Misinformation about health-related matters existed way before Google and “fake news.” Chances are, you adhered to many of these falsehoods without realizing the damage they may have caused. 

Fortunately, sites like Reddit provide medical professionals with a platform to debunk some of these myths. Quite some time ago, a user asked this important question: “Doctors and nurses of Reddit, what is one medical misconception or assumption that annoys/alarms you the most?”

Responses poured in as experts or people who knew one shared wrong notions about antibiotics, oral hygiene, and some patients' expectations for their doctors. Scroll through, as you may find some valuable information here.

#1

ECU RN for 7 years here. When you sleep on your side, you keep the weight of your core off of your lungs and organ systems. If you are suffering organ damage from an accident, this is the best way to sleep.

Image credits: RAGECOMIC_VICAR

#2

Take all of the antibiotics. Take the entire course. Do not skip a dose. So many people stop them when they feel better, or stop them because they worry about side effects from antibiotics.

As well that goes for most medication. Don’t stop your blood pressure pills because you feel better.

Image credits: Imafish12

#3

That you can take any antibiotics you have lying around for an infection. In reality, different types of antibiotics treat different types of infections. The leftover antibiotic you have from your UTI, isn't going to work for your sinus infection. Consult a doctor, and if you have "leftover antibiotics" to begin with, you weren't taking them correctly.

Image credits: K6983

#4

When families want us to "do everything possible" to keep their elderly, weak, sickly, poor quality of life family member alive. When they use language like "they're a fight, they'll get through this" or "god will save them" it can be quite frustrating. Your loved one is suffering. Our interventions are not gentle, they are painful and agressive and their recovery can last week's to months. Recovery also means ending back in the hospital with reinfections or other complications in a few months. Is that really what they would have wanted? If it really is, then I'm here to help them fight. But if it's not, then it's heartbreaking to see.

The best advice I can give to anyone is consider the life you enjoy, and what you want your life to look like at the end. Consider if you would want to be kept alive if you've had a stroke and could no longer communicate. What if you couldn't write. What if you couldn't see your family often because you had to survive in a facility. Have these conversations with family and make them into a living will. Unfortunately, many people don't have these conversations and people believe love means keeping people alive no matter what. Love is understanding how someone wants to live and accepting when it's time.

Source: 7 years of experience as an ICU nurse.

Image credits: cerebellum0

#5

ICU RN for 9 years here.

We don’t “shock” asystole, aka a “flatline” heart rhythm. We do manual chest compressions and we give them epinephrine (adrenaline) and we *hope* that restarts their heart (along with a host of other meds and actions). Delivering a shock only occurs in the case of certain lethal arrhythmias where we are trying “reset” or override the disorganized electrical activity of the heart.

So the movie scenes of shocking everyone who “flatlines” is a total fabrication. It is an action that occurs in some code scenarios, but there are many many codes where no shocking is indicated.

Image credits: cookedbutok

#6

**We don't care what your donor status is!**!!! If you are in a bad accident, we don't withhold treatment because you're a donor. The whole donor situation is so complicated that it wouldn't even work if we did. Please be a donor!

Oh, and as others have mentioned, stop torturing your elderly loved ones during end of life. "Do everything" is cruel.

Image credits: JustGenericName

#7

The idea that the entirety of US healthcare is this diabolical moneymaking scheme that's all rooted in the greed of the doctor treating you -_-

I'm a primary care doc. I don't like the way the US healthcare system works just as much as you.

- I hate the prior authorizations.

- I hate the fact that there are a million different insurance plans and they ALL change their formularies every few months with seemingly zero rhyme or reason, resulting in the medication you'd been getting for the last five years now costing you $400 a month.

- I hate the insane documentation requirements to get patients the stuff they need. (As well as when s**t gets denied because I forgot to mention something like "patient was evaluated in a chronic stable state and not during an episode of acute exacerbation")

- No, I'm not pocketing all that "sweet, sweet vaccine money" when I say you should get a shot. That's not the way it works. I don't drive a Ferrari or Porsche, I drive a f*****g Toyota that I'll likely have for the next 20 years. The last car I had was a 30 year old piece of junk that I only stopped driving cuz I got t-boned and the car was totaled.

If you wanna be butthurt at someone, be upset at the admin who make tens of millions annually, the insurance companies for constantly changing their rules, the pharmaceutical fatcats who inflate prices on dirt cheap meds, and your politicians who refuse to give you healthcare cuz of some "socialism" Boogeyman.

