What's the last medical mistake that happened to you or your family?

My primary care physician never ordered a PSA test (prostate specific antigen, that can be used to indicate prostate cancer.) for me during my supposedly “complete” physicals.
He had read about a European study that showed that some men who had screening PSA tests were being misdiagnosed and were receiving unnecessary treatment too often while the screening only saved one man in 1000. His practice did not order PSA tests for white men below 60, with no family history of prostate cancer, with no urinary or sexual problems, and normal prostate exams results.
In my 50s I changed insurance and as part of the switch was required to have a full physical by their doctors. They ordered a PSA test and my results came back shockingly high. ~18 g/dl . the retest aftera course of antibiotics came back 22! That is very bad.
How long had it been growing in there? I never felt a thing. All my bits worked. I went to a urologist who examined my prostate. “The left side is hard” A 12 core biopsy confirmed ¾ were positive with up to 70% involvement.
It would have cost virtually nothing to check the PSA box on the blood work sheet. Instead my doc focused on cholesterol and other things which were never a problem for me.

Almost 9 years ago, when my daughter was not yet a year old, I was experiencing tingling in my legs and I was very wobbly. I was also very weak and it was hard for me to do things like walk up the stairs. After a few days of that I brought my daughter (baby) to my mom’s house. I went to the ER. While I was in the ER, I fell off the examination table and required two people to help me get back up on it. The doctor wanted to prescribe crutches, or a walker. I talked him into a cane. He diagnosed me with sprained calf muscles and sent me home. He said to stay home from work for three days. This was on a Tuesday evening.

I stayed home from work for the next three days. Wednesday (the next day after the ER visit), I fell on the kitchen floor and had to crawl to the bed and pull myself back on it. It was very hard for me to walk to the bathroom and I’d have to hold on to the furniture (like a toddler) to get to the toilet. I’d have to pull myself or push myself off of the toilet when I was done (by pushing up on the toilet tank and the vanity). On the third day home, which was Friday, I decided I wanted to take a shower and I also had to urinate. I went into the shower and ended up falling. I couldn’t get the strength to crawl out of the shower. I sat there for a while and then I gathered the strength and crawled out to the phone. I called a friend to come over and help me get on the bed. I sat by the front door to let him in when he arrived. I also asked him to go to Home Depot and get me some handicap rails. He came over a while later and I crawled to the bed and he helped me. His sister was an RN and when he left, after he put in the handicap rails, he called his sister and told her I needed to go to another ER. Long story short, she came over later, took me to another ER where I needed help getting out of her car and getting on to the hospital gurney. They did a CAT scan of my head (which was surprising to me since I thought I had a leg problem). They did other tests and diagnosed Guillain Barre Syndrome, which is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks the myelin sheath that covers your nerves so the nerves can’t send signals to each other. Long story short, 5 days of an IV and intensive physical therapy as an inpatient for the 3+ weeks after that and I was out feeling 90% better. After another month at home, 100% better.

I wrote a letter to the Director of the original ER that I went to where I got the wrong diagnosis. In the letter I said thank God that my daughter was not home when I fell in the shower. Imagine having a baby in the house, toddling around when I was stuck and could not walk. I was getting outpatient physical therapy at that hospital when I wrote the letter and so that Director made sure I didn’t get any copay fees. I could have sued them but decided not to.

Since last fall I’ve had increasing problems with asthma. I went to my MD who wanted to put me on steroids. I wanted to get better, not take something that would only control the distressing symptoms with alarming side effects to boot. So I switched practitioners and went to a naturopath. She told me she thought I had food allergies, and ordered a blood test that measured the antigens in my blood to various common foods. It turns out i’m allergic to mushrooms, yeasts, eggs, most milk products, cane sugar and many grains. I was eating all of those things almost every day!

After 10 days of not eating any of those foods, I am off of all inhalers and other medication! That’s a huge switch from steroids, doncha’ think?

@LuckyGuy The prostate thing is actually quite interesting. The UK doesn’t really go in for testing while in the US it’s very popular (in fact I’m surprised your first doc even considered not doing it) However the number of men per 100,000 who die of prostate cancer is identical in both the US and UK. Identical. Testing PSA and operating if it’s high it makes absolutely no difference to the number of men who die of prostate cancer. However the morbidity and mortality of prostate suregery is pretty high.

