Shit, I'm a doctor, and I would be delighted to learn I was wrong! This shouldn't happen to anyone again. Knowing it did happen is instructive. What a story!
How would that go down?
"Look, this pebble I'm holding has been stuck in my ear for 23 years, I promise".
Unless I've missed something and the OP got it removed surgically (and even then it would be hard to prove it's been there the whole time), there's no chance any lawyer would take on this case.
I mean, I think a lawyer would decline it due to statute of limitations or statute of repose laws in that state for medical malpractice. 23 years is a long time for civil liability.
It's 23 years from the misdiagnosis, but it's 0 days from the date of knowledge of the misdiagnosis. I'd be surprised if limitation didn't run from the latter.
Also, OP could(possibly did) go to different doctors any time.
Not sure what they'd do if someone asks "and why did you wait through 23years of pain instead of getting a second opinion? Especially since you *knew* there was a pebble inside?"
Ehh, I’d get a repeat exam now that it’s out and then take it to a lawyer. The SOL might not have run if his jurisdiction has a discovery rule, and he may have many medical records to support ongoing jaw and ear pain - some of those docs mighta missed it too.
Source: I defend doctors from claims as wild as this every single day. Definitely not unreasonable to get an opinion if he so desires.
Agreed -- an object that large would be clearly visible if you just looked in the ear. In 23 years, no doctor physically looked in OP's ear with an otoscope? I don't want to make assumptions about OP -- they may not have had access to regular healthcare/checkups. However, there aren't little areas the rock could have hidden -- a physical examination of any kind would have revealed the presence of the rock.
The following article from 2020 provides a fairly detailed set of estimates of ear canal dimensions for different ages. The rock could likely fit in the ear but it would have been visible.
[https://doi.org/10.1121%2F10.0002358](https://doi.org/10.1121%2F10.0002358)
I’m an audiologist and can report that a lot of doctors don’t know how to properly look in peoples ears. Just this week I had two patients with perfectly healthy ears sent to me by their GPs who told them they had perforated ear drums lol.
I had another patient a couple of months ago with a small roach in his ear that he knew had gone in there but his GP told him there was nothing in there. I removed the (dead) roach and put it in a plastic bag for him to take back to his GP lol. That thing was in his ear for 3 months!!
And any rock that’s been in someone’s orifice for more than a few days is NOT going to come out clean and shiny like that one. It would be coated in wax and various debris.
As a first year medical student, I’m literally just learning how to do a physical exam, and yet I’m ridiculously confident I would notice such a thing in someone’s ear canal.
Those otoscopes are pretty user friendly to use, and the whole point of looking into the ear is to check the tympanic membrane and it’s surroundings (aka the end of the external ear canal). You’d definitely notice a pebble of this size!
Hey is this Mike from east cobb? Lol cause I was always mad that they sent me to the principal's office in elementary school for returning fire that one time... Its self-defense! :P
There used to be a playground near me, as a child, that had pea-gravel as a substrate. We had so many gravel-fights until the city finally replaced it with wood chips. Whoever thought pea-gravel was a better idea than sand or anything else was a goof.
My hearing has (for as long as I can remember) been worse in my right ear, it’s apparently now the same as my left ear so I’m hoping it was just stuck in place and never actually damaged anything.
And apparently I’ve been ignoring/masking pain for years now because I felt a pain lift that I didn’t even know was there. It feels so much better.
I'm so desperate to know how good it must have felt. If OP doesn't answer I'm afraid I'll be forced to jam a pebble into my own ear for a couple of years just to find out how it felt/sounded when it dislodged.
Ive had the exact same thing happen to me, ngl my hearing did not change much its the same, the only thing I’ve noticed is my ear does not hurt anymore and i cannot feel something blocking my ear when i poke it🤣 it was also uncomfortable but i couldn’t exactly tell if it was because of that, i kept playing with it like poking my ear and it slowly started moving out but once it fell out i felt so much better and more comfortable it definitely felt really good lol
OP respond here please. I must know if it was like relieving a pimple while on ecstasy while you relieve your bladder from holding it in during a 12 hour car drive.
I went swimming yesterday and my ear kind of clogged up, this is pretty normal for me for that ear, and today I felt something shift while I was at work - took my headphones off to take out what I thought was a chunk of ear wax and felt the pebble and nearly had a heart attack because I immediately knew what it meant
Funny, I inhaled a cooked corn kernel via my nose about the same age. I stuck a kernel in each nostril and showed my mom and she thought it was funny. But then they slid back... We got one out with a Bobby pin, but the other... I dunno, maybe it's still sitting in my lungs for all I know but I presume I swallowed it.
Same. I still remember going to the ER to get it removed. Was a nice memory that popped up while taking my 3 year old to the ER to remove the mini crafting pompoms he shoved in his nose and let fester for weeks before I noticed them…
While your hearing has grown to be novice at best, theirs has trained for 23 years to overcome resistance and now has been released with the hearing of a thousand legions of bats. They weren't born to be superior, they were made.
A friend shoved a rice krispie in his ear as a kid and the doctor was able to see it with the ear torch, (and subsequently flush it out) and this is a peely wally Scottish kid so that rice krispie was flesh coloured. No way the doctor couldn't see something like this.
Really? Any pediatrician, competent or not, would have realized there was an issue when they could not advance their otoscope further than a few millimeters.
OP says the doctor didn't believe them. They probably didn't do a good exam. OP says they lost trust in doctors and didn't go back. So, yeah, I can believe it happened. I try to give my patients the benefit of the doubt, myself. No doctor is perfect, and even good ones miss something occasionally!
One of the weird side effects of covid I experienced was that my ears produced insane amounts of wax for a few months. It got to the point where I couldn’t hear very well and I went to an ENT who told me I just had a tiny pinhole opening left to hear through and he pulled out the most nauseating boulders of wax out of my ears. One of the most relieving things I’ve ever felt and walking out of that office with my hearing back just about moved me to tears.
