Doctors reveal the most incorrect self-diagnoses they've ever seen

We all know that the day-to-day reality of being a doctor isn't really like an episode of House.

Yet some patients are clearly over-influenced by medical dramas, diagnosing themselves with all sorts of exotic ailments.

Sadly they don't often turn out to be right, according to a Reddit thread in which people who work in medicine shared the best - or worst - self-diagnoses they've come across over the years.

We collected some of the best responses below:

While a mate was studying podiatry, a fellow student diagnosed a patient with a likely melanoma on his foot. He called in someone qualified. Turns out it was sock fluff.

We had a 16-year-old and her boyfriend come to the ER. The girl thought she had had some kind of seizure... the head medical resident talked to her privately then came out later barely able to contain his laughter. In taking her history he realised she had had her first orgasm.

I've had a patient claim that amputations run in his family.

I had a male patient come in to the emergency department complaining about a "breast lump". He anxiously stated that the mass was very painful to touch and was convinced that he was going to die of breast cancer. After a battery of questions I asked him to take off his shirt so I can examine the mass. It was his rib.

My dad worked as an ER doc for 30 years, and started practicing in Alabama way back. He said he had a lot of illiterate and uneducated patients. He was taking one woman's medical history on a visit and she told him she had "Fireballs of the Eucharist." Translation: fibroids of the uterus.

The most incorrect self diagnosis I've encountered was a patient who believed they broke their hip after a fall when they actually had a 2 inch piece of skateboard lodged into their side they forgot about...yeah.

As a self-diagnosing patient...One day notice a white, hard, jagged object protruding from my back gum. Can't believe I'm having a tooth come in, especially since I'm 23 and had my wisdom teeth taken out years ago. Go to the dentist to get some X-rays annnnd it turns out to be a piece of a tortilla chip.

Next time you're losing faith in the GP's waiting room though, just remember this guy:

Really old guy came in complaining of foot pain. He was diabetic. Doc already has a diagnosis in mind, but goes through the whole shebang. At the end asks "And what do you think is causing the problem?" He goes: "I think I have a tack in my shoe." He had a tack in his shoe and couldn't bend over to get it out. She helped him remove it and he went on his way.

Solid gold.

More: The 19 most ridiculous questions that patients have asked doctors