People Are Sharing The Things A Doctor Told Them That They’ll Never, Ever, Forget

The doctor’s office can be a painstakingly dreadful place when you’re in the middle of a medical crisis, completely uncertain about what your body is trying to tell you. The fear of the unknown can make even the simplest doctor’s visit feel like a huge gamble.

Unfortunately, not all doctors — or diagnoses — are created equal. Some dismiss mild symptoms as if they’ll simply go away, while others deliver life-altering news with unsettling bluntness. Either way, it’s not an ideal scenario when you’re wearing an uncomfortable gown, feeling completely vulnerable, and suffocating from anxiety.

But every now and then, you meet a doctor who says something that sticks with you forever — something that completely shifts your perspective on health. Whether it’s a critical diagnosis, life-saving advice, or a surprisingly comforting word, these unforgettable moments have a way of staying with us.

A recent Reddit post went viral with users sharing the things doctors told them that they’ll never forget. Here they are, for better or for worse:

1.“That I had a ‘really nice ear canal.’ I was so flattered for virtually no reason.”

–u/Diligent-Ratio-4654

2.“My wonderful doctor was doing a biopsy in a very sensitive area and asked how my pain was. I said I was OK because I have a high pain tolerance. She said that still doesn’t mean I have to be in pain. I had genuinely never thought like that before.”

–u/stalkenwalken

3.“I told my doctor my knees crunch when I bend them. I showed him what I meant and he said, ‘Wow, that doesn’t sound very good,’ and then left the room. Appointment over.”

–u/riphitter

4.“It wasn’t to me but I was in the room because I was accompanying my mom to all her appointments. Her surgeon basically told her, ‘You’re right, there is a problem, but we can fix it,’ and it caused her to burst into tears of happiness.”

“She’d been dealing with abdominal cramping and pain for going on 10 years. It started mild and had gotten progressively worse to the point where when it would hit, she would be in tears, hunched over, unable to eat or move.”

A bunch of doctors had diagnosed and treated her for a bunch of things that did nothing for the pain and eventually, most had told her to get a psych eval because it was clearly in her head. Finally, she convinced a surgeon to do some kind of exploratory surgery with a camera. Turns out, it wasn’t in her head. She’d been born with a condition where her large intestine wasn’t attached to her abdominal wall the way it was supposed to be. Over the previous 10 years, it had moved in such a way to coil around her small intestine, her appendix, and her colon, and was starting to cut off circulation and cause cell death. They ended up removing something like 6-7 inches of her large intestine, her appendix, and a large part of her small intestine. Just like that, poof, all her abdominal pain was gone.”

–u/Kilen13

5.“When I was 14, I thought I might have an eating disorder because I was obsessing over my body and food. I went and saw the doctor, and he grabbed my belly, pinched it, gave it a good shake, and said, ‘I don’t think you’ve got an eating disorder; you’ve still got some meat on your bones.’ You can guess what that did for my eating disorder…”

–u/abberssss

6.“This is silly but I went through some different stuff as a kid, and I had just seen a documentary about a few serial killers that made me scared of myself, as they had gone through similar things as me and I was young and thought I might snap like them. The doctor said that I was too empathetic to ever do such a thing, and that kinda reassured me that I wouldn’t be a bad person growing up.”

–u/Hollowismyname

7.“I was generally an anxious crying disaster during a pap test/biopsy/IUD/post-baby lady parts process of NONSENSE. I apologized for being a mess to my male OB/GYN and his med assistant, who had both, in my eyes, gone to pretty great lengths to calm me down and talk me through the pain, anxiety, etc. I feel pretty comfortable with these humans, as they are the same team that delivered both of my babies.”

“He said, ‘If I accomplish anything in this career, I hope it’s that I can get women to stop apologizing for how they react to having to deal with all the shit they have to deal with.’

The same doctor had also told me, when I was facing a few different reproductive scenarios, ‘I will do whatever you want me to do. It’s your body. My job is to answer your questions, give you the facts, and when you make your decision, I will have your back 100%.’He has done many things to improve my outlook and help me learn to advocate for myself in our garbage healthcare system, but those times really stick out to me. I compare all other doctors to him.”

–u/princessbiscuit

8.“I was dying from a ruptured ovarian cyst, and when I woke up after surgery, my surgeon showed me photos of the blood he drained out of my belly and said, ‘That’s the most blood I’ve ever seen; I’m surprised you’re not dead. Want me to email you these photos?'”

“I did want them emailed, and I still have them.”

–u/Old_Avocado_5407

9.“I was only 7, but I had a horrible fever, stomach pain, and vomiting for four or five days. My mom and dad finally took me to the hospital. I couldn’t even get water past my lips without throwing it up. Of course, I was dehydrated; the pain was relentless, and I writhed in bed, moaning and crying. They put me on an IV and X-rayed me for hours and days, trying to find an obstruction or something. I stayed in the hospital for a total of four weeks and lost half of my body weight. They even told my parents I might not make it if I couldn’t start eating. One morning, I woke up, looked at my mom, and said, ‘I’m hungry.’ You should have seen her face split into smiles of joy. Whatever I had was over (many years later, it’s thought to be an unknown variety of virus).”

“They sent me home and a week later we had a follow up with the doctor, he patted me on the head and told my mother, ‘Your daughter was obviously faking, and the next time she comes home complaining about a stomachache, get a switch after her and send her back to school.’ My mother slapped him. I promise I am not making the story up. It was 1972, things were different. I always thought he was so pompous, he didn’t want to admit he didn’t know.”

–u/DeeDleAnnRazor

10.“I had an ectopic rupture for my first pregnancy. After explaining the fastest roads to take to the hospital for emergency surgery to my husband, he took a moment to gently hold my hand and say, ‘okay, we’re going to go save your life now.’ He was the greatest doctor I’ve ever had. I’ll never forget how calming his voice was even while I was actively dying. I’ll always be grateful to him.”