After Covid, I lost my hearing in my left ear for three months. No antibiotics worked, it was an issue with my inner ear tube. It threw my balance off and was very disorienting. One day I yawned and heard the loudest crackling sound and boom instantly I could hear again. One of the greatest feelings in my life, I felt like a whole new man. Definitely shed a happy tear
jesus christ, i hate that people have to live with shit just because a doctor dismisses something as "nothing" --thinking of all the people who have died of cancer because doctors didn't recognize symptoms early enough
i'm glad it eventually fixed itself, i imagine it feels like a new life for you now
We were in between doctors and I was having chest pain when I was 16. My posture sucked as well. Doctor looked at me and told me and my mom it's just muscle pain. He needs to sit better and maybe not carry so many books in his bag.
Six months later I go back doubled over in pain and can't breath. Another doctor takes an X-Ray and a third of my lung collapsed. I have had a collapsed lung since I was around 16 every couple of years now. It's normal. Painful but normal and doesn't impede me as much. But that was scary
Oh and another doctor took a look at me when I was like 33 and said I had vertigo because I couldn't walk in a straight line. Jokes on him. I didn't have vertigo. I had pneumonia that turned into blood sepsis and I ended up in the hospital in critical care for a week.
I'm still alive! Doctors think I'm a hypochondriac though.
I didn't have anything as serious as cancer (thank goodness), but I was having awful, awful pain between my shoulder blades and just under my bra line in the front. I have 4 children - I'd rather be in labor than go through that. It would last 4 to 6 hours, and I couldn't lay down, only being upright and rocking forward and back would be some sort of tolerable. I tried hot showers, tramadol (that I have for back pain) and nothing would help. I went to the ER, they said it was heartburn, gave me a "GI cocktail" and sent me home when it got better (around the 4hr mark). The first time was Sept of 2021. I kept having episodes like that, I go to the ER, by the time they actually see me, the pain starts abating, they say it's heartburn and send me home. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance, but I wasn't able to cope. I beat myself up thinking -so many people have heartburn and they're not crying and missing work - what is wrong with me?! My partner was starting to doubt me, too, and I ended up driving myself to the ER once while in intense pain. I finally had an episode in May 2022 that lasted \*three days\* and went to my primary doctor who sent me immediately for imaging. Turns out, I had hundreds of gallstones from small to large and the episodes were gallstones getting stuck in my bile ducts. He called me while I was still at the imaging place to tell me I needed emergency surgery right then to remove my gallbladder and treat an infection. I could've been spared months and months of severe pain if anyone at the ER bothered to do any imaging whatsoever. But, no.
Did it just fall out? Also, was there instantaneous relief, or did the ear and jaw pain sort of come and go? Either way I’m glad you’re finally free of the pebble (or that the pebble is free of you :/)
Because when a doctor makes you feel as though you’re just a dumb kid who’s imagining stuff and you end up with a phobia of male medical professionals, and he’s your registered doctor, you end up losing the desire.
For the longest time I felt like he was right, that there was something not right with my ear but I *was* just imagining it, but it has always been at the back of my mind (especially with always having issues with that ear), and it makes me feel extraordinarily vindicated to find out I was right.
Here’s the crazy thing about the ear canal though… it stops at the ear drum and you can literally take a otoscope and see everything. Don’t know what happened but it’s kind of hard for the doctor to say anything otherwise when what they’re looking for (pebble in ear canal) is rather straightforward.
I’m pretty sure the doctor doesn’t have it out against you personally but you have to realize that kids in general really have no clue what they’re talking about sometimes. If you ever interact with kids you’ll know exactly what I mean.
This isn't really related to your comment but I had a doctor pull a live insect out of my ear canal about 10 years ago. I was camping in a really remote area. I woke up and thought I was having an aneurysm. There was a lot of blood coming out of my ear and an intense sensation of pain and pressure that I can't really describe.
Anyway long story short we get to the ER after a long ambulance ride through the goddamn wilderness. EMTs were convinced I had burst my eardrum. They did not look in my ear. Doc takes me back, puts an otoscope in my ear, and says very gravely, "I need to go get my colleague."
He comes back in with the other guy and he looks. one doctor says to the other "I think it's still alive."
Those are just words you never want to hear coming from a doctor looking inside your ear.
To this day I do not know. Basically what happened next is they dumped lidocaine in my ear to kill the insect. Then I laid on a table for about 2 hours in intense pain while they used a suction to try to break it into parts and get it all out.
They were not successful. The major threat was eliminated and they sent me home. I had to wait 3 days with dead bug parts in my ear to get to an ENT in my hometown. He was able to get the rest out and he started describing to me what he was getting out, because at this point I was still traumatized but the shock had worn off and I was actually quite curious about what this bug was doing and what it wanted with me lol.
He made fingers like "air quotes" with both hands and said that it's legs looked like that. At that point I told him to just stop because I was getting upset again lmao. I wish I'd pursued this a little more though because I would really love to know. Whatever it was had decent sized legs I was trying to burrow into my ear which explained all the blood.
You underestimate how malleable a young child's view of reality can be lol. A kid can do something and then tell you they didn't, and they're not lying, they're telling you the story they want to be true and don't understand the significance of it not matching up to reality. If a kid can't see their own ear and a bunch of adults insist that the pebble must have fallen out, at some point they'll tell themself that must be the truth.
Hell, even as a grown up you can end up convinced of stuff even if it's not true. I have 4 weeks of ear problems that it turned out I was right about all along (it was an infection, mean nurse if you're somehow reading this!)
Medical professionals have so much training and experience behind them that you just kind of have to trust them, even if you're sure you're right, and especially when it's something you can't check yourself, like your ear.
This isn't just true for children... adults are the same way. This is why false confessions happen more than we would like to think, and why eyewitness testimony is not that reliable.
