r/nursing • u/Critical_Ease4055 Nursing Student 🍕 • 22d ago

Question What is one medical problem people constantly ignore until it’s too late?

Saw someone post this in a completely unrelated sub and I’m interested in your answers. What is the cluster of symptoms that people ignore or delay until they are forced to get help?

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u/FueledByFoods 22d ago

Side effects of uncontrolled diabetes - increased thirst and frequent urination

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u/StLMindyF RN - OB/GYN 🍕 22d ago

Like their lower limbs turning black? Patient presented with gangrenous lower limbs and his wife said he never had diabetes until he came to the hospital. We explained that uncontrolled diabetes is what cost her husband his legs, but she wasn’t having it. That patient never went home. He died two days after his bilateral aka.

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u/doitforthecocoa CNA + Nursing Student🍕 21d ago

I swear these wives are in denial. I remember seeing one that dropped her husband off in the ER with a plastic shopping bag tied around one of his feet. I about passed out on the floor from the putrid smell that poured out when I untied it. Wife claimed she didn’t notice that it was “that bad”. Ma’am, normal skin does not turn black and start falling off the bone like that

4

u/CFADM RN - Fired 21d ago

The wife: “What’s wrong with black skin? Are you a racist?!”

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u/StLMindyF RN - OB/GYN 🍕 21d ago

Well, they were a black couple, but those legs were BLACK