Well, the biggest mistake was being mis diagnosed by doctor after doctor. I don’t remember them, because eventually I wound up the hospital for emergency surgery and a lot of my memory, in the months leading up to it, is gone.
Two doctors diagnosed me with pulled back muscles. Another doc said I had a degenerative muscle disease. Four different doctors and not one took any X-rays. I saw at least 4 doctors in Sept and October.
Long story short, the final week Rick was out of town, and I was home alone, pretty much out of my mind. My daughter said I’d started undergoing a profound personality change. So I was home alone with muscle relaxers and pain pills. I think I stayed in bed all week. I know I didn’t go to work.
Rick came home on a Saturday night. Sunday morning Rick took one look at me we we tore out for yet another ER. He said I was pale, and shaking and my eyes were sunken in.
That doc finally did a chest Xray. My right lung was 80% full of infection. I had pneumonia, bad. They threw me in an ambulance to Wichita and they performed emergency surgery the next morning, to drain my lungs.
The doc who did the surgery said it had been coming on and on for many months.
I almost died. Scared the living shit out of my family. I feel most sorry for them because I don’t remember any of it.

Regarding PSA.

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/UpdateSummaryFinal/prostate-cancer-screening

Regarding naturopathic treatment of asthma

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fake-treatments-for-real-diseases-a-review-of-allergy-and-asthma-advertisements-by-naturopaths-chiropractors-homeopaths-and-acupuncturists/

I know three people who have recently received prescription antibiotics for colds.

I don’t know if it was the last medical mistake that happened to me, but doctors failing to even attempt to diagnose my severe endometriosis and then subsequently failing to treat it adequately likely cost me my ability to have a child and also robbed me of years of my life because I suffered tremendously for years with no answers or hope in sight.The lack of understanding about the disease in the medical community is astounding, especially given how common the disease is, I wish that my experience was rare, but I know that it is not. Fortunately, one exceptional surgeon was able to at least give me a good quality of life, while my own doctor still shrugs it off. I get really angry whenever I think about it.

I had nodules on my thyroid. My endocrinologist sent me for a biopsy. Then the results get sent to the pathology lab to see if it’s cancer. She called me on a Friday afternoon, after faxing me the lab results that said “some suspicious cells” and said “you probably have cancer. Go to a surgeon and he’ll probably take your thyroid out.” I left work crying, thinking I had cancer. I called my boss who was very supportive and she asked me “why are you going to a surgeon? They’re going to want to do surgery. Go for a second opinion. Bring someone else with you.” I told my mom and I made an appointment for a surgeon, and also for another endocrinologist for a second opinion.

The second endocrinologist told me “of course the cells are suspicious. That’s why they were sent to the pathologist. We’re going to send them to my pathologist. You don’t worry until I tell you you have something to worry about.” Long story short, his pathologist sent back a three page report, very detailed, and every page said “no malignant cells identified.”

I was put on synthetic thyroid hormone. It’s because of that second endocrinologist that I still have a thyroid. I never called the first endocrinologist to tell her she’s an idiot. I really should have but I felt like I moved on mentally.

@Rarebear, @Lightlyseared Fortunately deaths from prostate cancer are relatively few. That was not my concern.
My concern was the surgical side effects from a surgery to remove a 70% rotten prostate with extraprostatic extensions, EPE, and Perineural invasion, PNI, that had been festering for years. Had I been diagnosed a year or two, or three years, earlier the surgery would have been much easier and less invasive. I would not get to “enjoy” the side effects resulting from the substantial tissue removed because, in the words of the surgeon, “I had to cut wide to get it all.”
The statistics talk about death. Bah. My interest is the side effects: incontinence and impotence. Surgical follow up 18 months later was required to fix things after a year of mental torture. Those numbers are not listed in the data.
How simple things would have been if my biopsy indicated only 5–10% with no invasions or extensions. My recovery would have been so much quicker had we found it early.

Fortunately it had not spread beyond the capsule so surgery got it. But had I waited another year when it could have broken free I would be on hormones, radiation, chemo, etc., as we speak.

You are a lucky guy. Not talking about your specific case. Just talking about General recommendations.

@jca Your story reminds me of when I found white patches on my vulva and clitoris. I’ve had ongoing GYN problems as you know. My GYN was out of town so I went in to another doctor in her office. Because of all of the problems I’ve had, I assume I’m more likely to get cancer than if I had never had my problems, because I have had chronic inflammation. I’m not paranoid about it, but im not going to be surprised if it happens.

Anyway, I go to the doctor, and he says I need the area removed and to schedule surgery. This is my clit for God’s sake. I go to check out at the office, the woman behind the desk looks at the paperwork the doctor gave me, and she asks me when I want to schedule the surgery. I tell her I’m not doing it. Then I scheduled an appointment with my regular GYN two weeks later. In the mean time I look up clit and vulvar cancer and surgery, and there is an extremely high rate of permanent pain from the surgery.

I go to my appointment and she does an HPV culture and says let’s just keep an eye on it.

So, then I flew to FL to see my former GYN. Third opinion. He says, and this is why I like him, “I’m not going to do any surgery there, you need someone who works with that very specific part of the anatomy, and someone who specializes in cancer of the vulva.” He wrote me a referral to a specialist at Vanderbilt.