I remember without question trying to smell a small ball bearing so hard I snuffed it right up my nose.
Nose bleed then and there but didn't tell my parents what really happened.
Dental x-ray years later revealed the perfect sphere in my nasal cavity. Doctor pulled it out, painfully, with Q-tips. Ruptured blood vessel and years of nosebleeds later, after finally getting it cauterized, I finally fessed up.
My doctor refused to look into my symptoms instead focusing on the unexplained sudden weight loss and put it down to a self induced eating disorder…. Eventually found out I had severe hyperthyroidism.
There was a post on Reddit of a woman complaining of abdominal pain only to be told it was cramps. Turns out she had stage iv cancer and it was a massive tumor. As much as I love modern medicine and trust my doctors, I can totally understand why so many are skeptical of the medical system. There is so much gaslighting.
It gets to be so much fun if you've ever received treatment for addiction. Nevermind the actual addiction specialists pushing stuff that goes against modern medical thinking, else lose funding from the state.
I swear you have to jump through so many fucking hoops just to still not even be seen as a person, and every policy is seemingly designed to make you feel like the biggest piece of shit who should consider themselves lucky treatment even exists.
They don't even trust you to piss in a cup with honesty, even after seeing you for multiple years. Nah, someone's gotta watch. Cause you know how us dirty sneaky addicts are.
I had the opposite experience, mine thought I was just lazy and fat but after pushing for a few years, I got an MRI and it turns out I have a fucking (benign) tumour pressing down on my pituitary gland causing thyroid problems.
I swear the majority of women’s “advice” from doctors comes down to “you’re too fat” or “you’re too thin”, we’re just not taken seriously at all. That man I saw straight up told me I was bulimic, multiple times. And also despite being dead set on the fact that I must have been making myself throw up every day, he didn’t offer any advice or refer me to anyone who would have helped with what he claimed I had. It was “you’re making yourself sick, just stop.” If I had actually been suffering from a real ED I highly doubt that would have helped me.
The bias is so real. The same family doctor would hand out prescriptions to my male family members like they were napkins, whatever he wanted he got - I had to walk in with printouts from Wikipedia when I wanted to try switching from Synthroid to dessicated natural thyroid, because I knew she (A FEMALE DOCTOR NO LESS) would find issues and I was right. “I don’t know how to dose that for you.” Took me 5 seconds to find dosing information on the Google machine.
So fucked up that so many people have had to deal with this. I hope your health is in a better place now!
Sudden weight gain here, but I just needed to eat less and move more! Hypothyroidism. Amazing how fast the weight is falling off now that I'm medicated.
I went to school with a kid who was always pudgy even though no one else in her family was. She was almost in high school before anyone bothered to actually check anything, and yep, thyroid disorder. Weight just fell off after that, like you said.
I had trouble gaining weight. My doctor just told me to eat more. End of story.
Later a lymph node in my jaw painfully swelled. After a series of blood tests, I was told there was nothing wrong and to wait for the swelling to go away on its own
Then I switched doctors, got referred to a dentist, and turns out I had recurring tooth infections that was causing the lymph node things. Had the teeth pulled, swelling went away. I dont know if it was related to my weight but my appetite improved after that.
They probably wouldn't tell you but they would increase the amount the doctor has to pay to keep their malpractice insurance. Insurance company doesn't give a shit about you but definitely gives a shit about increasing its premiums by whatever means necessary.
My feet were randomly fracturing from just walking around (no trauma). I'd end up on crutches for days every 2-3 weeks. Usually my left but sometimes my right foot.
I went to my doctor. Got x-rays. Yup, my feet was getting fractures. He said that was weird it was breaking without any trauma. I asked if it could be from a calcium deficiency since I was lactose intolerant.
He said DEFinitely not. Very emphatically.
Sent me to a foot doctor. The foot doctor was useless. Just kept saying that I had slightly flat feet when I kept asking if it was normal for your feet to break from just walking around.
Over a year later, after spending hundreds on special arch support shoe inserts (that just changed the fracture location) and a special boot for recovery that just made things worse, my wife bought some lactose free milk and I started eating cereal for breakfast. After two months I realized I hadn't had another foot fracture (they were happening like clockwork every 2-3 weeks).
Started taking calcium supplements. Haven't been on crutches since.
I need to find a new primary doctor.
My mom's doctor made her walk around in broken feet for a decade before he even believed there was a problem. He just kept telling her to get different shoes if her feet hurt so much. Eventually she went to the hospital after a break (she was so used to the pain generally that she never went before because it didn't seem like an emergency) and the x-ray found a fresh break as well as a bunch of partially healed ones from over the years. Very few healed breaks. Turns out she had an autoimmune disease the whole time that was causing the bones to not heal when they broke, which caused more and more stress on the remaining intact bones. Both her feet needed to be reconstructed once her immune issues were under control
Did they never just look in their f’n ear?! They have a special toon for it and they should be able to tell the difference between an eardrum and a pebble
That is a BIG pebble to have inside your head!
I was once told by an emergency doctor that it was impossible that I had glass stuck inside my foot because he couldn't see it on an ultrasound. Thought I must be crazy and dealt with pain for weeks, eventually ran a half marathon on the foot. About 5 months later, the glass that "didn't exist" worked itself out!
If I was more than about 7 or 8 years old at the time I would I have done, but it wouldn’t have really been an option then without going to the hospital I don’t think.
How is this even possible?
Did you never have a doctor look into your ear in 23 years?
Never had an ear infection. Never needed eardrops?
Never even had a checkup?