–u/spookykitteh9

11.“My doctor, when inspecting my back for moles, gasped loudly, and said ‘Christ, you’re pale, Elizabethan even!'”

–u/chloebee102

12.“A doctor after I had emergency surgery with complications due to stage 4 endometriosis that I had no clue about: ‘You’ve got a high pain tolerance. That means if something is ‘annoying,’ you need to go to the doctor. Your ‘annoying’ is a normal person’s 10.'”

–u/LunarAnxiety

13.“I used to suffer really badly from throat infections and was always at the doctor. An old retired doctor I met told me if I took antibiotics, it would be gone in a week. If not, it would clear up in seven days. I’ve avoided unnecessary antibiotics for my throat ever since.”

–u/madchickenpower

14.“A male doctor told me that my panic attacks were because I eat too many hot Cheetos. I stopped eating them for two years. To no one’s surprise, I still had panic attacks.”

–u/suchgreatheights324

15.“‘I don’t know much about insert medical area of concern, so I’m going to refer you to a specialist, but now I want to learn more.'”

“The reason this stuck with me, particularly, is because when I went to see him a couple of months later for a follow-up, he seemed almost as knowledgeable about the topic at hand as the specialist I had seen. I wish he were still my GP.”

–u/TheShadowMaple

16.“My OB was stitching me back up after my C-section. He said I had ‘objectively strong abs.’ Told my CrossFit gym they need to put that in their ads.”

–u/charlielouiedusty

17.“I went to a new dentist because I needed a cleaning and had horrible pain in my tooth. They gave me the cleaning, prescribed me some fancy toothpaste, and said there was nothing wrong with my tooth at all but the toothpaste was just to make me feel better. A few months later I went back to the doctor because, again, horrible tooth pain. By a stroke of luck, he was out of the office and another dentist looked at me. She listened to me, took X-rays, and saw I needed a root canal.”

“A few weeks later I’m back for the root canal and the first dentist is the one doing it. He said, ‘How long have you been in pain for?’ I said, ‘Years, but no dentist would ever listen to me.’ He had the fucking gall to say, ‘Well, I’m glad you’re here now because we always listen.’

I wanted to slap him. I told him SO MANY TIMES AND HE NEVER LISTENED. It literally took going to a different dentist for anyone in his office to listen to me.

I got the root canal and then switched to a different dental office where I once in passing mentioned some pain and they immediately listened to me.”

–u/CaptainFartHole

18.“My dentist told me I had plaque buildup in one spot and I needed to put more effort into cleaning it or it was going to cause problems. And I said, ‘but it’s really hard to get floss in that area though.’ And he paused for a second and said, ‘well, the plaque doesn’t care.’ Made me realize how often I talked about objective reality like I was trying to convince a manager to give me a policy exemption.”

–u/runner64

19.“‘50% of all doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class.'”

“Said to my mother by Doctor #2 when seeking a second opinion after Doctor #1 was very rude and dismissive about an issue. Which did, in fact, turn out to be different from Doctor #1’s assessment, and proper diagnosis allowed for treatment with improved outcomes. And came with a much better bedside manner as well.

Always advocate for yourself or have a support person who can advocate for you, especially when you know something is wrong. Wanting a second opinion is perfectly acceptable. It’s your life, not theirs.”

–u/twistedshrapnelwolf

20.“Eight years ago, you would have found me in the hospital. My alcoholism and depression had sent me there indirectly. Broken hip after my infected leg had refused to work and I took a fall in my restroom. It still took two more days until my body refused to function, except for some vital things. I had pneumonia, I was short of losing my left leg, I had a beginning liver cirrhosis. I had hallucinations because of sleeping meds and alcohol withdrawal. I quit cold turkey, and even under medical attendance, it was hell.”

“I spent six weeks in the hospital, and in the last three days, the longing for alcohol returned. And I was thinking about how to get my beloved beer.

On the Sunday before I left the hospital, an angel appeared at the foot of my bed. As it turned out, it was the station’s medic. She wouldn’t be in the next day, so she decided to come on her free day to talk some sense into me. After she was finished, I cried for six hours, and when I finally could stop crying, I decided to give up alcohol — which I did.

The sentence, or two, to be correct, that saved my life: ‘If you continue with drinking, you are dead in two years.’ And the important one: ‘I want you to live!'”

–u/Uncle_Lion

21.“A psychiatrist said she would bet her medical license that I wasn’t autistic. A couple of years later, I got an autism diagnosis. Sometimes, I want to call her, send her my results, and ask her to gently give up her medical license.”

–u/afserkin

22.“I was a really bad hypochondriac when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I went to the doctor because I was convinced I had a brain tumor. He said, ‘I can see it now, on your tombstone, ‘Here lies [my name], the first person to die of a sinus infection.’ I wanted to throat punch him at the time.'”

–u/RevolutionaryEye8058

23.“I cut myself pretty bad on my left index finger trying to open a coconut, and my girlfriend at the time took me to the hospital at like 12:30 a.m. When the doctor asked what had happened, and I explained, he said, ‘No knives after midnight.’ It’s a pretty good rule, which I’m sure he had plenty of experience with.”

–u/rememberthegreatwar

24.“‘Smoking is suicide.’ It worked.”

–u/switch182

25.“‘I always have to be careful how I talk to her because she doesn’t know her husband’s sterile. Makes you wonder where the two kids came from. Probably shouldn’t have told you that. Now open wide, let’s have a look at those tonsils…'”

“This was the small talk my doctor made about a patient who was leaving as I was arriving for an emergency appointment. I would have been 15-16 at the time.”

–u/Active-Strawberry-37

Note: responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.