Stupid reasons you've had to see a doctor.

In My Humble Opinion
1

About a month ago I went to the movies. I bought a bag of popcorn, and about halfway through the film I felt a popcorn hull lodge in my throat. OK, no big deal, I figured it would work its way out on its own.

It didn’t.

I got home and it was still wedged in place. I could sort of halfway feel it, kind of maybe, if I stuck my finger way back in my throat, which had the lovely side effect of making horrible bulimia noises that woke MrWhatsit up from a dead sleep.

I asked the Internet for advice. The Internet said to try eating bread products. Three slices of wheat bread, a tortilla, and a quarter-sleeve of saltine crackers later, I was feeling bloated but otherwise no different. Drinking large quantities of water didn’t help. Trying to dislodge it with a toothbrush didn’t help.

I tried to go to sleep. The hull was starting to really hurt, so this was difficult. The next morning, I realized that I was going to have to go see a doctor about this. I went to urgent care, and the doctor confirmed that there was a popcorn hull in there (thanks, Captain Obvious) but he didn’t have the equipment to get it out. He referred me to an ENT. At this point I realized that I might actually be facing surgery. For a god damned popcorn hull. (It would be a better story if at this point I could also curse the crappy movie that wasn’t worth all this, but actually the movie was Premium Rush with Joseph Gordon Levitt and it was pretty good; you should see it. Anyway.)

The ENT had a laugh at my expense when I told him my story. Then he got out this medieval-looking pair of tweezers and said something like, “Let’s have a go.” Two or three incredibly painful minutes later, he pulled out something that was approximately the size of a quarter and said, “ta-da!” I swear to god this was the biggest popcorn hull I have seen in my life. Apparently my surgeon had mad skillz because he didn’t have to resort to the scope and was just able to tweezer out my hull. He showed it off to his assistant like it was a little trophy. (She looked grossed out, which surprised me because you’d think that working for an ENT doctor you’d get used to stuff like this. Maybe she’s new.)

The feeling of relief when that thing was gone is almost indescribable. It was almost, but not quite, worth suffering through having it stuck in there, just to feel it gone.

So that’s my story of my surgically (sort of) removed popcorn hull. Anyone else want to share stories of stupid injuries they’ve sustained?

2

Funny, I saw the title and was going to tell my story of having a oregano stem (dried) lodged in my throat after eating an Italian meat grinder. It was poked into the side of my throat like a splinter. I could feel it all day, finally my dad took me to the ER ( I was in HS), where medevial tweezers came out and they plucked it.

Sweet relief indeed.

3

I got my ears pierced when I was in 6th grade. After the initial healing period, I think the rule was that I was supposed to take my earrings out and clean my holes once a week. My sister had given me an awesome pair of earrings that were little buttons with hand-painted mushrooms on them. They were my first pair of “fashion” earrings (i.e., not gold studs). When the week was up, I went to remove my earrings but only one of the earrings had a back on it. The ear lobe with the backless earring was kind of swollen, so I just assumed the swelling had pushed the back off. But I couldn’t get the earring out of my ear, and neither could anyone else.

My mom called my pediatrician, who told Mom to bring me over to her house (ah! the good old days!). So I sat in a chair in my pediatrician’s kitchen, and she yanked that puppy out. As it turns out, the earring back was essentially inside my earlobe, and my earlobe ripped through when she yanked it. :eek:

The rip healed but the hole remained, so I still wear pierced earrings to this day. The end.

4

Got my first mereroid when I was 19.

I was MORTIFIED. I had no idea what the fuck it was. I was absolutely convinced that I had ass cancer.

I went to the doctor and dropped trou. My Doctor took one look at it and said: “Uh… It’s a hemroid.” :dubious:

On that same day I learned how “fun” it was to stick a suppository up my ass.

Good times.
BTW: I’m never eating popcorn again.

5

Got bitten by a snake while running – I was maintaining a good clip and it was lying in the middle of the sidewalk so I could only jump over it rather than stop, but it jumped into the air and bit me. I didn’t examine the wound right away, and the night before that I had had a bat in my bedroom, so I went to the doctor in case my snake bite was a bat bite that I hadn’t noticed.

6

I had gained some weight and stopped wearing my wedding ring. My wife noticed and got upset; we had a fight. I put it on my finger to show her and couldn’t get it off. My finger started swelling.

Went to the emergency room to cut it off.

7

Growing up, my little town had a festival each summer to raise funds for the fire and ambulance services (all volunteer). One of the fundraisers during the late seventies and early eighties was mud wrestling.

As a twenty year old, I was one of the contestants in the mud wrestling contests. During the tag team match, my opponant threw and pinned me, during which the whole crowd heard a loud snap.

Yes, I was rushed to the hospital, covered head to toe with mud, with a broken leg.:smack:

8

I don’t have a good ER tale, but freckafree’s earring story reminded me of what happened to my sister when we were in high school. She had several piercings in one of her ears, and she pulled one of the earrings out while towel-drying her hair. :eek: Tore her ear, and it bled like crazy, wouldn’t stop no matter what we did. So Mom packed towels around her ear and drove her to the ER. She wound up with several stitches in her ear.