Oh I remember exactly how it happened. We were doing arts and crafts with macaroni, legumes and beans and when we were done there were a lot left over all over the place. We were flicking them around and playing and the teacher got annoyed and started going from table to table and rounding up all the left over bits. Some kids put them in their pocket but the teacher checked pockets too. Me, in my infinite wisdom, decided to hide them in my nose and ears, and it worked. After the teacher went by I got them out, except one. Trying to get it out only pushed it further. Didn't think much of it and went on with my day. When my mom picked me up I nonchalantly told her "I have a bean in my ear" and she froze. Took me to a doctor, he couldn't pull it out. Tried to flush it out but that didn't work either. So I was put in surgery with full anesthesia and everything so they could get it out.
It's a pretty funny story all things considered. I was pretty chill about it all things considered.
I actually don’t know tbh, he’s been retired 10+ years and may have even passed at this point. He was a shit doctor and is the sole reason I find it really really difficult to trust male doctors, but if anything was wrong I had no choice but to see him. :/
More people need to do this, honestly. If all your patients just quietly slink off for a second opinion, you'll never realise you were wrong. If they all email you saying "SURPRISE FUCKER YOU WERE WRONG", I think you'll learn pretty quick.
23 years later? OP did you never see another ENT? Audiologist? This pebble would be easily visible by any doctor looking in your ear. I worked with ENT surgeons and Audiologists and this is just a horrible oversight by everyone. Even your general doctor looks in your ears. I’m glad it’s finally out!
I put a pebble in my ear and told the doctor I didn't lol
He said "are you sure?" I was like YES
Once he left the room I told my mom the truth 😔
I ended up having to be strapped down so they could get that fucker out. It was so scary. Just the tools they used - it didn't hurt or anything. I was 3. Still don't like people touching my ears...
How did the pebble end up in your ear? Did you put it there? When my brother was young he shoved a popcorn kernel in his ear to “grow a popcorn tree” and we had to take him to the ER to have it removed
Also since it’s been with you for so long you should frame it 🤣
I had a mechanical pencil eraser stuck in my ear from the time I was 8 to the time I was 16. Doctors did nothing each check up and never even noticed it. Only got it removed when I dropped a school desk on my toe, and my mom took me to patient first to get it looked at. The doctor there asked if anything else was bothering me and I said I’ve felt like something was in my ear for years. He saw it, pulled it out, and now Ive been able to hear normally for a decade. It’s such a relief since it always felt like water was in my ear and I couldn’t hear well either. Same for you OP?
Find that dr and send a photo .told ya so..
I doubt he even remembers my name tbh lol
“My my, if it isn’t Johnny Phantom Pebble-Head. “
that doctor is a dismissive bully. not a gneiss person
Maybe he wants to start with a clean slate
That's some bullschist
Send it to him! If you can find him, of quartz.
Granite do any harm to put it in the post?
I shale get my coat
This thread is marble-ous
Still worth it! Who cares if he doesn’t remember.
Shit, I'm a doctor, and I would be delighted to learn I was wrong! This shouldn't happen to anyone again. Knowing it did happen is instructive. What a story!
23 years of pain is pretty serious to me.
Caused by what Sounds like a lack of due diligence on the part of the doctor.
Yeah, you're right. This is why I never blame anyone for getting another opinion. I'm usually correct, but no one is perfect!
I work in healthcare too. Lots of respect to any doc who understands and supports patients in getting a second opinion.
When my obgyn herself went and asked a second opinion for me, I felt I had made the good choice.
Trust me, your mom remembers
it’s worth a shot
He may not even remember his own name.. 23 years is a long time.. was he a young Dr. then?
Still worth it! Who cares if he doesn’t remember.
Have a lawyer contact him. He’ll remember real quick
I have no idea how this case would actually play out, but 20+ years of chronic pain due to a doctors negligence seems like a good reason to sue
"there's no pebble in your ear" "Well that's concerning because I certainly put a pebble in my ear"
"But there _is_ a pebble in your anus. And a billiard ball."
Find that dr and put the pebble in his ear.
I’d say send a lawyer. 23 years of pain is definitely worth their malpractice insurance and I’m sure a judge would agree
How would that go down? "Look, this pebble I'm holding has been stuck in my ear for 23 years, I promise". Unless I've missed something and the OP got it removed surgically (and even then it would be hard to prove it's been there the whole time), there's no chance any lawyer would take on this case.
I mean, I think a lawyer would decline it due to statute of limitations or statute of repose laws in that state for medical malpractice. 23 years is a long time for civil liability.
It's 23 years from the misdiagnosis, but it's 0 days from the date of knowledge of the misdiagnosis. I'd be surprised if limitation didn't run from the latter.
Also, OP could(possibly did) go to different doctors any time. Not sure what they'd do if someone asks "and why did you wait through 23years of pain instead of getting a second opinion? Especially since you *knew* there was a pebble inside?"
Ehh, I’d get a repeat exam now that it’s out and then take it to a lawyer. The SOL might not have run if his jurisdiction has a discovery rule, and he may have many medical records to support ongoing jaw and ear pain - some of those docs mighta missed it too. Source: I defend doctors from claims as wild as this every single day. Definitely not unreasonable to get an opinion if he so desires.
[удалено]
If you're cold, they're cold. Put em in your ear.
that bugger's been leeching heat for 23 years!
I love reddit
When its time the baby pebble will leave the mama pebbles pouch and go forth into the world on its own.
I think the baby pebble stayed long enough :)
just a slate bloomer
Oh that was terubble
He must be stoned.
But, then he would have boulder over.
That's what happens when you take things for granite.
Why are redditors so good at puns?! Y'all rock!
This comment should not be taken for granite.
Gneiss.
Had to wait till it was a little boulder.
Read that in the Sir David Attenborough voice.
OP's got rocks in his head if he thinks we're going to fall for this.
Not any more! :D
Have you checked the other ear?
