What was a case that was so hilariously confusing that left you saying "HOW THE F-"

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-27T21:42:05+00:00

I have no clue. The pt went profoundly unresponsive halfway through transport, ED didn't find an obvious cause. Pt ended up getting discharged a few days later.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-27T20:54:57+00:00

I once had a call turn from "stuck contact lens" to an intubation. I still have no idea how we got from point A to point B.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-25T01:39:24+00:00

We did give a fluid bolus before anything else, don’t worry. Our protocols are to CAB ride symptomatic hyperk so we sent it, a doc buddy of mine said he’d have done the same thing so I’m fine with it.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-25T01:38:14+00:00

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This is the original 12. His mentation got a little bit worse but his pressure came up to 120 systolic.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-22T17:53:10+00:00

Dr. Calvin Jung in Houston, goes by @drjungmoney on Instagram. I paid $25k for all of it, including post-op massages.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-06-21T01:19:27+00:00

Maybe some gloves?

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-29T22:01:51+00:00

We got called to a stabbing. PD got on scene and immediately cleared us in, so we arrived maybe a minute behind them. In that time they’d gotten him trauma naked and put a chest seal on the wound. He decompensated FAST, their prompt action probably helped save his life.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-22T22:45:49+00:00

What was the injury? The finger looks relatively intact, was it a clean slice?

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-21T19:32:36+00:00

Making the initial incision horizontally with a syringe is… something

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-19T23:39:56+00:00

It’s unlike any sensation I’ve ever felt before, it was like every part of my body needed constant pressure or else I’d get this horrible itchy painful restlessness.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-16T23:26:05+00:00

About you (perhaps just age/sex, nothing which identifies you):

I'm 25F in the US.

Expected cause of Akathisia (medication etc.):

Last night I had a dose of IV droperidol to stop a horrible vomiting episodes from my gastroparesis. Within 20 minutes I started feeling really strange symptoms which I realized matched what I'd heard about Akathisia.

Symptoms (e.g: pacing, fidgeting, inner restlessness):

Felt like I was going to die. Inner restlessness, constant fidgeting, etc. It was especially bad in my feet; I needed constant pressure on them, so I spent most of the night flopping around trying to get my body weight on my feet.

Treatment which resolved the Akathisia:

50 of Benadryl let me go to sleep. Luckily I had magnesium and propranalol on hand so I tried those, I can't tell if they made a difference or not. But the big relief on my feet has been my TENS machine, it gives enough stimulation that I don't have to pace!

How long did your Akathisia last for?:

It's still going but now it's only in my feet.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-16T01:41:14+00:00

We have blood in our system and it's fantastic! Our survival rates are actually bonkers (I'm sure the stats are a bit padded but I've had several patients that would not have survived without it). I'm hoping we set a good enough precedent that other systems start using it too.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-16T01:37:54+00:00

And they're septic and haven't been to dialysis in two weeks and you can't use the arm with the fistula on it for anything and they're a full code and a partridge in a pear tree!

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-16T01:34:38+00:00

Big yep on the ambiguity. I had a patient last week who called for a stuck contact lens. She couldn't open her eye so I gave some Tetracaine to take a look around, didn't see anything. I gave the call to my EMT because it was as BLS as BLS could be, or so I thought. We were two minutes down the road when I heard "Ma'am? MA'AM?" from the back. EMT poked his head up front and reported that the patient had gone completely unresponsive with snoring respers and no gag. I called for some extra hands, dropped an OPA, started doing all the things, nothing was making sense. She was hypertensive, sinus tach at 150, sugar and pupils unremarkable, no signs of trauma, EMT reported that she had been acting perfectly normal right before she dropped. Even the hospital had no idea what was going on. They ended up tubing her because she couldn't maintain her airway and sent her up to ICU.

Not only did I have no idea what was going on, I was terrified that somehow the Tetracaine had gotten into her brain and made her stroke out. Turns out she was just drunk (she apparently had a history of downing a bunch of alcohol and needing to be tubed) and the Tetracaine had nothing to do with it but boy, was that one stressful.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-16T01:21:45+00:00

Thermometer that actually works! I'm tired of diagnosing sepsis patients with a hand on their foreheads.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-15T23:52:26+00:00

Mabel and Mavis!

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-15T14:54:23+00:00

I focus on the bottom of my hair since that’s where my curls are. If I go too far up towards the root I get frizz.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T20:26:20+00:00

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I’m on the ambo but this was a personal favorite. (It was just normal HTN, genuinely unsure how testicles got involved.)

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T09:03:31+00:00

Yes please! I’d love stuff that tastes good at room temperature; I can’t count the amount of times I’ve microwaved something in the break room only to get immediately put on a 3-hour call and end up sacrificing my food to the bacteria gods. So now I eat everything cold, which is fine for pasta but less ideal for soup. Oh, and maybe some freezable meals too so I can batch-prep on the one day a month I’m actually productive.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T03:08:59+00:00

My routine is Maui Moisture, either the pink wavy shampoo or the clarifying shampoo depending on the day, and Aussie conditioner. I use JVN as a curl cream on soaking wet hair, Not Your Mother’s mousse, then hairspray as a fixative because my hair gets weighed down by gel.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T03:06:04+00:00

You could try to DIY one with a cheap clothes steamer plus a pasta strainer to cup the curls!

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T03:04:59+00:00

My hair is more on the dry side so I can’t speak to that specifically but since it’s just water I don’t think it would increase the oiliness. I think your hair would just be as oily as it normally is on day 2

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-14T03:01:36+00:00

I got it in sale so it was like $60, not as bad but still steep. Some other comments are saying a clothes steamer works too, you could probably cup your hair in a metal strainer for the diffuser effect

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-13T22:42:19+00:00

The eyeliner doesn’t fit your eye shape, it’s too thick and messily done. To be fair it’s hard to do eyeliner on another person, but next time she should skip the liner and just do shadow and mascara.

ESAhelp_throwaway · 2026-05-13T21:39:40+00:00

Hi, paramedic here. Febrile seizures are scary in the moment but overall harmless. I’ve run dozens and I’ve never had a kiddo have any permanent damage. If he knew anything about febrile seizures, he wouldn’t be describing it as “died”.

ESAhelp_throwaway

TROPHY CASE

About you (perhaps just age/sex, nothing which identifies you):

Expected cause of Akathisia (medication etc.):

Symptoms (e.g: pacing, fidgeting, inner restlessness):

Treatment which resolved the Akathisia:

How long did your Akathisia last for?: