A Reddit prompt asking doctors about baffling cases drew 27 accounts from medical workers and other users. The submissions span rare diagnoses, unexplained symptoms and personal or family experiences; BuzzFeed says responses were edited for length and clarity.
One contributor said a patient’s involuntary movements progressed from an arm to a leg and then the other arm; weeks later, the contributor learned doctors had diagnosed her with mad cow disease. Another recounted a man’s abrupt personality change and heavy drinking; imaging reportedly found a glioblastoma, and after part of the tumor was removed he returned to his prior demeanor and stopped drinking, according to the contributor.
Other submissions included a NICU nurse’s account of a premature infant’s thyroid problems, which the nurse linked to the mother’s iodine supplements, and a patient whose arm blood-pressure readings were 80/40 on the left and 180/100 on the right. A scan reportedly showed subclavian steal syndrome and significant narrowing in the left arm arteries. One contributor also said they never learned the cause of a patient’s death.
