Random Stupidest Ways Patients Have Tried To Treat Themselves (27 items)

• (#27) Toothpaste And Rock Salt For A Burn

  From jojo5504:

  "I am an EMT who works in the ER. We once had a patient who spilled hot grease all over his arms after a small fryer accident. This happened to take place at the patient's in-laws who happened to be Chinese. Apparently there is an old wives tale in China that says to treat burns with a layer of toothpaste and rock salt. Not wanting to offend his in-laws he goes along with this do it yourself treatment.

  I think I spent about three hours that evening picking rock salt out of second degree burns and then cleaning out all of the, now dried, toothpaste."
• (#1) Drinking Bleach Will Probably Start, Not Stop, Food Poisoning

  From SaintAndi:

  "I used to work at a lab in a hospital in a rural town. I got a stool sample from the ER that was basically a blood clot the size of a golf ball. Sometimes the ER gets mixed up and sends me the wrong specimen, for example, some kind of body fluid and labeled it as urine. I called the patient's nurse and asked what the deal was with the patient and if it was really stool they sent up.

  The nurse I talked to said the patient thought he'd eaten bad pork and to prevent food poisoning, drank a concoction of bleach, rubbing alcohol, vodka, ibuprofen, and some Tums."
• (#24) He Used Keyboard Cleaning Air As An Inhaler

  From madeinjapan89:

  "Nurse here. We had a younger patient who had run out of their inhaler and didn't want to tell their mom (after meeting her I could see why, she was just angry at the world) so he took keyboard cleaner Can-o-Air and tipped it upside down and inhaled.

  Turning it upside down releases the chemicals in an icy cold spray and it immediately caused this kid to go into a severe asthma attack and caused cold burns to the back of his throat. "
• (#11) Self-Dentistry Gone Wrong

  From mdp300:

  "Dentist reporting in:

  I had a guy who had tried to pry his own tooth out with a screwdriver. It did not go well."
• (#8) Ingesting Raw Meat Is Never A Good Treatment

  From ifergbot:

  "A patient comes in to the emergency department with an abscess. He tells us he knew he had an infection, and so ate a pound-and-a-half of raw steak to get the antibiotics that were given to the cow."
• (#9) Bleach Is For Cleaning, Not Your Cervix

  From auraseer:

  "I had a patient come to the ER complaining of severe pain and swelling 'all down there.' On physical examination we noted a really remarkable amount of swelling, and both the internal and external tissues were extremely red and irritated. She was so swollen she couldn't even pee until we put a catheter in. The physician did a pelvic exam and found blisters on her cervix.

  We asked when the symptoms started. She said, 'Well it was itching tonight. I thought I had a yeast infection, so I poured a cup of bleach up in there to kill it. But then after a while it kind of started to hurt.' Yeah, I bet it did."

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