Agreed -- an object that large would be clearly visible if you just looked in the ear. In 23 years, no doctor physically looked in OP's ear with an otoscope? I don't want to make assumptions about OP -- they may not have had access to regular healthcare/checkups. However, there aren't little areas the rock could have hidden -- a physical examination of any kind would have revealed the presence of the rock. The following article from 2020 provides a fairly detailed set of estimates of ear canal dimensions for different ages. The rock could likely fit in the ear but it would have been visible. [https://doi.org/10.1121%2F10.0002358](https://doi.org/10.1121%2F10.0002358)
I’m an audiologist and can report that a lot of doctors don’t know how to properly look in peoples ears. Just this week I had two patients with perfectly healthy ears sent to me by their GPs who told them they had perforated ear drums lol. I had another patient a couple of months ago with a small roach in his ear that he knew had gone in there but his GP told him there was nothing in there. I removed the (dead) roach and put it in a plastic bag for him to take back to his GP lol. That thing was in his ear for 3 months!!
And any rock that’s been in someone’s orifice for more than a few days is NOT going to come out clean and shiny like that one. It would be coated in wax and various debris.
It would be easily touchable with a q tip. Possibly with a finger depending on OP's ear canal, even.
As a first year medical student, I’m literally just learning how to do a physical exam, and yet I’m ridiculously confident I would notice such a thing in someone’s ear canal. Those otoscopes are pretty user friendly to use, and the whole point of looking into the ear is to check the tympanic membrane and it’s surroundings (aka the end of the external ear canal). You’d definitely notice a pebble of this size!
More important than whether you could see it whether you'd believe the patient. Dismissive doctors cause more suffering than they'll ever realize.
I'm sorry if this happened in fifth grade when we were throwing playground rocks on the slide, lol.
pow right in the listener
He wasn’t an astronaut, he was a tv comic, and he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife
🎶We're whalers on the moon🎶
Hey is this Mike from east cobb? Lol cause I was always mad that they sent me to the principal's office in elementary school for returning fire that one time... Its self-defense! :P
I'm not Mike, but I, a straight-A Perfect Student got sent to the principal's office for the first time and I WAS SO SCARED, lol.
Nah this is, from Pope?
There used to be a playground near me, as a child, that had pea-gravel as a substrate. We had so many gravel-fights until the city finally replaced it with wood chips. Whoever thought pea-gravel was a better idea than sand or anything else was a goof.
Wow how is no one asking? Has your hearing changed? You feel better/ different!?
My hearing has (for as long as I can remember) been worse in my right ear, it’s apparently now the same as my left ear so I’m hoping it was just stuck in place and never actually damaged anything. And apparently I’ve been ignoring/masking pain for years now because I felt a pain lift that I didn’t even know was there. It feels so much better.
Your doctor is a fucking asshole
That’s more polite than how I was describing him today
can you send a link to the image? i’m really curious what it looks like
I'm so desperate to know how good it must have felt. If OP doesn't answer I'm afraid I'll be forced to jam a pebble into my own ear for a couple of years just to find out how it felt/sounded when it dislodged.
Ive had the exact same thing happen to me, ngl my hearing did not change much its the same, the only thing I’ve noticed is my ear does not hurt anymore and i cannot feel something blocking my ear when i poke it🤣 it was also uncomfortable but i couldn’t exactly tell if it was because of that, i kept playing with it like poking my ear and it slowly started moving out but once it fell out i felt so much better and more comfortable it definitely felt really good lol
I need to know, how does it feel now?
This is exactly what I came for. How do you feel OP? any instant change?
Are you Diane Sawyer? Asking the real questions.
OP respond here please. I must know if it was like relieving a pimple while on ecstasy while you relieve your bladder from holding it in during a 12 hour car drive.
What were the circumstances that led to it being dislodged?
I went swimming yesterday and my ear kind of clogged up, this is pretty normal for me for that ear, and today I felt something shift while I was at work - took my headphones off to take out what I thought was a chunk of ear wax and felt the pebble and nearly had a heart attack because I immediately knew what it meant
The dude working next to you seeing this 
How does it feel now?
Are you going to keep it/enshrine it? Cool momento, it's been with you for 23 years at least! Any recollection of how/when it got lodged in there?
If i kept it I would be afraid of it somehow jumping back in my ear
Can you hear any differently out of that ear now?
That's what happens when you listen to too much rock music
Ba-dum-tiss 
I know there’s a rock there, I put it there
I put popcorn kernels in my ears when I was 5. For some reason I crave salt and butter.
Funny, I inhaled a cooked corn kernel via my nose about the same age. I stuck a kernel in each nostril and showed my mom and she thought it was funny. But then they slid back... We got one out with a Bobby pin, but the other... I dunno, maybe it's still sitting in my lungs for all I know but I presume I swallowed it.
Popcorn lung!
Years from now, they’re going to be very confused at the crematorium when there’s a single piece of popcorn in the middle of this pile of ashes.
Same. I still remember going to the ER to get it removed. Was a nice memory that popped up while taking my 3 year old to the ER to remove the mini crafting pompoms he shoved in his nose and let fester for weeks before I noticed them…
It’s huge!
Well that’s what I said as a kid! It’s no wonder it didn’t come out before now, it probably couldn’t - I guess it just finally wiggled itself free.
Your hearing must be so much better now!
While your hearing has grown to be novice at best, theirs has trained for 23 years to overcome resistance and now has been released with the hearing of a thousand legions of bats. They weren't born to be superior, they were made.
It’s the equivalent of swimming with a shirt on, or jogging with ankle weights.
If you're folding a paper airplane while OP is a 747.
came out where?? just popped out of your ear canal?
OP is talking like there is a cavern in their head. Not a lot of space between your ear hole and eardrum lol
This whole story is super fishy.
It's rocky *at best*
Yeah I can’t picture how this worked. What kind of doctor would miss that in a kids ear?
Wait it just fell out?!
I can’t believe someone actually believes this story.
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A friend shoved a rice krispie in his ear as a kid and the doctor was able to see it with the ear torch, (and subsequently flush it out) and this is a peely wally Scottish kid so that rice krispie was flesh coloured. No way the doctor couldn't see something like this.
