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.

[nursebey, LPN, LVN]

me too. walked in on a 3some working the behavioral unit. male and female vistor came in, didnt think anything of it. go in the room just to check on the patient and make sure everyone was safe...pt on the bed bucknaked with the female visitor and the male vistor I'll just say was enjoying the 2 for 1.

[NGYSUN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I had a patient that felt it was necessary to masturbate while attached to a cardiac monitor. ....His HR alarms started alerting on the nurses station screen and several nurses ran in to find the sheets flapping away!!!

Had exact same happen a few months ago.

[Lady_Leijing, BSN]

Can't beat the trach one. I saw a nasty clump of phlegm come out of someone's bipap mask, but that wasn't his fault...

When I worked on a surgical unit, we once had what I called a "poo-nami" because it looked like a tidal wave of diarrhea hit that side of the room. The patient insisted that she was constipated and demanded that the doctor give her a laxative. Evidently she was insistent enough that our usual of Colace BID and milk of mag wasn't enough. Doctor put her on Lactulose q6h. She was alert and oriented, but we didn't realize her call light was malfunctioning. It didn't go off when she called to let us know she needed to get up and go. When we didn't get in there quick enough to intervene, she lifted up a hip and let 'er fly. We discovered this because the door was open, and my CNA was walking by to check on patients. She did a double-take and beckoned me over with a look of sheer horror. Liquid stool was running off the sides of the mattress and pooling on the floor beside and beneath the bed. We had to put down towels just to get to the patient to get her cleaned up and sitting on the bedside commode; she went more while she was cleaning up her bed... and the floor... and the IV pole.

[Kroov]

I work as an RN in the ER and we had a patient present with psychosis. We asked her for a urine sample, and when I went to collect it from her she looked me in the eye and drank about 300ml of it from the dish.

The only thing she said was 'Should I not have done that?', with a big smile on her face.

Then about 30 minutes later, I heard her shouting 'Nurse! Nurse!'. She had tried to pull one of her toenails clean off.

I then had to pull the remainder of the nail off for her as it was hanging by a thread.

Psych seen her soon after and said, this is how she normally is, and she made her way home.

[nursemols, ADN, BSN, RN]

Recently had a pt admitted for svt and cdiff. Patient is known drug user and upon admission did not test positive for anything out of the ordinary. Two nights later I witnessed some weird behavior and md order a drug screen which tested positive for benzos. For the life of us all we couldn't figure out where she got the benzo from. Nothing she was currently taken was not known to cause a false positive either. We looked all over the room nothing. A few hours later in a bout of diarrhea pt passed a small travel bottle size with xanax in it..pretty gross but it explained the positive benzo test

[rianne_w, BSN]

[ConfusedSLPorMPH]

Wow, reading some of these makes me think all I need to do is read these the next time I want to reach for something to eat when I am eating out of boredom! It sure does take away any craving for food that I may have!

[Iowanurse2016]

I had a patient that had a trach at home. His daughter told me he use to take out inner cannula onto the floor. He let the dogs lick and chew on it and then looked at it and stuck it back in. No wonder his trach was colonized with MRSA among other things. Gross.