"Doctors of reddit, have you had any exciting cases that have made you feel like Dr. House?"

"Any exciting mysteries that you were/weren't able to solve? If so, please elaborate!"

Top voted Reddit answers...

My dad says he was the one to diagnose patient zero during the measles outbreak in New York during 1991, he says when he called CDC that friday, noone believed him, since it had been a pretty damn long time since anyone had seen it. He said the only reason he recognized it was because his little brother had gotten measles once, and the patient 0 had exact same symptom.Eventually he stared such a fuss that CDC did show up, and confirmed it was measles to which they put the kid into quarantine and began to do their thing.


Not a doctor but happened to my cousin.
She was pregnant with her first child and suffering from incredibly bad morning sickness, couldn't even smell food without throwing up, her chef partner even had to shave his head as the smell of his hair after work was too much. She was very confused, very weak, all round Not Right. Her partner kept taking her to hospital but they'd just get her hydrated and send her away again as they couldn't figure out why she was so weak/confused.
Until a doctor came along and looked into her eyes and saw she had rapid/unfocused eye movements all over the place. He immediately diagnosed her with Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome. It hadn't occurred to anyone else as it's a disease of primarily alcoholics, caused by a b vitamin deficiency. I think at the time hers was either the first or one of the first diagnosed cases of it in pregnancy in the UK.
She spent most of her pregnancy in hospital and lost her short term memory, which took a year or two after birth to come back fully. Her son spent some time in NICU, mainly because of the drugs she was on but he's a strapping 20 year old now.


When I was a 3rd yr medical student I did a rotation in pediatric neurology. We had a 7 yr old girl come in with seizures, near-total paralysis, and near-comatose drowsiness. Worst of all, she had gone completely blind over the course of two days.
It was suspicious for Guillain Barre Syndrome, but the way the paralysis started, the blindness, and the drowsiness didn't match. None of her tests were positive for anything. I went home and did some research and found case reports for people who had GBS with blindness. There's something called Bickerstaff Encephalitis that matched her symptoms perfectly. BE is an extremely rare subtype of Miller Fisher which itself is a subtype of GBS. There's something like 11 cases of BE a year in the US and I diagnosed one of them.
We started her on the treatment for BE (plasmapheresis) and she regained her sight and muscle function within a week. It was an amazing experience. Everyone on our team felt like a miracle worker--we discharged a happy, walking and talking 7 yr old girl who just 2 weeks before was completely blind and paralyzed.

House passes bill allowing vets private care

"The news about VA's delays in care crisis just keeps getting worse," "It's unfortunate I have to introduce legislation to address this problem, because the department has had the authority to offer veterans health care services outside of the VA system for years."

Said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who introduced the bill. 

Apparently the bill passed unanimously. The question now is how will the Senate pack it up with unrelated baggage. 

This is all very odd. The VA always did have authority to do this. I don't know what to make of it. Were they holding back? Not informing their clients? Is this all a political move, or what? 

I do know my father was switched to civilian insurance, Tricor, IIRC, and he was so angry about being shifted off the VA when Fitzsimmons was closed and turned over to civilian use. He regarded it a betrayal of a promise that he based his life choices.  It took some convincing to assure him his coverage was actually better than most, that his coverage was excellent in fact, more modern and more convenient. He wasn't having it. He preferred staying angry. He wanted Fitzsimmons and that was that. Fitzsimmons was outdated. I went there many times. It looked like something straight out of WWII movie, but that was the system my parents were used to. They walked in and got health service. That is what they wanted to keep. (I suddenly recalled the acres of files one sees upon checking in, and long rows of hospital beds separated by 3/r curtains)  Even though the facility was on the far opposite side of town, a real actual trek to get out there, and once there you stepped back in time and were subjected to their ancient ways. I hated it. They loved it. It was a sore point with both parents but especially my dad right up to their final days.

USA Today http://tinyurl.com/nu36qh9

If you care to have your lack of faith in the portion of humanity that comments through Facebook, I dare you, double-dog dare you, to turn off your tracking and read comments to USA Today article. Dumb, dumb, dumb, mean and dumb. Proving once again, where proof is not needed, that misplaced loyalty to Party makes you both mean and stupid (if you aren't already so).

It is a common knowledge that recent wars are overburdening the VA system, another political bone to gnaw, and that does make sense intuitively, but it is not so. Most VA clients are aging vets, the same bulge in demand for medical services as civilian medical care, not young vets returning from recent wars, although there is that too. That is not where the bulge in services is.

Speaking of aging vets. That would be these people. Have a look at these stunning 110 photos of the Pacific and adjacent theaters in WWII that you might not have seen before. They will curl your hair.  I am struck by how thin everybody is. And struck too how young everybody appears to be.

Denver Post PLog.   http://tinyurl.com/yfl9syg