Image credits: Ssutuanjoe

#8

D***s and poor self care will rot your body to a husk and/or unmanageable lump. Something everyone claims is common knowledge but you can't walk 10 feet in a hospital without coming across a patient who is there for totally preventable reasons.

Eat a reasonable/balanced diet and exercise every now and again. Just be able to walk a mile, touch your toes, raise your arms, and do a squat. That's it. Nobody's asking you to go keto or climb everest. Get around the block and eat a vegetable.

Image credits: allhailqueenspinoodi

#9

Men. Get your testicles checked if you feel a lump, bump, swollen, fullness feeling, pain. Pretty much anything that feels off down there. I've seen too many cases of young men waiting too long with testicular cancer that metastasized.

Myth (cancer only affects the elderly) Age of highest incidence of testicular cancer is from puberty to about 40 years old. Guys should check their junk once a month.

Image credits: gjunon

#10

As an OR nurse, CLEAN YOUR BELLYBUTTON BEFORE SURGERY!!!
Once you are asleep, we expose and clean a large area of skin that usually includes the belly button even if that isn’t the area you’re having surgery, because of the drapes happened to tear or have a hole in them, the skin around the area of the incision would still be cleaner than I prepped skin.
The number of patients I’ve cared for that have gold mines of god knows what living in their deep deep belly buttons is shocking. We have to clean it all out before we continue, and we all gag when we do it. It’s wild. If you’re having a hip replaced, a gall bladder removed, a hernia repaired, or any other number of surgeries, we will see your belly button, we will look inside it, we will clean gunk out of it, and you will never know the difference.
CLEAN. YOUR. BELLY. BUTTONS.

Image credits: pamelabeezlyhalpert

#11

Hollywood fosters all kinds of myths about life threatening allergic reactions.

There's nothing magical about anaphylactic choking that accelerates the time frame for losing consciousness to ten seconds. If someone's going to choke, they'll stay conscious for a couple of minutes. But they may be in too much distress and panic to help themselves.

Don't even get me started on where to use the injector. It's supposed to go in the thigh muscle. Please don't try to copy that John Travolta/Uma Thurman scene from Pulp Fiction.

A single shot from an epinephrine injector doesn't bring full recovery in seconds either. Always head to an ER immediately. In real life there's a thing called biphasic reaction where the symptoms return without warning. This needs medical monitoring. IRL anaphylaxis runs about a 1 in 5 chance of being biphasic and a 1 in 10 chance of needing an overnight hospital stay. Even when no complications develop, anaphylaxis is fatiguing. An affected person often wants a full day of bed rest afterward if they can get it.

Another common myth is "If you aren't choking then it isn't anaphylaxis." There are two other ways anaphylaxis can kill besides airway constriction: a sudden drop in blood pressure that causes a heart attack, or else a person could lose consciousness and inhale their own vomit. A whole host of symptoms are anaphylaxis each individual usually has a characteristic symptom pattern.

It's also not OK to just eat anything and then use an epinephrine injector. The manufacturer of the EpiPen tried to foster that myth.

Anaphylaxis is a serious medical emergency that can cause permanent complications or death. It's a treatable emergency, but seconds count. Take it seriously.

Image credits: doublestitch

#12

You are not under general anesthesia (with a breathing tube) for all surgeries/procedures. I always hear my pts say “well this one time… I woke up during my hand surgery” or “I remember hearing things during my colonoscopy”. Lots of procedures can be done with IV sedation with local anesthetic/regional anesthesia. You potentially could hear things or be aware during parts of the procedure but the anesthesia provider will be on top of it to make sure you’re safe and comfortable.

when you are truly under general anesthesia it is extremely rare that you will wake up during the surgery.

Image credits: sneakaleak1

#13

That a konk on the head knocks a person out for moments, they wake up fine. A closed head injury severe enough to cause loss of consciousness is serious and can lead to death. Also, a gunshot wound doesn’t necessarily cause immediate death, there’s a lot of gasping, spasms, agony, etc.

Image credits: voiceoffrikkinreason

#14

A very small percentage of people survive after going into cardiac arrest. Even in the hospital, the survival rate is something like 5%. Tv makes it seems like you can do a little cpr and everyone wakes right up and is fine.

Image credits: K6983

#15

I'm work in mental healthcare, but I got one:
I've seen misconceptions about multiple personality disorder on tv a lot where they say it is some form of schizofrenia. Nope, it's an dissociative disorder.