Sister’s down to one piercing per ear now.

9

This happened to me when I was 12, but my mother did not take me to the doctor. She just pried it out herself. Oh, the pain!

10

Dear Og, I could Fill a Thread!

limiting to my most recent one

I had never taken my kids deep-sea fishing (the way my Dad took me and my brother growing up). My brother has a boat & needled me from time to time that he wanted to take me out on the water. I kinda-sorta coaxed him to make it a fishing trip instead.
My eldest ditched, saying he was “tired”, but my youngest went.

But.

The boat had trouble with the electrical system & it took a while for us to start it with Sears chargers. On one of the trips hauling gear, I was carrying a charger & jumping across to the dock when my foot caught on a tie-line.
Cue instant face-plant, glasses smashed flat, a pretty badly sprained foot and a broken finger. I even lost consciousness for a moment, but I managed to hold on to the charger & keep from losing it over the side.

I still went fishing. I caught the only fish. (When people saw me later, my joke was, “Yeah, well you should have seen the fish.” :stuck_out_tongue: )

I never told my brother how much I hurt myself (I swore my family to secrecy) because I practically twisted his arm into letting us go. I don’t ever want him to feel badly and I know him; I know he would. I still want to buy him something nice for his boat as a thank you
for me being able to take my youngest fishing for the first time.

11

I tried to eat my German espresso machine once, but the metal parts were just too crunchy, even after I steamed them in a wok for half an hour. The power cord went down pretty easy, though… :wink:

12

Not that this is likely to happen a again, but if it does, your local fire department may very well have a ring cutter. I know mine does. I don’t know why they do, but I know they have it (my fire fighting ex-BIL has mentioned it). It might be worth a call over there if your insurance plan means an ER visit is going to be expensive.
He also mentioned another trick they’ve used is to wrap the finger in dental floss. It both compresses it and the wax helps the ring slide.

The only one I have, and it’s nothing compared to the popcorn hull is from a few years ago. I had done something screwy to my neck and stopped in at the doctor. He told me to go home and come back if it got worse (same thing he said about everything). A few days later I picked up a candle to blow it out and dropped it, as I jerked my arm to catch it (which I did) I made my neck about 10 times worse. I could barely even turn it the next day. Driving was just about impossible for the next day or so. The doctor told me to take some Tylenol. Thanks doc, there’s a reason I don’t see you anymore.

13

:stuck_out_tongue:

14

I was taking a contact out in the gym locker room and accidentally inhaled it straight up my nose.

Those tweezers, god love 'em, huh?

15

I just felt my noseholes to see if they were big enough for a contact to go through. :smack:

16

I was slinging gallons of milk to restock back when I was a barista. I generally slung 2-3 gallons at a time, and one day ended up with a pain in my back that made it hard to breathe. I couldn’t take a breath without pain and couldn’t take a deep breath at all. I didn’t know what was going on, but doctor said it was just a strained muscle. Gave me muscle relaxers and said to take Aleve.

A couple years ago I woke up from napping on the couch and couldn’t straighten my neck. My head was crooked and I couldn’t straighten it or turn it. Doctor said it was torticollis and I got some more muscle relaxers and Aleve. And she said not to sleep like that on the couch any more.

Dumb.

17

A couple of years ago, my husband noticed a lump on one side of his rib cage, near the bottom. It was about the size of a quarter or a little smaller, and neither of us remembered ever seeing it before. It seemed too hard to be a hernia (and didn’t have any other hernia-like attributes), but not hard enough to be a cyst. It also seemed sore to the touch, but on the wrong side of the body (usually) to be appendix-related. We both got very worried, very quickly, and he went to the urgent care. The doctor he saw there was completely puzzled by it, and referred my husband to a surgeon STAT.

My husband came home from the surgeon’s office quite chagrined. The surgeon took an x-ray and showed him the cause of the mysterious lump: it was a RIB. He has always been very fit, but had recently trimmed down even more and only then did his “short rib” make an appearance. It happens to be shorter than the opposing rib by at least an inch, and because it doesn’t curve in toward the sternum it pokes out a little. And the pain? It turned out to be a bruise from our toddler jumping on him when they were playing on the floor.

We were both embarrassed at our overreaction - not least because it was an expensive one. But at least we know beyond a doubt that he does not have a dreaded disease at that particular spot on his body…

18

Did you explain to her that the muscle relaxers are worth it?

19

I was having trouble hearing out of one ear. The doctor vacuumed so much ear wax out of that ear that it kept plugging his vacuum.

20

When I was a kid visiting my grandparents for a summer stay, I had an allergic reaction to their soap on…a sensitive part of my body. Which then swelled to about three times normal size. Quite an embarrassing ordeal.