Right... give me as many stories as possible about doctors/consultants getting things wrong

[emkana]

Going through a difficult time atm with uncertainty about my unborn baby's health.

Even though it might be clutching at straws it would cheer me up to hear stories about how doctors can get things wrong. So please indulge me! Anything - pregnancy-related or not - welcome!

sympathy to you...

I got told my excema was scabies...cried my eyes out for no reason

I got told my fat was pregnancy 3 times even though i insisted it is just fat! I'm not pregnant! she kept pointing and saying 'you're pregnant' and was there to get more contraceptive pills

I got told 'you need an episiotomy, or your baby will be harmed and take longer to be born'
he was born minutes later with no tear and no stitches and perfectly fine'

sometimes they wrong!!!!

DS at age 8 fell awkwardly on trampoline one sta night(not off it btw). Had Xray - told sprained, bandaged, sent home with excercise chart. On WED we get call to come back as....er.....actually....it is broken! Oh, & please make sure he keeps it still & puts no weight on it! He had been in agony!

I took 9 weeks in a full length caste to heal :(

Don't know and don't care, Twiglett, but telling me they didn't have Prevenar at all when they give it to at risk infants anyway was a load of cock and bull and I knew it. They'll lie through their teeth if it makes them and their surgery look better, but that's another story.

expat: I had that one as well with DTaP "not licensed for use in babies" - they then gave me this factsheet about how mercury was really safe, and at the bottom of the factsheet there was this thing about if mercury free was required, use the DTaP Shot themselves in their own foot with that one...

My GP told me I was very definitely pregnant when I went to him in agony when I was 21. It turned out to be kidney stones and I spent 5 nights in hospital.

my consultant told me one of my twins were ceph, when both were breech. I got a second opinion and although they still insisted one was ceph, they gave em my section. And both WERE breech. Good luck emkana, I'm so sorry for what you are going through. Really hope everythign goes well for you.

Was told dd's hole in her heart was so tiny that she would never need surgery... she had open heart at 17 months.

When my sister (age 6) broke her leg the A&E doc told her it was just a dead leg and she should stop making such a fuss and walk on it and it would feel better.

After Xray they found that her femur was completely broken, and she spent 6 weeks in traction :(
I think they didn't think it could be broken because it was caused by my 4 month old lab puppy running into her! I knew it was broken as soon as it happened as she had a bloody great lump sticking out the side of her leg.

Sorry about your situation emkana, haven't seen latest yet, but have seen your other posts.

FIL went to Drs with chest pains, was told it was a pulled muscle, he died 3 days later of a blood clot on the lung (caused heart attack).

DS2 was told his tonsils were swollen.....1year after they were removed.

Not much faith now in Drs.

A and E doc told us my dd was making a fuss refused to x ray her knee although it was obvious she was struggling to walk.Sent us home with flea in our ear next night we returned this time he x rayed her as he said just to shut us up.
He told us there was a tiny bit of fluid round the knee it would be drained and we could go home. He showed me the x ray but only after I said i wanted to see it and I SAW the sewing needle that had gone right through to the knee joint.
He was shocked and 10 mins later my daughter was on the table having her knee cut open.She spent a week in hospital with her leg in cast thigh to ankle, 6 more weeks on antibiotics and worse still we were told that if he had drained the fluid and sent her home she would have died as septacemia had started to set in.
As a result this a and e doctor was sent for some additional training and was disiplined by the hospital for his misdiagnosis.
Sometimes due to lack of training/sleep or guidance things can be wrongly diagnosed.

So sorry to read about your situation emkana . It must be really tough for you at the moment. I so hope it works out for you.

These stories don't exactly inspire confidence in the docs do they?

My own is pretty horrific too. Dd was a failure to thrive baby and was spectacularly misdiagnosed by both my own GP and the paed team. They said she had a UTI and anaemia on two separate occasions. When I rushed her back the third time she had already had a heart attack caused by bronchiolitis on top of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect - she went on to have another heart attack, critical heart failure and multiple organ failure.

On the upside the cardios said she wouldn't survive the surgery but did it anyway. They twice told us to say goodbye over the following few weeks but against all their expectations she came through

Paeds had the good grace to apologise for their cock-up and GP checked himself into a drying out clinic

I was told PG fine baby ok- he had IUGR and was born having lost significant weight in utero, I was fitting with Pre-Eclampsia.

Friend was told her baby might die because of genetic condition causing 'bodily mutation' and a severe kidney problem/probably heart condition. kidney problem sorted in one op, mutation was one webbed finger- no other heart problems.

Wishing you luck Emkana XXX
We were told DS3 probably DOwns. Not at all.

I went to GP last summer in agony with chest and neck pain. I was told it was a trapped nerve but it turned out to be pneumonia with a suspected blood clot in my lung. Spent a week confined to hospital bed being injected with Warfarin to dissolve the clot, could have been lethal.