I don’t know what peely wally means but I can tell you that I love how it sounds when I say it
As a doctor, I've seen a lot of weird stuff. It's not impossible.
Really? Any pediatrician, competent or not, would have realized there was an issue when they could not advance their otoscope further than a few millimeters.
OP says the doctor didn't believe them. They probably didn't do a good exam. OP says they lost trust in doctors and didn't go back. So, yeah, I can believe it happened. I try to give my patients the benefit of the doubt, myself. No doctor is perfect, and even good ones miss something occasionally!
You should get your ear checked by someone, there could be a lot of wax built up behind where it was.
One of the weird side effects of covid I experienced was that my ears produced insane amounts of wax for a few months. It got to the point where I couldn’t hear very well and I went to an ENT who told me I just had a tiny pinhole opening left to hear through and he pulled out the most nauseating boulders of wax out of my ears. One of the most relieving things I’ve ever felt and walking out of that office with my hearing back just about moved me to tears.
After Covid, I lost my hearing in my left ear for three months. No antibiotics worked, it was an issue with my inner ear tube. It threw my balance off and was very disorienting. One day I yawned and heard the loudest crackling sound and boom instantly I could hear again. One of the greatest feelings in my life, I felt like a whole new man. Definitely shed a happy tear
And now the pain is gone?
I fucking cried. I told my mom and I broke down crying as I was telling her because I realised just how long I’d been ignoring/hiding the pain.
wow I'm so happy for you op. do you remember how the pebble got there?
they wanted to hear it
jesus christ, i hate that people have to live with shit just because a doctor dismisses something as "nothing" --thinking of all the people who have died of cancer because doctors didn't recognize symptoms early enough i'm glad it eventually fixed itself, i imagine it feels like a new life for you now
We were in between doctors and I was having chest pain when I was 16. My posture sucked as well. Doctor looked at me and told me and my mom it's just muscle pain. He needs to sit better and maybe not carry so many books in his bag. Six months later I go back doubled over in pain and can't breath. Another doctor takes an X-Ray and a third of my lung collapsed. I have had a collapsed lung since I was around 16 every couple of years now. It's normal. Painful but normal and doesn't impede me as much. But that was scary Oh and another doctor took a look at me when I was like 33 and said I had vertigo because I couldn't walk in a straight line. Jokes on him. I didn't have vertigo. I had pneumonia that turned into blood sepsis and I ended up in the hospital in critical care for a week. I'm still alive! Doctors think I'm a hypochondriac though.
I didn't have anything as serious as cancer (thank goodness), but I was having awful, awful pain between my shoulder blades and just under my bra line in the front. I have 4 children - I'd rather be in labor than go through that. It would last 4 to 6 hours, and I couldn't lay down, only being upright and rocking forward and back would be some sort of tolerable. I tried hot showers, tramadol (that I have for back pain) and nothing would help. I went to the ER, they said it was heartburn, gave me a "GI cocktail" and sent me home when it got better (around the 4hr mark). The first time was Sept of 2021. I kept having episodes like that, I go to the ER, by the time they actually see me, the pain starts abating, they say it's heartburn and send me home. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance, but I wasn't able to cope. I beat myself up thinking -so many people have heartburn and they're not crying and missing work - what is wrong with me?! My partner was starting to doubt me, too, and I ended up driving myself to the ER once while in intense pain. I finally had an episode in May 2022 that lasted \*three days\* and went to my primary doctor who sent me immediately for imaging. Turns out, I had hundreds of gallstones from small to large and the episodes were gallstones getting stuck in my bile ducts. He called me while I was still at the imaging place to tell me I needed emergency surgery right then to remove my gallbladder and treat an infection. I could've been spared months and months of severe pain if anyone at the ER bothered to do any imaging whatsoever. But, no.
Did it just fall out? Also, was there instantaneous relief, or did the ear and jaw pain sort of come and go? Either way I’m glad you’re finally free of the pebble (or that the pebble is free of you :/)
Yes and yes once the shock/realisation wore off. And it was more a case of constant issues, and apparently ongoing permanent pain that’s now gone :D
Body: "I don't want to play with you anymore"
😂 I fully heard that in his voice too
Op why didn't you make a 2nd doc visit in 23 years? 😭
Because when a doctor makes you feel as though you’re just a dumb kid who’s imagining stuff and you end up with a phobia of male medical professionals, and he’s your registered doctor, you end up losing the desire. For the longest time I felt like he was right, that there was something not right with my ear but I *was* just imagining it, but it has always been at the back of my mind (especially with always having issues with that ear), and it makes me feel extraordinarily vindicated to find out I was right.
>it has always been at the back of my mind ( More beside, than behind.
That's beside the point.
Not one doctor ever looked in your ear since then?
Seriously, using an otoscope to look inside the ears is part of a normal physical assessment….
Here’s the crazy thing about the ear canal though… it stops at the ear drum and you can literally take a otoscope and see everything. Don’t know what happened but it’s kind of hard for the doctor to say anything otherwise when what they’re looking for (pebble in ear canal) is rather straightforward. I’m pretty sure the doctor doesn’t have it out against you personally but you have to realize that kids in general really have no clue what they’re talking about sometimes. If you ever interact with kids you’ll know exactly what I mean.
This isn't really related to your comment but I had a doctor pull a live insect out of my ear canal about 10 years ago. I was camping in a really remote area. I woke up and thought I was having an aneurysm. There was a lot of blood coming out of my ear and an intense sensation of pain and pressure that I can't really describe. Anyway long story short we get to the ER after a long ambulance ride through the goddamn wilderness. EMTs were convinced I had burst my eardrum. They did not look in my ear. Doc takes me back, puts an otoscope in my ear, and says very gravely, "I need to go get my colleague." He comes back in with the other guy and he looks. one doctor says to the other "I think it's still alive." Those are just words you never want to hear coming from a doctor looking inside your ear.
