Wackiest 'House' Cases
The strangest thing about the medical mysteries Dr. Gregory House solves each week on 'House'? Many of them are inspired by real-life scenarios. Here, 15 of the cantankerous, but brilliant, doc's weirdest cases
-- By Kimberly Potts
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Brain Food
Episode: 'Pilot' Symptom: A kindergarten teacher has a seizure and passes out in class. Diagnosis: House's team finds an open package of ham in her kitchen. The undercooked pork gave her a tapeworm, which reproduced and polluted her brain.
Like Mother, Like Son
Episode: 'Paternity' Symptoms: A teen complains of double vision and night terrors. Diagnosis: The birth mother of the adopted boy wasn't vaccinated for measles, and her son caught the virus from her. The disease hibernated for 16 years.
Change of Habit
Episode: 'Damned If You Do' Symptoms: Treatment for a nun's hand boils leads to convulsions. Diagnosis: The nun, a once-troubled teen who'd given herself an abortion, was allergic to the copper IUD she'd forgotten was still inside her.
Son Poisoning
Episode: 'Poison' Symptoms: A boy goes into convulsions and passes out in class. House suspects drug use. Diagnosis: The boy was actually infected by a pesticide that had spilled on a pair of new pants he'd worn before his mom washed them.
Going Batty
Episode: 'Histories' Symptoms: A homeless woman is admitted to the hospital with a twitchy wrist and skin lesions. Diagnosis: The woman had rabies, which she'd gotten after being bitten by bats that infested the cardboard box she lived in.
It Is Brain Surgery
Episode: 'Autopsy' Symptoms: A 9-year-old whose cancer is in remission has hallucinations. diagnosis: House induced cardiac arrest -- i.e. he temporarily killed her -- so he could explore her brain. He found a blood clot, which was curable.
Gum Disease
Episode: 'Spin' Symptoms: A man has constant diarrhea since he quit smoking. Diagnosis: The patient had been chewing six packs of sugarless gum every day, to keep from smoking. House said an ingredient in the gum had laxative properties.
Bug Bites
Episode: 'Distractions' Symptoms: Forty percent of a teen's body is badly burned in an ATV accident. Diagnosis: House and his staff suspected the boy had an infection, so they covered him with maggots to eat away the charred flesh.
Project Runway
Episode: 'Skin Deep' Symptoms: A 15-year-old supermodel is nauseous and sweaty, and collapses after getting off the runway. Diagnosis: A tumor, which had been hidden by the (undiagnosed) fact that she had both male and female sex organs.
OJ Did It
Episode: 'Meaning' Symptoms: A young woman is paralyzed after a yoga mishap. Diagnosis: House thinks she has a tumor, and is about to perform surgery when he notices her discolored toenail. Final diagnosis: scurvy, cured by orange juice.
Double Trouble
Episode: 'Cane and Able' Symptoms: A 7-year-old with rectal bleeding claims aliens are torturing him. Diagnosis: The boy's a chimera, a person with two identifiable sets of DNA, which initially skewed the results of a blood disorder test.
Brothers & Sisters
Episode: 'Fools for Love' Symptoms: A young couple may have salmonella poisoning from marijuana. Diagnosis: The husband and wife actually have the same genetic disease ... because, unbeknownst to them, they're actually half-siblings!
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Episode: 'Son of Coma Guy' Symptoms: A teenager needs a heart transplant. Diagnosis: The boy's father is awakened from a coma. Doomed to go back into the coma, the dad uses House's advice to commit suicide so his son can have his heart.
They Grow Up So Fast
Episode: 'Act Your Age' Symptoms: Two kids -- ages six and nine -- exhibit signs of aggression and rapid aging. Diagnosis: The tykes were thrown into early puberty after playing with their single-and-dating dad's sexual enhancement cream.
Bra Strapped
Episode: 'House Training' Symptoms: A woman passes out from a lack of blood to the brain. Diagnosis: A bra strap cut causes an infection in the woman. She dies before it's diagnosed, however, because the cut was obscured by the bra strap.
