The Weirdest Medical Cases of 2024

It’s almost the end of 2024, and that can only mean one thing: another deep dive into the strangest medical cases that made us gasp, cringe, and groan in sheer awe this year.

Case studies are an important part of medicine, since they can sometimes be the first clue to a new discovery. But they’re also a never-ending reminder that the human body can get weird or have weird things happen to it in all sorts of ways. Here are some of the bizzarro medical highlights published in scientific journals or otherwise made the news in 2024.

The most vaccinated man in the world

In March, scientists in Germany published a study showcasing a man who claimed to have received over 200 covid-19 vaccinations over the course of two years. German authorities alleged that the man originally kept getting vaccinated to secure vaccination cards that could then be sold to others, though they ultimately declined to pursue fraud charges. By the time researchers contacted him, however, he might have genuinely loved getting his shots—he even chose to receive two more vaccinations on his own while being studied.

The researchers found no sign that the man was harmed in any way by his mass vaccinations, and even found some evidence that his immune system was better protected against the coronavirus than average. Perhaps the most compelling bit of proof is that the man had no reported history of a covid-19 infection—a rarity in today’s world. Still, as the researchers astutely point out: You don’t need 200-plus shots to make the most of your covid-19 vaccination. Just a few will do.

Losing your guts

Two separate cases of people literally busting out their guts made waves this year.

In one case, published this May, a 63-year-old man sneezed and coughed his guts out via a recent surgical site involving his abdomen. The man’s breakfast and shirt was ruined, but paramedics were able to safely get him to a hospital and he recovered with no issues. The other case was originally published in September 2022 but only became available online in January 2024. It involved a 52-year woman whose covid-induced cough caused her guts to spill out from an old hernia repair surgery site. She was hospitalized, but her guts were successfully put back in as well.

Abdominal surgeries are known to be a risk factor for disembowelment, but they remain rare. Still, I’m probably going to panic a little for the foreseeable future every time I feel a sneeze coming on.

A hairy situation

Just in case you were wondering, hairballs aren’t only a problem for cats.

In July, surgeons from Ecuador reported pulling out a two-pound hairball from a young woman’s stomach. Doctors in Massachusetts reported treating their own hairball case this past November, involving a 16-year-old girl who experienced weeks of worsening stomach pain and other gastrointestinal symptoms.

These cases are examples of Rapunzel syndrome, a rare medical condition in which a mass of swallowed hair becomes big enough to obstruct the stomach and potentially the small intestine. Rapunzel syndrome can be life-threatening, though both cases were caught in time before that could happen. It’s most often caused by a psychological compulsion to pull and eat one’s own hair.

The threenis

In October, doctors in the UK reported a medical marvel that doubles for a great bar story: a man with not one, not two, but three penises. Perhaps the most amazing detail about this case is that the man himself may have never known about his unique anatomy. The man’s extra genitalia were inside his body, and his external penis appeared and functioned normally. Scientists only discovered his condition after his body had been donated to science for cadaver research. It’s the second ever recorded case of someone having three penises—a condition coined triphallia—and the first found in an adult man.

The furry menace

As a cat dad myself, I can attest to the many benefits of being owned by a cat. But sometimes, these felines can cause bouts of medical misery.

This past May, for instance, doctors in Portugal detailed how a little girl developed a rare bone infection from a young kitten her family had taken in. Earlier this February, health officials in Oregon reported that a woman in her 50s developed a rare case of plague likely caught from her recently sick cat. In both cases, the patients appeared to make full recoveries, though unfortunately the Oregon woman’s cat died from its infection.

Though these cases are stranger than most, they’re an important reminder that cats are still animals and can be potential vectors of infectious diseases. If you get bitten and scratched by a cat, you should always wash the wound immediately with soap and water for five minutes (don’t scrub), clean it with antiseptic, and seek out medical attention if you spot any signs of infection. In the case of plague and certain other germs, both cats and the fleas they carry can potentially spread it, so flea prevention is important, too.

