Desperate Social Media Posts That Saved Lives

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I'm not ashamed to admit in my anonymity here that at 34 years of age I bawl when watching videos where people actually help each other and there's a good outcome. I'm sure it's not just me, but I guess I'm just desperate for positivity and a sign of life from the good in humans these days.

The internet is where people can pushed over the edge and someone else can have their life saved in the same breath.

I hope the doctor that laughed at Bear faced some sort of disciplinary action. It's your job to treat the sick and injured, not mock them for presenting a possible diagnosis that YOU couldn't come up with. What an asshole.

my favorite story where the internet diagnosed something was when some dude made a rage comic about his friend peeing on a birth control test and laughing about the positive result when it actually meant he had a sort of cancer and it was taken care of before it got too bad. they shared the good news through another rage comic

Bear's story is one of those that perfectly illustrates why many people with chronic pain and undiagnosed disabilities eventually lose hope and give up. Because of doctors being just as flawed as any other human being (albeit more educated in a specific field), it's all too easy for them to laugh off or dismiss important concerns that could be a sign of a potentially deadly condition, or a progressive illness that could cause lasting damage the longer it goes untreated.

If you do a sequel, you might talk about the time a guy went on Reddit and told everyone about how he was finding Post-It notes with strange handwriting on them all over his apartment with cryptic messages on them. No evidence of a break-in, and no one else had a key to his place. He tried various methods to find the culprit with the messages growing more sinister the whole time until finally one of the Redditors piped up and said "Hey buddy, do me a favor and get yourself a carbon monoxide detector." So the guy did and the levels in his apartment were WAY too high. Turns out he had been severely poisoned and had hallucinated the whole ordeal. That Redditor definitely saved that dude's life.

Oh my god, the sheer terror in Brianna’s eyes and in her voice. When not under pressure, it may seem obvious but in a situation like that and while that terrified it’s amazing she still had the fortitude to think to try the internet and to think to do so continually to make it more likely to get attention. So many people, especially children, would be far too panicked to think like that. Especially scary since she’s a child during that and there was so little she could do and it’s her parent she depends on in numerous way, making the possibility of tragedy all the scarier! Can’t imagine!

7 years ago, when I was 18, I posted a nude photo of myself to Reddit. Somebody messaged me asking if I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which I had never heard of at the time. She said that the way my skin looked was not at all normal for an 18-year-old and urged me to get checked out. I actually did, and it turned out I did in fact have a form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome that can be life-threatening if not properly monitored and treated, and the symptoms I had been ignoring/assumed were normal were in fact quite serious. It’s so weird that posting a photo of my ass anonymously changed the course of my life.

My friend died from the exact thing bear had. They realised she had high cortisol, but because it’s the stress hormone they put it down to being her mental health and ignored her. She went to many doctors including an endocrinologist. by the time it was discovered through an unrelated lung scan for a seperate issue, the adrenal glands happened to be visible in the scan and the third doctor who saw the scan noticed by this point the cancer had spread too much. She was 24 years old and the most pure hearted human being I have ever met in my life. Rest in peace ALLY ❤

reminds me of one case when the guy was experiencing weird things: finding random notes, objects moving on their own etc. he went to reddit, told his story and it turned out he was slowly dying due to carbon monoxide poisoning. he was hallucinating and forgetting he moved stuff or wrote a note because his brain was slowly shutting down. he would be gone if redditors didn't solve it. moreover, multiple "haunted" houses turned out to be poisoned with CO which led to their residents seeing and hearing things.

I like that the internet can be an unforgiving hellscape & the nicest, kindest place ever at the same time

I have huge amounts of sympathy for Bear as someone with very clear medical issues that have taken far too long to be diagnosed. Doctors, especially GPs, can have an unbelievable combination of tunnel vision and self confidence that can easily lead to them ignoring or misinterpreting symptoms (often to the detriment of the patient.)