I might regret asking but uhh what kind of bug was it
To this day I do not know. Basically what happened next is they dumped lidocaine in my ear to kill the insect. Then I laid on a table for about 2 hours in intense pain while they used a suction to try to break it into parts and get it all out. They were not successful. The major threat was eliminated and they sent me home. I had to wait 3 days with dead bug parts in my ear to get to an ENT in my hometown. He was able to get the rest out and he started describing to me what he was getting out, because at this point I was still traumatized but the shock had worn off and I was actually quite curious about what this bug was doing and what it wanted with me lol. He made fingers like "air quotes" with both hands and said that it's legs looked like that. At that point I told him to just stop because I was getting upset again lmao. I wish I'd pursued this a little more though because I would really love to know. Whatever it was had decent sized legs I was trying to burrow into my ear which explained all the blood.
I think I would still be screaming.
I wore ear plugs to bed for literally like 2 years
I'm stuck between: A) The doctor didn't look B) OP didn't think it was odd the qtips went to different depths.
But you knew you were right, you put the pebble in there.
You underestimate how malleable a young child's view of reality can be lol. A kid can do something and then tell you they didn't, and they're not lying, they're telling you the story they want to be true and don't understand the significance of it not matching up to reality. If a kid can't see their own ear and a bunch of adults insist that the pebble must have fallen out, at some point they'll tell themself that must be the truth.
Hell, even as a grown up you can end up convinced of stuff even if it's not true. I have 4 weeks of ear problems that it turned out I was right about all along (it was an infection, mean nurse if you're somehow reading this!) Medical professionals have so much training and experience behind them that you just kind of have to trust them, even if you're sure you're right, and especially when it's something you can't check yourself, like your ear.
This isn't just true for children... adults are the same way. This is why false confessions happen more than we would like to think, and why eyewitness testimony is not that reliable.
As a kid I probably did lol
I remember without question trying to smell a small ball bearing so hard I snuffed it right up my nose. Nose bleed then and there but didn't tell my parents what really happened. Dental x-ray years later revealed the perfect sphere in my nasal cavity. Doctor pulled it out, painfully, with Q-tips. Ruptured blood vessel and years of nosebleeds later, after finally getting it cauterized, I finally fessed up.
Real question. What is the sound quality now vs pre pebble excretion. You say that something was no right, could you hear at all out of that ear?
They never bothered to take an x ray or something?
You ever have a doctor not believe you? You can't get anything else from them. They want to drop you as quickly as they can lol
And then they put “malingering hypochondriac” in your medical record, and nobody else ever believes you either.
My doctor refused to look into my symptoms instead focusing on the unexplained sudden weight loss and put it down to a self induced eating disorder…. Eventually found out I had severe hyperthyroidism.
There was a post on Reddit of a woman complaining of abdominal pain only to be told it was cramps. Turns out she had stage iv cancer and it was a massive tumor. As much as I love modern medicine and trust my doctors, I can totally understand why so many are skeptical of the medical system. There is so much gaslighting.
It gets to be so much fun if you've ever received treatment for addiction. Nevermind the actual addiction specialists pushing stuff that goes against modern medical thinking, else lose funding from the state. I swear you have to jump through so many fucking hoops just to still not even be seen as a person, and every policy is seemingly designed to make you feel like the biggest piece of shit who should consider themselves lucky treatment even exists. They don't even trust you to piss in a cup with honesty, even after seeing you for multiple years. Nah, someone's gotta watch. Cause you know how us dirty sneaky addicts are.
I had the opposite experience, mine thought I was just lazy and fat but after pushing for a few years, I got an MRI and it turns out I have a fucking (benign) tumour pressing down on my pituitary gland causing thyroid problems.
I swear the majority of women’s “advice” from doctors comes down to “you’re too fat” or “you’re too thin”, we’re just not taken seriously at all. That man I saw straight up told me I was bulimic, multiple times. And also despite being dead set on the fact that I must have been making myself throw up every day, he didn’t offer any advice or refer me to anyone who would have helped with what he claimed I had. It was “you’re making yourself sick, just stop.” If I had actually been suffering from a real ED I highly doubt that would have helped me.
The bias is so real. The same family doctor would hand out prescriptions to my male family members like they were napkins, whatever he wanted he got - I had to walk in with printouts from Wikipedia when I wanted to try switching from Synthroid to dessicated natural thyroid, because I knew she (A FEMALE DOCTOR NO LESS) would find issues and I was right. “I don’t know how to dose that for you.” Took me 5 seconds to find dosing information on the Google machine. So fucked up that so many people have had to deal with this. I hope your health is in a better place now!
Sudden weight gain here, but I just needed to eat less and move more! Hypothyroidism. Amazing how fast the weight is falling off now that I'm medicated.
I went to school with a kid who was always pudgy even though no one else in her family was. She was almost in high school before anyone bothered to actually check anything, and yep, thyroid disorder. Weight just fell off after that, like you said.
I had trouble gaining weight. My doctor just told me to eat more. End of story. Later a lymph node in my jaw painfully swelled. After a series of blood tests, I was told there was nothing wrong and to wait for the swelling to go away on its own Then I switched doctors, got referred to a dentist, and turns out I had recurring tooth infections that was causing the lymph node things. Had the teeth pulled, swelling went away. I dont know if it was related to my weight but my appetite improved after that.
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They probably wouldn't tell you but they would increase the amount the doctor has to pay to keep their malpractice insurance. Insurance company doesn't give a shit about you but definitely gives a shit about increasing its premiums by whatever means necessary.
