Gross Things Patients Do

[bluegeegoo2]

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.

[kataraang, BSN]

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 , 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 . Poor cena now was doing the above cleaning interspersed with cussing us out!

Okay this one is where I stopped reading this thread. YUCK.

[ap_NRN]

And to think I was cocky enough to believe there is nothing left out there to disgust me, Ive seen it all... umm nope!! GAG:barf02:

[Fatsacktommy]

I legit just gagged as well

OMG. Not over it.

[Apple-Core, ASN, BSN, RN]

OK - that's about enough internet for today........

[RikkiLynn]

I'm still a student, so my story might pale in comparison... but. In my second year, my teacher loved giving me the difficult pt's. It was a running joke with the other students. So anyway, I had this one pt a few times; mid 70s, CHF on high doses of diuretics who refused to believe she was incontinent. She was in the hospital because she kept slipping and falling on the puddles of urine in her apartment because she refused to wear incontinence diapers (and also was non compliant with meds). The social worker charted that she would simply go wherever she was standing and she was A&Ox3. So in hospital she would make use of a bucket beside her bed and just go in that instead of walking to the toilet 5 feet away (she would do this by peeing on the matress and just letting it waterfall into the bucket). But sometimes she would just go in bed without using the bucket and the staff could not keep up with cleaning it since she was urinating near constantly. The section of the ward she was in smelled profusely of urine. I was standing next to her bed one day, and noticed something was falling off the bed onto my shoe. It was crystallized urine her mattress and bed was covered in them, the underside of her bed was like a cave with stalactites but made out of urine. The last I heard of her the hospital was trying to get a court order to have her moved to a LTC facility because she refused to go she was also quite verbally abusive to staff. The profuse amount of urine had caused all the floor tiles under her bed to peel off, not to mention she had been storing food all over the room to the point that it developed an ant problem. An interesting experience to say the least.

[T-Bird78]

My personal favorite is when pts come in with ziplock baggie containing their used kleenex or cotton ball from their ears--so we can see what their drainage looks like. I'm also use to seeing pts either take pictures of their splints that we remove from their nose at their postop septoplasty appointment, or take the splints home with them. They say their spouse wouldn't believe them otherwise.

[Registerednizzle]

I had a patient obsessed with his bowels give himself an enema with a waterpik (originally a birthday present from his son). He admitted he wasn't really into all that high fiber diet craze, this was his tried and true to keeping things regular at home. What a time to be alive - gum disease and constipation now a thing of the past thanks to the waterpik. This explained why he clung on to it with a death grip after i suggested the family take it home.

[Purple_roses]

I'm always grossed out when patients come in with super long, pointedly filed nails with lord knows what growing underneath them. I mean, they clearly spend a lot of time filing those daggers...how do they not see that they're *brown* underneath?!

[Purple_roses]

Deleted. Phone acting up.

[Raven Sierra, BSN, RN]

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.

Holy gagging, Batman! I've seen a lot of nasty stuff and usually am unfazed by it. But that almost made me lose my breakfast on my computer screen....

[Raven Sierra, BSN, RN]

I'm still a student, so my story might pale in comparison... but....

No, I'd say that's a pretty gross story.

[Thanksforthedonuts, MSN, APRN]

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.

I should have trusted you when you told me to look away the first time. Im sorry.

Im pregnant and already nauseous.. this really made me sick.