What’s the most bizarre medical condition you’ve seen or heard of from a reliable source?
Some minor-league candidates I’ve come across as a non-medical person:
Patient has adrenal (IIRC) tumor that necessitates that hospital staff not surprise him since doing so could unleash a flood of fight-or-flight hormones that could kill him. (How do you deliver that diagnosis without killing the guy, anyway?)
Woman who has seizures whenever she hears the voice of TV personality Mary Hart.
Dentist removes molar. Inside the tooth grows a thick, dark hair. Eww.
Guy shows up in the ER, low blood pressure, skyrocketing heart rate, suffocating – and his skin is deep green. (Turns out he has 15% more methemaglobin in his body than is considered lethal. Docs figure this out, administer an antidote and he walks out, fine, within minutes. Never says what happened to him tho.)
Bonus condition: Whatever the hell Richard Simmons has. Seriously. Met him once and I think we desperately need a cure for it.
I recall a young pt. was hyperthyroid but her thyroid tested normal. We found that she had dermoid cysts in both ovaries containing primarily thyroid tissue as well as hair and fat. She was placed on thyroid replacement therapy after the cysts were removed bilaterally and was essentially cured. Never had another case like it since.
In the movie Bringing Out the Dead there is a kid with a psycological disorder where he is always thirsty for water no matter how much he drinks, so he comes into the hospital with his kidney’s far to hydrated and almost dies, but he’s still pleading for a glass of water. It’s only a movie so take that for what it’s worth.
The strangest condition I’ve personally seen is methemoglobinemia. Cecil addresses the hereditary form of the condition in this column. The case I saw was brought on by an allergic reaction to anesthetic. The patient turned as blue as a Smurf and his arterial blood looked just like melted chocolate. He almost died. Fortunately, one of the doctors recognized the problem and treated the patient with methylene blue. He was discharged from the hospital a few days later with no lasting effects.
Oh yeah, I started reading the book “Bringing Out the Dead” and I remember the guy who wanted water. Scared me…wanting water and not being able to have it.
I have a pain in my leg only when I walk on concrete floors, like at Big Box warehouse discount stores. Also, when I wear slacks, which is rarely, and have keys in that pocket. One friend said it was magnatism at work, as there are lots of iron pipes and re-bars in the floor. I can’t abide that, but it is strange.