I went Vanderbilt, the doctor examined me, and he said I absolutely do not have cancer, and that he would not recommend removing anything. That first doctor was going to butcher me. I didn’t mentioned this above, but I had asked him if he could do a very small biopsy for analysis before putting me under and trying to remove a huge chunk. He said no.

Thank goodness I didn’t listen to the first doctor. Now, it’s years later and the area looks normal again.

I am angry Doctors suggested both my parents pursue cancer treatments. My dad was 78 with advanced esophageal cancer. Operation was a disaster and he bled out on the table. Had he not had the surgery he could have lived another 5–9 months. My doctor said had he survived surgery and chemo he would have died a few months later anyway. My mom got a glioblastoma at 82 yrs old. The excised 80% of the tumor…she then needed a walker to get around and 5 weeks into chemo the chemo killed her. She too could have lived 5–7 months more played golf to the end had she not had the treatment the Doctors suggested she do. Why do Dr’s promote these dead end treatments knowing they will die soon anyway???

@Cruiser Was the surgery supposed to extend their life if it was successful?

@Rarebear I haven’t yet had time to read your comment or the others, but NONE of my other MD’s suggested I get a food allergy test done. What matters is that I’m not on inhalers or taking steroids. Aren’t you glad for that?

My sister in law felt a lump in her breast a year ago. She brought it up to her doctor, who felt it, assured her it was benign, and never did anything else.

She’s too young for routine mammograms so never had one done.

Now she’s got stage four cancer, metastasized to her lymph glands, spine, and pelvis, and possibly further.

It’s not pretty.

@JLeslie So they said. Doing after the fact research the actuary tables on patients my parents age the extended life they were supposed to have was overly optimistic. I feel in my dad’s case he had severe arterial sclerosis and the Doctor had to know this and the fact that the cancer had bound itself to his aorta. Even if they didn’t know and they discovered this fact during surgery they should have stopped and abandoned the procedure and let him live a few more months. He played in a golf tournament the day before his surgery so he was living a quality life….same for my mom. She played golf 3 days a week. I know it is selfish of me to second guess their decisions but had they accepted the cards they were dealt they could have lived at least a few more months. But they also avoided the suffering dying of cancer surely would have brought their way.

@Cruiser I’m so sorry your parents and your family went through this. Making medical decisions is just a horrible burden. It’s so hard to know what is the right thing to do. Dealing with medical issues, and living with medical decisions, is definitely one of the worst things in my life.

Hey Snow. Glad you are not on steroids.

@Rarebear Yes. I am a lucky guy indeed! I made so many choices that turned out to be the best course of action. PSA of 23 yet I elected surgery. I picked robotic vs. open when robotic was still new. I elected to refuse follow up radiation which would have left me incontinent while only decreasing my chances of a biochemical recurrence by 5%.
Eight years out and my PSA is still <0.01. Whew!

While we are on the subject of PSA testing…. Why don’t doctors tell their patients to abstain from sex for 24 – 48 hours before having their blood drawn? It is well known that both ejaculation and a DRE (digital rectal exam) elevate PSA readings. How many men are given a DRE by their PCPs and then are sent down the hallway to have blood drawn for the test? How many men have sex the night before the blood draw unknowingly altering their result. Since my diagnosis 8 years ago I have had many PSA tests, Not once have I been told to abstain. Why not? Is it incompetence or fraud? Which is worse?
No wonder the PSA test occasionally gives false positives.
I want to stand on a mountain top and scream to all the men in the world:
Guys!!! If your doc gives you a digital rectal exam and then sends you down the hall to have blood drawn, kick him in the nuts and tell him to have his own blood tested!!!

@LuckyGuy “Incompetence or fraud.” Those are the only two choices for you?

And this, folks, is why I don’t like to answer medical question. Backing out now.

@Rarebear I’m sorry that statement was more than a little strong. Maybe too strong. Are there other options? PSA tests are so common every doctor should know about them and their correct application.

I just wonder why patients are not told to abstain. When I have normal blood work done I am told it should be a “fasting” draw. No food after midnight. When the blood is drawn even the tech asks and verifies that I fasted. Would it be so difficult it say “no sex for 24 hours.before a PSA test.”?
When someone’s PSA comes back high the usual protocol is “It might be a bad test. Let’s retest in 3 months.” An additional test and office visit is required. Meanwhile the poor patient is left to worry and fret until the results of the next test.

@LuckyGuy It shouldn’t be an additional office visit. That’s where I have another problem. The doctor should just write the script for the blood test to be repeated. I’m with you why not repeat it a week or two later? I wonder why they wait months?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1377290