Have you ever been misdiagnosed by a doctor?

[Lenac]

A few years ago, I bashed my hand on my fence and could not move my thumb. I went to the doctor. He examined my hand, gave me an ace bandage and sent me to a place for xrays. This took all day. A few days later, my thumb was fine and my hand worked normally. Two weeks later the doctor calls me and says the xrays show that I have a fracture on my pinky finger. I tell him my hand is fine and it was my thumb not my pinky that didn't move before but now its ok. He insists I broke my pinky. I tell him several times it was my thumb but it's all ok and then he responds with he wants me to come back in so he can make sure my fractured pinky heals correctly. OMG what an asshole...I changed doctors after that.

[Not_A_Nice_Lady]

At age 18, a single mother with a toddler and no support, I worked as a receptionist with no health insurance. Having survived a violent childhood marked by starvation and debiliating digestive issues that everyone ignored/ridiculed, life-long debilitating digestive issues were common but worsening. Due to extreme pain interfering with work, I underwent multiple horrifying procedures that I somehow paid for out-of-pocket which revealed nothing; after which I was shamed for attention seeking, given psych-drugs & sent to a shrink.

Before I could make it to the shrink, I had to call a friend for help with my baby while I suffered another tortuous episode of truly mind-bending pain that rendered me unconscious and wound up in the ER. One noninvasive abdominal ultrasound, which hadn't been included in my workup, revealed my gallbladder was filled with stones along with my entire digestive tract, blocking bile ducts to my liver with both organs were near rupture.

Emergency surgery was performed that removed my gallbladder and removal of my entire digestive tract in order to remove the stones proliferating throughout and left me with a 13" gash under my right rib, a weeks-long hospital stay and a bill that I could not pay on my $900 monthly salary. The hospital rejected my modest payment plan, sent me to collections and threatened to garnish my wages. Plus, my boss was threatening to replace me so I returned to work, although unable to stand up straight for almost a year.

The misdiagnosis forced me to file for bankruptcy, decimating my credit for 10 years along with all my hopes & dreams, mainly of home ownership and financial stability. In reality, everyone should have been sued for malpractice. Yet, I'm still suffering while everyone else with everything made a get-away.

They said gallbladder disease was not considered because I didn't fit the "FFF profile" (fair, fat & forty).

Now there's some "science" for ya.

[BoDizzle]

Horrifying. I've had abdominal pain like that once before but never lost consciousness; over two years of random attacks, pain so intense I'd be on the floor sweating sometimes - Doctors equally oblivious; it was an ER nurse who told me to get some Buscopan from the chemist and what ever I had was resolved by the time the box was empty. Still don't know what it was but I can't imagine it was as serious as your condition.

[BoDizzle]

Medical malpractice - now here's a "target rich environment" for discussion!

My own stories are a bit trivial; aside from comment above, I've been misdiagnosed having gout and prescribed NSAI's that did nothing when the issue was pronating (flat) feet that I later diagnosed myself with the help of the internet and resolved promptly with a visit to a podiatrist for some in-soles. And I was recently experiencing some insomnia related to covid/mandates/loss of career/loss of home/destroyed sense of country etc; you know, normal stuff... and a GP tried to put me on anti-depressants !! I was a bit angry and fatigued but that's it. I was able to convince him to give me a referral for Medical Cannabis but even those guys were all about pushing high THC oil and flower when all I wanted was a good Broad Spectrum CBD - I find Melatonin the best now but that's another thing this nanny-state makes it difficult to obtain in the right strength - you can only get 1-3mg OTC, you have to go online for 10mg caps. (Sorry to be off topic a bit).