Image credits: Smellmyupperlip

#16

Not the doctor, but was an assistant - flossing PROPERLY (not going off the sound of the floss flicking, not jamming it down on top of your gums, but getting your floss against your tooth on BOTH SIDES of the apex of your gum tissue) really does help oral hygiene.

Not flossing is like bathing and not washing your armpits and crack.

When you don’t floss properly, yes, your gums will bleed more. Yes, you can get gum disease and your teeth will become loose/fall out without rotting.

And YES I KNOW someone hasn’t flossed a day in their life and has “perfect” hygiene, but that does NOT work for everyone.

Image credits: Spazztastic85

#17

CRNA - people think we leave the room after they are asleep. Nah dog - I’m there the whole time!

Also, people understand less about anesthesia than almost any aspect of medicine.

Image credits: anon

#18

Boards of nursing are consumer protection agencies. They protect health care institutions from nurses as the institutions are who directly consume nurses' services. This is why in some southern states a nurse cannot refuse to be assigned an unsafe number of patients and if their lack of care results in a medical mishap they cannot refer to other patients conditions (acuity) as a reason for their lack of performance of care for that particular patient.

Image credits: anon

#19

I'm in home healthcare. My whole job is to attend to my patients.

I cannot tell you how many of my patient's family members have called my agency and complained about my "Bad attitude" and unwillingness to help.

When asked what I did, its usually that I refused to clean up the entire house or do all the dishes.
I am not a maid, I'm taking care of your loved one. I'm only required to clean up their space and wash the plates and utensils they use.

Image credits: keylimepot

#20

Physical therapist assistant here.
I’ve had to explain to a shocking amount of adults that “Gays” are not more likely to have Covid /pass Covid on to them.

Image credits: 480mid-shelf-dank

#21

I’m not a doctor or nurse but I hate it when people say to lean your head back when you have a nosebleed. It will just drain into your stomach and make you be sick. Blood is emetic.

Image credits: Badgerbrochacho

#22

Your spinal cord is precious. Be careful jumping on trampolines or doing parkour stunts from a height...one misstep and falling the wrong way can make you paralyzed.

Image credits: ThaMiAnDotas

#23

I was once approached in a hotel and asked if i was "Dr Tixover" and i said yes - they then asked me if i could come and help someone having a heart attack and i had to explain i was an Engineer, not a Medic. So remember "is there a doctor in the house" may not get the person you need...

Image credits: Tixover

#24

Herbals and natural medicines are not automatically safe. Many of the most toxic medications are extracted from nature, like chemotherapy. Seen cases of horrible allergic reactions needing ICU stays and liver failure. Check with a doctor or druggist/ pharmacist before you take one.

#25

Not a doctor, but the idea that you should pull out a foreign object if you've been stabbed, or shot. It's very possible if someone stabs you with a knife, that knife is now acting as a plug to keep your blood in and pulling the knife out will bleed you dry in a minute or two. If you're not in a trauma center you should keep it in.

#26

You don't need to wash your vagina with soap. Actually, please don't. No soap in the vag. Do not douche. You don't need Summer's Eve or whatever. Your vag isn't dirty. The vag is self cleaning. Let it do it's thing. Wash the outside parts- the outside vulva and your a*s- with soap. Part your labia and rinse with water. That's all you need to do. Soap inside the labia and in the vag can actually give you BV, which is an overgrowth of bad bacteria that causes that "fishy" smell. Trying to "treat" this fishy smell with more soap or more douches actually just makes the bacterial overgrowth worse and exacerbates the problem. Go to your doctor or nurse midwife instead for a check.

Image credits: anon

#27

Not a doctor. Or a nurse. But a mom of 4. I’ve been momming for 17 years and the youngest is only 2. Fevers. Viral versus bacterial. Parents who race to the doctor with every. Damn. Fever. Introducing the germs to other people en route and at the clinic.

I have a younger friend. I am 38. She is 23 I believe. She has 3 children. Every bump. Scrape. Fever. Into the ER she goes. And it’s always a crisis.

I’ve tried to spell it out for her. She’ll post on FAcebook about waiting in the E.R. for hours and I’ll ask what’s wrong. One of the children has a fever. How high is the fever. It was 102. Did you give the kid medication. Yes. Did the fever go away. Yes. Have you been pushing fluids? Yes. Are there any other symptoms? No. Urine is ok? Yes. Cough? No. Runny nose? No. Any new rashes or sores? No. Itching? No. Do their ears hurt or are the pulling on their ears? No. Trouble swallowing? No. Unusually lethargic? No. Puking? No. Diarrhea? No. Headaches? No. Eating fine? Yes.

