, wet, and willing,’ and half the time didn’t use any protection.
One day, he started having a burning sensation when he peed, more than your average UTI. He’d had hooked up with a new random person a few days ago, so he went to the doctor’s office to have some tests run. Two days later, the doc’s office called him, and said that he needed to come in immediately.
He rushed to the doc’s office, got sent to an exam room, and the doc came in with a clipboard and a very concerned look on his face. ‘Well… about that burning sensation…’
My friend is nervous and said ‘Yeah?’
Doc : ‘You work in a restaurant?’
Friend : ‘Yep’
Doc : ‘You drink a lot of soda?’
Friend : ‘Yep’
Doc : ‘Something citrusy? Like Sprite or Sunkist?’
Friend : ‘Yep’
Doc : ‘That burning sensation when you pee is excess carbonic acid in your system being eliminated. Cut out the soda and stick to water and you’ll be fine in a couple of days’
Friend : ‘Why’d you have to call me down here to tell me that, doc?’
Doc : ‘So I’d scare you and you might wrap it up when you sleep around.'”
Don’t Look At Me
“I was having a lump on my balls checked. I described the lump to the doctor, and he went about trying to locate it himself. I was lying down at this stage, staring at the ceiling. After about a minute of him fumbling, he admitted defeat and asked me to find it. So I sat up and started to jumble them around in my hands. I was hunched over, and he wasn’t more than a foot away staring intently at my balls when suddenly a gust of wind blew the door wide open. Just then a nurse walked past the door. That was awkward eye contact.”
You Forgot How To People
“So I’m at the OBGYN. I’m 19 and this is the first time I’ve ever gone to a doctor by myself. They put me in the first room next to the bathroom, and we do the check up stuff and my doctor asks for a urine sample. She says, ‘Go next door to the bathroom and then write your name on the sample and put it in the little window.’ I’m extremely nervous because I usually cannot pee on command. Somehow I manage to pee a little into the stupid cup. I write my name on it and then I realize I have no idea what to do with this cup. I look around the small bathroom and all I see is a silver cabinet and a sink. I walk out the bathroom with this pee cup and bump into this young pregnant woman. I look into her eyes and say ‘I peed in this cup.’ She looks confused. ‘Do you know what I’m supposed to do with this pee cup?’
She stares at me a bit more then her boyfriend walks up and says ‘Uh. Theres a place for you to put it in the bathroom.’ I turn bright red and say, ‘OH! and run back to the bathroom and open the silver cabinet and place it next to all the other disgusting pee cups.
I walk out the bathroom, avoid eye contact with the pregnant couple and walk back to my room. I open the door and there’s this birthday suit clad woman. I say ‘Oh um… sorry I’m looking for my stuff…I thought this was my room… um…’ to which she replies ‘GET OUT!’ So I shut the door and the nurse is standing at the end of the hall looking at me. ‘This is your room. Sorry about that, we moved you and I didn’t catch you in time.’ The pregnant couple and the nurse laughed at me while I did my walk of shame out of there.”
I Really Never Want To Be A Doctor
“This was back when I still lived in Africa. I was about 8 years old and I had gone to visit my cousin. So for some odd reason, whenever I went to their house and ate something, I would always get sick. This time around I ended up with diarrhea, and like all diarrhea, it’s not pretty.
During my stay there, I had to go to a clinic for my headaches, so my aunt decided to get my stomach checked out as well. When we got there, the doctor took me into his office and did some routine check-ups, I guess. He stepped out for a while, had my aunt come in and tell me I was going to get a couple shots. I was obviously uneasy about this, my stomach started churning and I could feel something coming. I told her that I didn’t want anything, but she bribed me with sweets, so I agreed to the shots.
So I was going to get two shots, one in my arm, and the other in my butt. He did the arm first, then he said something like ‘turn around, it’s time to take it in the butt.’ During this whole time from when my aunt told me, to when he gave me the first shot my stomach was growling, and all this other stuff. As soon as he said ‘take it in the butt,’ everything stopped, like the calm before the storm.
So I turned around and as soon as he said, ‘Take a deep breath, this won’t hurt a bit,’ poop went flying, all over. When it left me, it was smooth, so I didn’t notice until he yell ‘NOOOO!’ When I turned to look at him, he was covered in all this waste from his waist to the top of his head. I started crying; my aunt, the nurses, and the other doctor came running in. They all stopped and looked around for a second, and then all of them started laughing pretty hard. The doctor washed the poop off his face, and went to take a shower and head home. The other doctor was hesitant to do it, so he asked a nurse to give me the shot. She laughed the whole time she was doing it. Yeah, good times.”
Don’t Judge Me
“During a yearly check-up, the doctor was concerned about my weight. I promised him I’d do better and next year I would be back down to a healthy weight.