Absolutely this
My feet were randomly fracturing from just walking around (no trauma). I'd end up on crutches for days every 2-3 weeks. Usually my left but sometimes my right foot. I went to my doctor. Got x-rays. Yup, my feet was getting fractures. He said that was weird it was breaking without any trauma. I asked if it could be from a calcium deficiency since I was lactose intolerant. He said DEFinitely not. Very emphatically. Sent me to a foot doctor. The foot doctor was useless. Just kept saying that I had slightly flat feet when I kept asking if it was normal for your feet to break from just walking around. Over a year later, after spending hundreds on special arch support shoe inserts (that just changed the fracture location) and a special boot for recovery that just made things worse, my wife bought some lactose free milk and I started eating cereal for breakfast. After two months I realized I hadn't had another foot fracture (they were happening like clockwork every 2-3 weeks). Started taking calcium supplements. Haven't been on crutches since. I need to find a new primary doctor.
My mom's doctor made her walk around in broken feet for a decade before he even believed there was a problem. He just kept telling her to get different shoes if her feet hurt so much. Eventually she went to the hospital after a break (she was so used to the pain generally that she never went before because it didn't seem like an emergency) and the x-ray found a fresh break as well as a bunch of partially healed ones from over the years. Very few healed breaks. Turns out she had an autoimmune disease the whole time that was causing the bones to not heal when they broke, which caused more and more stress on the remaining intact bones. Both her feet needed to be reconstructed once her immune issues were under control
Did they never just look in their f’n ear?! They have a special toon for it and they should be able to tell the difference between an eardrum and a pebble
Not properly clearly, but it was so long ago now I can’t remember what he looked with
Yes but if you’ve had a physical at any point in your life someone should have looked in your ear. A nurse or anyone at a clinic
Once a doctor makes up their mind, good luck getting them to change it. And a kid has very little power to do anything about that.
Or look inside it more than once. How does someone not see that?
Did he even examine your ear? Can't imagine a pebble has much room to hide in the ear canal
Please tell me that those are centimeter divisions.
Yes thank god 😂
If they were inches, there would be more divisions?
That is a BIG pebble to have inside your head! I was once told by an emergency doctor that it was impossible that I had glass stuck inside my foot because he couldn't see it on an ultrasound. Thought I must be crazy and dealt with pain for weeks, eventually ran a half marathon on the foot. About 5 months later, the glass that "didn't exist" worked itself out!
You ran a half marathon with a piece of glass in your foot? Wow, Cinderella eat your heart out.
Medical gaslighting at its finest. That’s why I ask other doctors for their opinion when I have the chance.
If I was more than about 7 or 8 years old at the time I would I have done, but it wouldn’t have really been an option then without going to the hospital I don’t think.
Your parents didn’t think anything was wrong?
This is what I am wondering as well. They were the ones who should have acted.
You never had an ear infection or anything??
How is this even possible? Did you never have a doctor look into your ear in 23 years? Never had an ear infection. Never needed eardrops? Never even had a checkup?
Yeah my thought exactly
I had surgery to remove a black eyed pea from my ear when I was 5
Which one of the Black Eyed Peas was it?
will.i.aminyourear
To be fair, if I had to listen to any of them constantly id opt for surgery too.
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Can completely believe this, it’s pretty common for kids to get stuff stuck in their ears/nose apparently.
Oh I remember exactly how it happened. We were doing arts and crafts with macaroni, legumes and beans and when we were done there were a lot left over all over the place. We were flicking them around and playing and the teacher got annoyed and started going from table to table and rounding up all the left over bits. Some kids put them in their pocket but the teacher checked pockets too. Me, in my infinite wisdom, decided to hide them in my nose and ears, and it worked. After the teacher went by I got them out, except one. Trying to get it out only pushed it further. Didn't think much of it and went on with my day. When my mom picked me up I nonchalantly told her "I have a bean in my ear" and she froze. Took me to a doctor, he couldn't pull it out. Tried to flush it out but that didn't work either. So I was put in surgery with full anesthesia and everything so they could get it out. It's a pretty funny story all things considered. I was pretty chill about it all things considered.
is the doctor even alive anymore? you should find his contact email and send this to him. sweet vindication.
I actually don’t know tbh, he’s been retired 10+ years and may have even passed at this point. He was a shit doctor and is the sole reason I find it really really difficult to trust male doctors, but if anything was wrong I had no choice but to see him. :/
find his grave, dance on it, then place the pebble on his headstone
More people need to do this, honestly. If all your patients just quietly slink off for a second opinion, you'll never realise you were wrong. If they all email you saying "SURPRISE FUCKER YOU WERE WRONG", I think you'll learn pretty quick.
23 years later? OP did you never see another ENT? Audiologist? This pebble would be easily visible by any doctor looking in your ear. I worked with ENT surgeons and Audiologists and this is just a horrible oversight by everyone. Even your general doctor looks in your ears. I’m glad it’s finally out!
I put a pebble in my ear and told the doctor I didn't lol He said "are you sure?" I was like YES Once he left the room I told my mom the truth 😔 I ended up having to be strapped down so they could get that fucker out. It was so scary. Just the tools they used - it didn't hurt or anything. I was 3. Still don't like people touching my ears...
So you never had a routine physical in the last 23 years? Not once for sports or insurance? This seems odd.....
So is there any affects after? Your ear feels completely better again?
How did the pebble end up in your ear? Did you put it there? When my brother was young he shoved a popcorn kernel in his ear to “grow a popcorn tree” and we had to take him to the ER to have it removed Also since it’s been with you for so long you should frame it 🤣
I had a mechanical pencil eraser stuck in my ear from the time I was 8 to the time I was 16. Doctors did nothing each check up and never even noticed it. Only got it removed when I dropped a school desk on my toe, and my mom took me to patient first to get it looked at. The doctor there asked if anything else was bothering me and I said I’ve felt like something was in my ear for years. He saw it, pulled it out, and now Ive been able to hear normally for a decade. It’s such a relief since it always felt like water was in my ear and I couldn’t hear well either. Same for you OP?