Gross Things Patients Do

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I have seen some pretty questionable activity by patients, but this one got me. It also got me wondering: What other disgusting things do patients do?

I had a patient with a large pannus riddled with open sores that were positive for MRSA. As I'm cleaning them she kept poking her fingers in them. "This one (squish!) popped up about 2 weeks ago, and this one (poke!) about a week ago..." Ugh. I advise her not to touch the open wounds...and move along. I apply the ordered Medihoney and turn my head to get the dry drsg, when, out of the corner of my eye I see her put her finger in her mouth and (gleefully) exclaim "It DOES taste like honey! I wonder if you could eat it?..." Urp! Ralph! I tell her that while you can TECHNICALLY eat anything you can put in your mouth, it's probably not a good idea, finish up and quickly leave. Shaking my head. People never cease to amaze (and disgust) me.

Maybe not the grossest, but while working a med surg floor had a patient bite her IV tubing in half and was drinking the blood transfusion. She thought it was more effective that way :)

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
I am an avid baker with particular passion toward wild yeast sourdoughs. So, when I happen to meet my "colleagues", talks naturally tend to turn toward starters, sponges and flour mixes. That happened with the daughter of a patient I cared for one day.

At the end of the nice chat, we agreed to exchange starters, which is quite normal thing for bakers to do. I brought her a piece of my dough, and she fave me a bit of hers. I used it for my next batch and it worked, albeit unusually slow, but the bread turned out good. Next shift, I told the daughter about it and she, smiling like a winner, let me know about the source of the yeasts she used to develop her starter. According to her, it was material from her mother's groin (which was all covered with candida all right). She thought that it was "most natural source of yeasts" and "it even smelled like a good old dough".

Only hard knowledge that it physically couldn't be THOSE yeasts prevented me from puking then and there.

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Pt had a clogged trach. He takes it out and licks it clean, and sucks out the clog like its a damn milkshake. I even said "what the hell" and he said thats how he always does it at home.

I really really and truly hope I never have an experience that tops that.

I just had my first patient attempt to self treat his severe constipation. Walked into the room for AM blood sugar check and both hands were covered to the wrist in bowel movement and he was laying there holding a handful that he had managed to dig out. I had to postpone the Accucheck since there wasn't a clean finger to get a sample from. Then I went to the phone and got the doctor on the line to beg for Colace. Worst thing was he was eating with his hands in that state. I felt my stomach lurch a little at that point and my CNA had to finish the clean up. It didn't help that I wasn't feeling all that well that day anyway.

I have seen far far worse. I had a patient that was bulemic. She would eat and eat until she would make herself sick. After she would vomit she would save her emesis in an empty 2 liter soda bottle. For those with a queasy stomach look away. Look away now. She would actually drink her emesis that she had saved in that 2 liter soda bottle. I have been a RN since 1994. Before I went to nursing school I was a Hospital corpsman in the navy. When I started university I worked as an OR tech while completing my core curriculum. I have seen some patients do some disgusting things but this... this one was indescribably grotesque.

Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.
I am an avid baker with particular passion toward wild yeast sourdoughs. So, when I happen to meet my "colleagues", talks naturally tend to turn toward starters, sponges and flour mixes. That happened with the daughter of a patient I cared for one day.

At the end of the nice chat, we agreed to exchange starters, which is quite normal thing for bakers to do. I brought her a piece of my dough, and she fave me a bit of hers. I used it for my next batch and it worked, albeit unusually slow, but the bread turned out good. Next shift, I told the daughter about it and she, smiling like a winner, let me know about the source of the yeasts she used to develop her starter. According to her, it was material from her mother's groin (which was all covered with candida all right). She thought that it was "most natural source of yeasts" and "it even smelled like a good old dough".

Only hard knowledge that it physically couldn't be THOSE yeasts prevented me from puking then and there.

OH ... oh God ... [hoike, retch, gag] ...

Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.
Pt had a clogged trach. He takes it out and licks it clean, and sucks out the clog like its a damn milkshake. I even said "what the hell" and he said thats how he always does it at home.

Sputum is my kryptonite ... I would have emptied the contents of my stomach promptly without question (and I still may) ... :wtf:

Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.

I learned real quick as a new grad NEVER to pull back the sheets without wearing gloves - you never know what that wet substance is (snot/mucous, semen, urine, stool ...).

I discovered a patient had been blowing his nose on the top sheet - as I was walking away with the dirty one I slipped and skidded on one foot through a big puddle of sputum the same patient had spat onto the floor ...

One day an NPO patient in the next bed asked me for a spoon while I was busy and distracted with the patient in bed #1. When I returned with the spoon I asked him what he needed a spoon for since he was NPO? You guessed it: "I'm really constipated" (and no, he did NOT get the spoon).

I had a confused, restrained patient's call light go off - when I walked into the room to shut it off it took me a few minutes to discover the call lights new location. I didn't dare remove it due to concerns of causing lacerations. When I paged the on call MD I had to explain twice why we needed a stat GYN consult at the bedside. Later that day it was removed by a bemused GYN provider (the patient was none the worse S/P retrieval. We threw away the call light).

I walked into a patient room one day to witness an AAO patient eating his smegma - that was uncomfortable. :wideyed: I turned around and walked out heaving ... :wtf:

Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
I walked into a patient room one day to witness an AAO patient eating his smegma

But, 3ring, did his smegma have a naturally formed crust?

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Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.
But, 3ring, did his smegma have a naturally formed crust?

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Ummm, I'm going to hazard a guess and say yes ... Damn - wouldn't that have gone great with KatieMI, MSN, RN's au natural candida yeast bread starter dough? :laugh:

And at potlucks you could warn people: "That crust may look naturally light and flaky - but avoid the candida goat cheese pastries like the plague!".

This happened to one of my cena's: I had a res that was constantly putting her hands on and in her hoohaa every time staff changed her brief. So cena was talking to the res while changing the brief, res went to town scratching away and then promptly stuck her fingers in cena's mouth. Cena came running up to the desk gagging :yuck:, went into clean utility, grabbed tooth brush, toothpaste, mouth wash, and peroxide and scrubbed, rinsed, garggled and repeated mult x's. Being nurses, we all about died laughing :roflmao:. Poor cena now was doing the above cleaning interspersed with cussing us out!

This happened to one of my cena's: I had a res that was constantly putting her hands on and in her hoohaa every time staff changed her brief. So cena was talking to the res while changing the brief, res went to town scratching away and then promptly stuck her fingers in cena's mouth. Cena came running up to the desk gagging :yuck:, went into clean utility, grabbed tooth brush, toothpaste, mouth wash, and peroxide and scrubbed, rinsed, garggled and repeated mult x's. Being nurses, we all about died laughing :roflmao:. Poor cena now was doing the above cleaning interspersed with cussing us out!

I think I would just have to quit my job if that happened. I'd suffer from post traumatic stress disorder every time I saw the resident in the hallway or walked by their room. Shudder...

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