Maybe a week or so later my doctor saw me at a local pub with a plate of hot wings in front of me and a pint of Budweiser’s finest. He was a bro and didn’t say anything but I could see the look of disappointment in his eyes.”
Thats Inventive
“It was before I got into medical school, I was volunteering in the ER. I walked in one night, and a tech was scrubbing a guy with road rash down his arm, his body, and his leg. It looked really painful, and I asked the patient what happened.
‘I was on my Harley, and I was being chased by the cops. I went around a corner, hit some gravel, and laid my bike down.’
I noticed the man’s wife in the corner of the room roll her eyes.
‘How does that story sound?’ He asked.
‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘What really happened?
‘I was on my scooter going downhill and I fell off.’
‘Stick with the first story.'”
At Least You Were Honest
“I was 14, my mom was in the room.
Doctor: ‘You’re eating okay?’
Me: ‘Yes sir!’
Doctor: ‘Do you smoke?’
Me: ‘No way!’
Doctor: ‘Do you drink?’
Me: ‘Yeah, every day.’
Awkward 5-6 silence/pause……
Doctor continues to ask questions/fill out forms.
2 minutes later…..
ME: ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH you mean the hard stuff?! Haha, no. Never….I thought you meant milk or something.’
I remember them laughing and my face getting all red.”
He Was Just Doing His Job
“I have a heart arrhythmia, and a couple years ago I went in for a procedure called an ablation attempting to correct it. Basically, they go in with a catheter through your femoral artery in your leg, feed it up into your heart, and freeze the group of cells causing the irregular heartbeat. What I didn’t know, however, was just how close to your groin they enter the artery, and that the entire area had to be shaved.
I was lying on a stretcher waiting to be wheeled into the OR, and in walked this nurse who was the spitting image of Michael Clarke Duncan, an absolutely humongous muscular man. He asked me to raise my gown, and proceeded to shave my entire nether region. I tried making small talk at first, but once I realized that was making it much worse, I just shut up and prayed for the ordeal to be over soon. Lying there having my inner thigh and crotch shaved by that dude was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, but looking back it’s pretty hilarious.”
I Wish It Were True
“My favorite was a 30 something year old woman who came in for a check up at the emergency low cost clinic I worked at. Teeth were broken and almost black and gums are angry swollen, bright red and bleeding by just moving her tongue against them, needed multiple scaling/hygienist appointments and a debridement (honestly YouTube has some amazingly disgusting videos of this treatment but maybe keep the sound off if you don’t like the scraping sound). X-ray showed she had all but her wisdom teeth and 10 fillings, root canals to try and save some teeth and extractions for I think 3 but more if the rct didn’t work. Explained everything and did the usual explanation of proper mouth hygiene. Asked her if she had any questions to which she says… ‘it’s okay if I lose this set of teeth, my others will come through’.
Me and the dentist just looked at each other probably a lot longer than we should have. No words. I couldn’t think of anything to reply to that comment.
I had a lot of weird and disgusting things happen at that clinic. I actually miss working there.”
Uh, Hi Mom
“I was adopted at birth. Learned who my birth family was in early 30s. Had met a sister but nobody else yet. Sister tells me grandpa is being taken off life support (cancer) and want to talk to me before he dies. Travel to hospital several hours away. Meet mom in hospital lobby for the first time ever. Go to grandpa’s room where all of his, and my, family are. They are all there to say their goodbyes. Probably only 5% of them knew of my existence. Suddenly all the attention is on me, the stranger. The have me kneel by his side and he apologizes through tears for pressuring my mom, that I just met, to give me away for adoption. People looked pretty shocked including me. The experience was a thousand emotions and awkward was in there somewhere.”
Hoorah
“I’m a Doc, not a patient and well, military medicine is a tad bit different. But same thing applies. I had this Marine come in with a big hole through his left foot. I’m asking him what were you doing at the time and how did it happen. He replied, ‘I was at the range and I wanted to see if my steel toe boots were bulletproof, I guess not doc.'”
The Sadness Will Never End
“I have never felt so strong a sorrow as I did on the way home from getting my wisdom teeth out. I had been put under general anesthetic, and in the car I was just drooling everywhere. I clumsily asked my mom if they let me keep my teeth (my then boyfriend got to keep his, and I was adamant that I would keep mine). They had not. I began weeping. I kept sobbing, ‘I wanted to keep my teeth,’ as my mom and boyfriend repeatedly apologized to me but they also had to keep explaining that they didn’t have them. The misery I remember feeling was so deep, so soul-wrenching and total, as tears streamed down my face to mix with the drool. I hope that no one ever keeps my teeth from me again.”