Brainworm migraines

It’s the most Florida man story possible: In March, doctors in the state reported on a man whose months of severe and frequent headaches were caused by a parasitic brain invader: the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium).

The condition is formally known as neurocysticercosis, and it’s caused by tapeworm cysts. These cysts can’t mature into full grown adults but will migrate to different parts of the body, including the brain. Their presence in the brain can sometimes trigger a harmful immune response that causes a wide array of neurological symptoms, such as seizures and migraines. In this particular case, the man may have caught a typical tapeworm infection from eating undercooked bacon, only to then reinfect himself with the cysts from not properly washing his hands after going to the bathroom. The man was treated with steroids and antiparasitic medication, which did help reduce his symptoms. Other well-known brainworm survivors are thriving as well.

Toilet trouble

Some stories start bad and somehow get worse. In January, doctors in Canada described a man in his 70s who was bitten by a rat that got into his toilet bowl. The man subsequently contracted a life-threatening infection from the bite that sent him to the intensive care unit. The rat had given the man the bacterial disease leptospirosis, which made the case even stranger, since these bacteria are typically found in rat urine, and not saliva. Near as the doctors can tell, the rat might have first contaminated its own mouth with bacteria-soaked urine before biting the man—a real insult to injury scenario if I’ve ever heard one. Thankfully, the man was successfully treated with antibiotics, but who knows if he’ll ever be able to use a toilet again without a sense of lurking dread.

Margarita burn

Here’s one reason to limit your day drinking. In December, doctors detailed a strange case of phytophotodermatitis—aka “lime disease,” a.k.a. “margarita burn.” The man developed nasty rashes and blisters on his hands a day after he had manually juiced limes and spent the day outside watching soccer. Phytophotodermatitis is caused by exposure to a class of chemicals commonly found in plants and fruits known as furanocoumarins, followed by exposure to ultraviolet A radiation. Furocoumarins are absorbed into the skin and sensitize it to UVA light, triggering an inflammatory reaction that destroys skin cells.

Unfortunately, no existing treatment can speed up the recovery from lime disease (not to be confused with Lyme disease)—victims simply have to wait days or even weeks for the condition to go away on its own. The man was given a topical steroid cream and moisturizer to alleviate his symptoms, and his hands eventually returned to normal.

The wall of weird

Honestly, I would love to describe in detail all the weird medical cases that occurred this year, but we all have families to go back to. So here’s a brief ode to some honorable mentions.

There’s the man who saw the world in pink after having orgasms; the woman who went blind (temporarily, thankfully) from using hair dye; the discovery of an autoimmune disorder that keeps vitamin B from reaching your brain; the two men who caught a fatal fungal infection from bat guano that they used or planned to use as fertilizer for their homegrown cannabis; the woman who caught parasitic pneumonia from eating deer meat; and the family reunion where people caught parasitic worms from tainted bear meat (maybe people should just stay away from game meat in general?).

The great eel escape

Few cases have ever haunted us at Gizmodo quite like this next one.

In July, doctors in Vietnam reported pulling out a two-foot (61-centimeter) eel from a man’s intestines after he inserted it into his butt—though not before the eel had started to chew through his guts.

The man visited an emergency room with severe abdominal pain. Once there, he told doctors that he willingly shoved an eel up his anus, though he declined to provide an exact reason why (as is often true with these cases, though, it was probably sex-related). He made his situation somehow even worse by also shoving a lemon up there, ostensibly to keep the eel where it was. The slithery passenger wasn’t cooperative, however. By the time the doctors operated on the man, the eel had reached his abdominal cavity by biting through the intestines. The man did survive his ill-advised experiment, though not without losing part of his colon.

Remarkably, this was actually the second case of butt eels reported from doctors in Vietnam this year, though the other case involved a shorter eel, measuring 12 inches (30.5 cm).

Here’s hoping nothing in 2025 comes anywhere close to the baffling strangeness of these two incidents. Eh, who am I kidding: the weirder, the better.