25 Obvious Lies From Delusional Patients Health Professionals Have Been Subjected To

As pointless as it may be to mislead someone who’s trying to help you, it’s surprisingly common in the medical world. People often lie to doctors—even in life-or-death situations—just to save face, which is truly baffling. What’s even stranger is how little concern there seems to be that doctors can usually tell when their patients are lying. When someone online asked, “Doctors on Reddit, what is the most obvious lie a patient has ever told you?”, health professionals eagerly shared their most memorable experiences. The level of willful ignorance in these stories is astounding, and we’ve collected some of the most striking examples below.

#1

Image source: Sometime_after_dark, AS Photography "I've been following my diabetes treatment plan" Sir, your toes are falling off and your a1c is 14.

#2

Not a Dr, but a nurse of 20+ years. If a person is lying to you, I absolutely let them & am unbothered because they’re telling me what they want me to know about themselves. If there is a lab or test result I need to base my care around the result, I rely on that result to give me the information to safely care for that person. If the result returned is the opposite of what a person is telling me, I know there is a deep shame, medical-based stigma, or defense mechanism in place for the person receiving care. Medical settings are not safe spaces for everyone. Let people lie. They’re going to do it anyway to protect themselves. It often tells you what you need to know and there is never a reason to shame anyone seeking care. Image source: bonniebirdsong

#3

Image source: esoteric_enigma, RDNE Stock project My roommate from college works some hours in the ER and people still come in all the time claiming they slipped and fell a*****e first on [insert object]. I would think in 2025 this would be a thing of the past. You can literally order butt plugs online and have them shipped directly to you with no one knowing. There's no reason to keep sticking household items up there when we have so many things specifically designed to go in a butt.

#4

Image source: WoodsyAspen, Olga Kononenko I had a guy who had a lymphoma, came in not feeling well. His liver enzymes were trash, he looked like death, he was tachycardic and his blood pressures were very borderline. He kept telling me he felt fine and would be fine going home. We spent all day on the phone back and forth with oncology and infectious disease and the worry was that his lymphoma had transformed to a more aggressive type. Overnight his blood pressure tanked and he went to the ICU (for my medical people, his overnight lactate was 12). He wouldn't let the overnight resident call his family because "he was fine." He died the next day. Very, very sad case. If a doctor asks to call your loved ones because they're worried about how sick you are, believe them!

#5

Image source: CassieRamirez, Tima Miroshnichenko Dentist here! The man that owns the nail salon across the parking lot is my patient. Every 6 months I ask him if he smokes cigarettes. Every visit he denies it. And yet every day I watch him from my office - smoking a pack of cigarettes ? Sometimes I wave ??.

#6

Image source: loganonmission, RDNE Stock project I’m a physician and I have a colleague that had her prescription pad stolen. A pharmacist later called her to ask about a prescription she had apparently written: “MORFEEN, 1 pound”.

#7

Nurse here but I had a patient who claimed he had seizures. When he was having a “seizure” I went “I don’t know what give him to stop it” and the patient replied “fentanyl” while shaking. Image source: ManlyCannibalOG

#8

Image source: PostScrollRepeat, The Beatles Not sure if this counts, but while taking a new patient’s history back in 2011, he told me he was in a band. I told him I was a musician as well. He got all excited and started to talk more about the others in his band. They were none other than The Beatles. He spoke of all of them in present tense, too. It was a sobering moment. I never would have known he was Schizophrenic if I hadn’t asked him about his hobbies. Not up until that point, anyway. ❤️.

#9

Image source: MLSGeek, National Cancer Institute I am a Medical Laboratory Scientist. I am the guy who plays with all the stuff your mother told you never to touch. One day, a Labor and Delivery patient drops in and decides to have her baby. She had no prenatal care. The nurse draws her blood and sends it to the lab. I do a type and screen (Blood type and Rh). We do this on all patients because lab people are paranoid. Patient tests as A Positive; in the computer her history shows B Positive. I send the Phlebotomist to draw her blood because lab people are paranoid. Still A Positive. I dive into the history and, yep, two years previously, I was the one who typed her as B Positive. This time, I draw her blood (because lab people are paranoid) and let the nurses know there is a blood bank discrepancy, call the physician. We can't give her type specific blood if she needs it, we will have to give her O Negative and start an investigation. (Blood types don't change except for very rare circumstances.) As I am retyping her for the third time, (still A Positive), the nurse calls me, laughing. Our mama to be was admitted under her sister's name. She had stolen her sister's Medicaid card instead of getting one of her own. She didn't want her folks to know she was pregnant.

#10

Image source: LegitimateLagomorph, Theo "I didn't drink" Sir your blood alcohol level would k**l a normal man and I can smell you from across the department. Also you fell over twice trying to stand up.

#11

Not my case, but my mothers(we work together, we're both dentists). She starts extracting a tooth of an elderly lady after thougroughly going through what medication she takes, any chronic conditions, etc. She asks her if she takes any anti-coagulants(blood no stop if taken). Nope. She doesn't take any. Any Aspirin? Nope, no Aspirin. So my mum extracts the tooth and now the wound won't stop bleeding. My mum asks again about anti-coagulants, specifically. Nope. After 30 more minutes of this and an X-Ray to check if there were any root fragments left in the socket, the patient, now distressed that she still won't stop bleeding says something along the lines of "Maybe I shouldn't have taken (insert anti-coagulant brand name here) this morning". And that's, Reddit, is how I learned to suture wounds. Image source: ivanguliashki

#12

Image source: bythog, Anya Prygunova Not a doctor but a former vet tech. The number of people who would swear to me up and down that they don't do d***s and there is zero chance their dog could get them...while their dog is obviously h**h on pot. "Well, we do have this *potpourri* that is pot scented..." Listen, for one: no one wants a pot scented air freshener. Two: I don't give a s**t, I just need you to tell me what it was so we can treat your pet. Three: maybe ease back on the w**d so you stop leaving it where your dog (and probably children) have access to it.