Interesting! In the early days of the internet (AOL/dial-up days), a random stranger - on a completely unrelated message board - accurately diagnosed my beloved dog with Cushings. I am grateful for the extra years I got to spend with her. Thanks to a random internet stranger ❤

Brianna is a smart little girl, her quick thinking saved MULTIPLE lives, including her father's!!💜💜💜

Not gonna lie Wavy, the sound of the girl in such anguish on the first part almost had me in tears. But honestly, i really love these positivity posts. They're so wholesome in the current world of fear and scaremongering. please do more, and thank you.

I had a similar situation like the last guy on here that had Cushings. For years, I was constantly sick and knew that food was my trigger. I would throw up and have horrible stomach pain, so bad I passed out on one occasion. I read extensively about gallbladder issues and IBD. Doctors told me I had IBS, and there wasn't anything they could do. They ignored my please to check gallbladder. (Multiple doctors; by the way) So, in the future when I'd have these "attacks" I just stayed home and didn't bother going to a doctor. Eventually, I got to the point where it didn't really matter what I ate, I got sick. Losing nearly 80 lbs in a year from not being able to eat. The final nail came, when I formed an abcess that wouldn't go away and I decided to go into the doctor one last time. He suspected a fistula, and told me that you don't just get those without some underlying medical issue. When the surgeon got ahold of me, he was immediately pissed when I explained my symptoms. He said, "there are only two possibilities here- your gallbladder is bad, or you have chrons disease." "Has anyone checked these?" I told him no, no one would send me in for tests and said I just had IBS. He told me that was total bullshit and he couldn't believe I had suffered for all these years to this point. Turns out, my gallbladder was nearly sludge, and I could have easily had a serious infection (pure luck that I didn't) They removed the gallbladder and I've since had multiple surgeries to fix the fistula. I will suffer for life because I was ignored by doctors. Turns out, what I had been searching online was right all along.

The first story is heartwrenching but it really gives me a hope for the future. I'm so glad that little girl thought on her toes, maybe she has a future in emergency medicine!

I legit paused the video and called my Mom after the skin cancer story. My Dad's in his 70s, worked construction in the sun his whole adult life, and isn't one to generally get checkups. He has a sizeable red-brown skin spot just like that on his temple, and I don't remember how long it's been there. Hearing that story, I had to call my Mom and see if my Dad's ever gotten it looked at. Turns out he did a year or two ago and it was determined not to be cancerous, so that's good. But this video could have saved another life, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who had a similar reaction.

The last story reminds me of a similar situation I was in. When I was 7, I started having a lot of weird health issues pop up. I was slowly losing the use of my legs and no one knew why. I had x-rays, a bone scan, and no one could figure it out. I was extremely healthy and was always super active so my pediatrician couldn't give us any answers. Instead, he referred us to another doctor who, rather than examine me himself, had one of his nurses examine me and ask my parents and me questions. She then took those answers to the doctor and returned with his "diagnosis". He said it was RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). I then remember going to a physical therapist who, according to my mom, took one look at me and knew it was neurological. Well, thanks to her, my parents had me scanned with a full body MRI and took me to a hospital to see a neurosurgeon. He was wonderfully kind to me and actually had me sit outside of the room so he could explain to my parents that I had a massive tumor inside of my spinal cord that was cutting off all of the signals to my lower body. When my parents asked how long I had, he said I'd be dead within a week without surgery. So, the very next morning before the sun came up, they took me to the hospital to have that emergency surgery and I spent a month in the hospital. Sometimes, the solution comes from a source you didn't expect. I was 8 when I had that surgery, and now I'm 30. That surgeon continued to save my life 2 more times. We followed him to Stanford and their care continues to save me. EDIT: The lesions in my brain appear to be stable, though we won't know for sure until the two year mark. However, a new lesion has appeared in my spine at T9 and requires me to get more treatment. My birthday is on the 21st and right after that, I have to go to Stanford for prep, then on the 29th, I get treatment. I am turning 31.