Ok. Well. Your kid is most likely fine. Try to fix it at home for a few days before taking them in, barring no crazy symptoms. It’s just a cold.

Kid falls and gets a bump on head. E.R.

Kid spikes a fever. E.R.

Kid scrapes knee. E.R.

Kid has cradle cap. E.R.

Kid threw up after eating a whole pack of Oreos. E.R.

Edit to finish because I took a call and Reddit submitted my post.

The ER and hospital is for serious and life threatening issues. This simple childhood cold can kill people in the hospital. Educate yourself. Not every ailment requires a trip to the doctor, especially not the damn hospital.

Image credits: reddirtanddiamonds

#28

That the healthcare is here to cure all of your ills. Too many patients come in complaining about lethargy, headache, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or some other fairly common minor symptom and expect medication or some sort of intervention to cure them. While there might be something that can help with the symptoms, medical intervention cannot solve the problems started by your lifestyle. Also related is when patients are unhappy that their pain/symptoms are not completely controlled... Yes, you could take an opioid to reduce your 3 to a 0... but really... not a good idea.

Image credits: dchen09

#29

Gonna rustle someone's Jimmie with this one. When someone slaps/flicks veins trying to start an IV... it doesn't do anything to make that vein bigger/easier to hit. Also the people who rip the finger off their gloves to start an IV, gloves are so thin nowadays you're kidding yourself if you think that help... unless you're that chronic smoker nurse, you've probably got some bad circulation and nerve damage, I still don't condone it though.

#30

Not a doctor but, My uncle whos a surgeon said that he hates when people thinks surgeons can do l i t e r a l l y a n y t h i n g.

Image credits: pandoralol

#31

Take care of your sexual health, even if you're young or aren't interested in having children. Many STIs can become systemic if untreated, sexual hormones have plenty, everyday functions beyond reproduction and tumors in sexual organs are particularly horrible.

If something's been itchy for a long time, see a doctor. If you never have regular periods, see a doctor. If your libido is non existant or worryingly high, see a doctor. If you feel a lump somewhere, see a doctor. It may feel super embarrassing but they do this for a living, they won't care.

#32

Vaccines cause autism.

Image credits: DukeSR8

#33

“I started feeling better, so I stopped the taking my medication.”

Especially with blood pressure medications and antibiotics.

Image credits: Dakipa

#34

Vet tech here.

Forcing your dogs to swallow a wad of chew does not get rid of intestinal parasites. I've heard this many times.

#35

Your “annual wellness visit” is a free “ask about this new problem” visit

It’s not. It’s a visit to get caught up on maintenance and screenings. It’s like booking your car for an oil change and expecting a full overhaul for that funny noise that’s been going on for the past year.

#36

My sister works in the medical field.

A mom came in and wanted her son vaccinated. They gave her all the paperwork and what not then she asked "if my son has an adverse reaction do I sue you or the doctors office?"

She was convinced she could sue if she consented to the childs vaccine.

#37

That covid is not real and that the government made it up just to control us

Image credits: Comfortable_Cup5269

#38

RANT: Not a doctor nor nurse. But I’m actually really tired of people going to the ER for a non-life threatening situation and going to Urgent Care for life-threatening situations. People really need to know the difference…it’s literally common sense.

I went to the ER cuz my heart was beating incredibly fast and I had the sweats (apparently I suffered a severe anxiety attack) but it felt like I was gonna die any minute. When I pulled up with my parents, I just saw someone walk in to the ER and said “my ankle hurts, I need painkillers” …. That’s no life-threatening situation… and you’re wasting ER doctors’ and nurses’ time on actually patients who need to be taken care of.

#39

1. Cold weather does not cause a “cold” or the flu. Not even if you are soaking wet at the time. They are caused by rhinovirus and influenza a or b, respectively. Cold and flu season coincides with cold weather months because people spend more time indoors and gather in groups for the holidays.

2. Stop using the term “baby aspirin.” Say low-dose aspirin instead. Aspirin and children don’t mix (see Ryes syndrome for more) and I feel like this term might imply that there is a dose acceptable for children when there really isn’t.

3. Flu shots don’t cause the flu or a cold. They don’t always work or work well, depending on the year, but they will at least minimize symptoms if you do get it. If you got he cold or flu after a shot, it’s a coincidence, as flu shots are given during the season you are most likely to be exposed to it.

I’ve seen some eye rolls about shocking asystole, but the real knee slappers for me are the pathetic chest compressions. They never get the rate or depth right.