#13

Image source: PussyCyclone, Victor Clime Am GI.I was at the pub having lunch and next to me was a guy 5 or 6 pints deep. I vouched for a sour ale he seemed unsure about. He ordered it. Still drinking it when I shook his hand and left. Afternoon, I walk in to my exam room and that guy is sitting there. Me: "oh hey chief, I met you at [X pub] earlier!" Pt: "wasn't me." Me:"I told you [X drink] was great. You ordered it?" Pt: "wasn't me." Found it odd but skimmed the chart a bit (we don't get to do it beforehand sometimes) and figured out quickly why he was lying: referred to our hepatologist for evaluation and mgmnt of his alcoholic cirrhosis. Office scheduled him with me accidentally. Had indicated to the rooming nurse that he was sober for 6 months. I apologized for the scheduling mix up, but warned him it was a bit pointless to lie about his alcohol intake. He still lied at his rescheduled apt with the correct provider. Oh well, it's his liver not mine.

#14

NAD, but I work IT in a hospital. I had a ticket to replace a keyboard in an ER and got chewed out by a Dr. for response time (I was actually as prompt as possible for my part)… as I was working I overhear the same Dr was making small talk boasting about this and that when a nurse came in and explained some test results for a patient the Dr. had which proved that the patient wasn’t lying about being sober and actually having some concerning results. The Dr laughed about it and said he assumed they were lying and drunk because they were so sloppy… and it was not said in a funny way, but a demeaning way. All I could think about was how much I hated that if I were that patient I would hope the Dr would believe me when I said I didn’t drink but that my seeming drunkenness was worrying symptom. It scared me a bit. Image source: yuukanna

#15

“I was just standing on the corner minding my own business when someone drove by and blew white stuff in my face. THAT’S why I tested positive for c*****e.”. Image source: EducationalDoctor460

#16

Image source: Jumpy_Strain_6867, Zach Not a doctor but I imagine any doctor who works in a clinic that treats STDs has had a lot of married men claim to have gotten an STD from a public restroom toilet seat.

#17

Remember kids: tell the police nothing, tell the medical professionals everything. Image source: suddenlyupsidedown

#18

Image source: Maleficent-Orange438, JC Gellidon The doctors I work with will ask if patients are taking their medication, they say yes, and once they’re under anesthesia the dr says “they never filled the prescription”.

#19

Kid came in nearly dead from diabetic ketoacidosis and one of the parents said they had ran out of his insulin 24 hours before Later the other parent confessed they hadn’t given their child insulin in over a week. Image source: Past-Drop2735

#20

Image source: Garden-variety-chaos, Pixabay I'm not a doctor, but a friend of mine works in an ER in Mormonville, Utah. Weirdly, per his stories, a lot of 110% heterosexual men will walk through their kitchen with no pants, slip on accident, and fall onto a cucumber that has lube on it! It's really weird, tbh. I'm not sure how cucumber accidents keep happening to ***definitely*** straight men with wives and kids. Jokes aside, there is nothing wrong with gay or bi, ***and***!!!! nothing wrong with being a straight man who likes toys in the a*s. Please, just use something meant for a**l. Cucumbers are not meant to be put in any hole other than your mouth.

#21

I've had a lot of pain that has landed me in the ER. I've been treated horribly at times. It's crazy when I tell them that intravenous toradol normally helps a lot, if I haven't had it recently. Toradol is a non-narcotic. I've never felt a mental effect (other than relief) from it. It works like an instant anti-inflammatory and just eases the pain significantly. I've had drs scream that I was " d**g seeking, and they weren't going to give me anything" change to " oh sure" when I mention toradol. Image source: eminva02

#22

Was a provider in a rural area urgent care. Guy and girl come in complaining of bug bites. They are covered in open sores.. they deny d**g use on social history. I ask, “do you use illicit d***s?” Denied. Ok. Tactic changed. “Listen, I don’t call the cops on people who use. Can we start over?” Them “m**h”. You don’t say. Image source: ilikebeeef

#23

Image source: HuckleberryGlum1163, Jonathan Kemper “I never smoked like ever in my life” ….and you’re sure they smoked a cigarette literally like 10 minutes before you came, cause they smell like an ashtray and they have really really bad PVD.

#24

Image source: StopthinkingitsMe, Josh Willink My cousin is a doctor, he said a very obviously pregnant girl came in with her mom, she was 5-6 months along. When asked if she ever had sexual contact, she said no lol Edit : her stomach looked like she was pregnant. Doctors have a list of questions they need to ask to be sure about diagnosis like are you sexually active to rule out other disorders and tumours. This is only funny because they sent her in for an ultrasound and saw a baby.

#25

Image source: u400mak00, Suhyeon Choi Pregnant woman squatted on the floor in front of me. Peed on the floor, stood up and told me her waters had just broken.......ummm, no? You just Peed on the floor?