I also battled with my GP for years. She kept saying that I had just painful periods and was not coping with them very well. Turned out I have got stage 3 endometriosis, left ovary covered in it and my womb and bowel have stuck together and my left ovary is twisted round on itself and also stuck to my bowel. You'll probably have gathered by now that my GP is crap.

Not a dramatic story but... I was told I almost certainly wouldn't be able to have an epidural due to scoliosis. In agony entering 3rd day of labour I agreed to try one and it was absolutely fine.

I passed a clot after hours of excruciating pain that had me unable to walk. I went to the dr worried I might have had a miscarriage. He just said come back in a few days if you are still bleeding and dismissed me without a 2nd thought. I was still concerned and came home and had a look on the internet and saw that you may still test + after a miscarriage as the pregnancy hormone takes a while to come out of your system. I did a test and it came out positive. I made another appt for the afternoon of same day and say a lady dr who immediately refered me to hospital where they did another test and a scan to find that I had actually miscarried, it was a complete miscarriage so no further treatment was required beyond reattending in two day to check that my hcg levels were reducing.

hi, had lots of scans with dd2 as they said she had problems with her kidneys and gave me a 1 in 5o chance of her being downs. I refused an amnio and fought for a home bith and she was fine and lots of tests after she was born her kidneys were fine within 6 weeks and everything else was normal !I had a very strong feeling all the way through she was fine.

my dad's gp told him he had a virus and to take paracetamol.when my mum said 'are you sure?' he huffed and puffed and said somthing along the lines of 'well go to the hospital if you don't believe me but you're making a fuss over nothing'
He had had 2 heart attacks!

We were told by two consultants,one private & one NHS,that we'd never have children without IVF.3 years & 2 dd's later,I never did go back & tell them they'd got it wrong!

Also,after losing mt 1st baby to an ectopic,a consultant told me that even IVF would have a lower success rate in my case.Wrong!!!!

My sister was severely asthmatic as a child & was told that she should never work on the family farm as she would not be able to cope with the dust/animal dander ect.She worked on the farm for 18 years & never had a day off sick for anything.

I hope that they are wrong in your case too.

first off, my mum had what the gp called an ear infection. Gave spray to go up her nose. She got very dizzy and after 48 hours was confined to bed. Gp gave appx 3 home visits. One evening she needed the toilet, tried to get out of bed herself and fell over, bruising her face. The next night my hubby and i helped her to the loo and she collapsed. When she came round, she had profuse diahorreah. We got her into hospital, where they said that she collapsed due to dehydration, gave her fluids, sent her home, and said that as she was completley incontinent, they would arrange for nurse to come out morn and evening to help with home care. 2 days later she was delerious and her own gp sent her to a different hospital, which I hate to say was in his words "to give me a break". She later passed away at appx 7.00 that evening. She was so dehydrated that her heart could not cope with the amount of fluids that she needed. None of which had been noticed prior to her going to hosp that day. The post mortem showed that she had advanced Cancer of the Colon,,but died of heart faliure. She was 56 yrs old (I was 23). The hospital had an inquest as to why she was ever discharged initially. I later recieved a letter from the hospital saying that the seriousness of mums condition had not been appreciated, and had it been, she would not have been discharged, also that in their words "Mrs ? should not have been made responsible for caring for her at home, as she was so ill.
My second gp B**up was when my baby was poorly at 3 weeks old. The gp said not to worry about his temperature (104) probably a respiratory or at worse urine infection, and to leave him 48 hours. We took him to local hospital that night as we could not stop him screaming etc. He was given a lumberpuncture, he had bacterial meningitis. Had we left him overnight he would have died, let alone 48 hours. Have to say since we have moved our Gp in fantastic, and i trust him 100%

Even more-my friend was told that her twins almost certainly had a fatal trisomy & reccomended that she terminate.She refused & has 2 healthy girls.Nothing wrong with them at all.

My gran was given weeks to live after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.Two years later she was still with us.

My mum was told that my younger sister would be serevely disabled and she should terminate the pregnancy, my mum refused, my sister is now 24, with no disablities at all and working for social services.
I was told that DS was small ffor dates and would weigh about 4lb at term, he was born 4 weeks early weighing 5lb 2oz. At 2 years old we knew somethin was wrong with him (had known for the past 1 1/2 years) was told by his consulant that he defo. did NOT have cerebral palsy, 2 months later we were told at great ormond street that he did have cerebral palsy.
Was also told that DD1 was healthy with no brain damage after delivering her at 31 weeks, 13 months later we found out she did have brain damage and as a result has cerebral palsy.

my grandad was seen by a GP the day before his death and was told there was nothing wrong with him. He died alone the following day of a stroke caused by a blood clot.

My nan was seen the day of her death and was told her symptoms were caused by a virus. My mum wanted her to stay with them that night but she refused and said she wanted her own bed. She died alone at home that night of peritnitis. (sp?)

I had a 'small for dates baby' too, they wanaed to induce as he had stopped growing, I said no becasue DD was only 12 months old and DH was in bali at the time.

Just as well he had stopped growing, he arrived on his due date 9lb 12oz after a four hour labour, gas and air and no stitches!