Rectal temperatures without knowing it.

Have you ever had your rectal temperature taken without knowing it? I have.

When I was 4 years old, I had to have a procedure done on my ears that was considered out patient surgery. I was taken to an out patient surgery center prior to my procedure, I had to have the shots that you get to perpare you for surgery. Prior to the shots, the nurse gave me a hospital gown to put on. Then I got my shots into my leg. After that, the nurse brought me some toys to play with.

Not too long after that, the shots of the meds started to run their courses on me where I did not know or care on what was going on around me. It felt like I was in my own world. Then right before I was taken to the operating room, the nurse came to me with this gadget. She pull out this small stick and started to put something on the end of that stick. Then my mom had me over her lap with my underwear pulled down. Again, I was so well drugged by the meds; I did not know what was going on.

With my underwear pulled down, I felt something cold being inserted into my rear for about a minute or so and then it was removed. Shortly after that, the nurses came with a red wagon and I was taken to some strange room and the next I knew, I was in the dark. When I woke up, I woke up fresh and with a sore leg.

As I was growing up and learning about the procedure that was done to my ears, it popped that my temperature was taken rectally before I was taken to the operating room.

Did any of you members ever had your rectal temperature taken without knowing it? Please tell your story.

Once when I was a teenage taken to the ER for vomiting and stomach pains. I was constantly on my side vomiting into a pale or gagging like I needed to and while waiting for the doctor to come the nurse took my blood pressure as normal but slid my pants down to my ankles and took my temperature rectalky while I wasn’t vomiting. The whole thing didn’t phase her at all it was like business as usual.

Once, when I was little and sick with stomach virus, my mom took my temperature and gave me a suppository while I was asleep. After I awoke, she told me she took my temperature and gave me medicine up my butt to make me feel better.

While I have never experienced this personally I have performed this on hundreds if not thousands of patients in my former workplace. I used to work in ITU ( British equivalent of ICU) and as such the majority of my patients would be sedated and ventilated or been unconscious from other conditions, circumstances.

My former lead consultant was a firm believer of measuring a patient's core temperature and felt that rectal temperature was the closest to measuring a person's core temperature. We used a rectal temperature probe , but with the advent of urinary catheters with a temperature port , we started using these.

Have you ever had your rectal temperature taken without knowing it? I have.

@Kermit79 by any chance did you have tubes put into your ears? This sounds like the same procedure I had when I was seven. Right down to everything you listed.

In the hospital in my early 20s, critically injured in a cycling accident, I was aware and sometimes unaware when nurses would come and take vitals. They gave me meds to help me sleep, and during the night sometimes I would feel being turned on my side and something in my behind, it seemed like a dream. I would reach back later and there would still be the surgical lube on my anus. That’s why those hospital gains are open in the back!

For the most part I was switched to oral temperatures at home, doctor, and hospital by somewhere around 6 or 7, probably first at home and last in the hospital.

However I did get a surprise rectal temperature when coming back to my hospital room after surgery when I was around 10 or 12. The nurse said that it was “hospital policy”, so I wonder if there were other times I got my temperature taken rectally in the hospital that I just didn’t remember. Like in the recovery room after surgery when I was too out of it to remember.

It was all glass thermometers used rectally or orally back then, so I would not be surprised if I had gotten rectal temps in the recovery room even when I had oral temperatures for the rest of my stay.

I have taken many without them knowing. They may have been in an auto accident or even fallen. Yes, I had to take a set from a cheerleader who had fallen and would not wake up. It scared the hell out of us. I'm not sure what all happened to her from the fall but she just would not wake up. Everything else was fine. They brought her into us and she was out. They would also bring us people who OD or passed out from drinking or drugs.

Not that I can remember, unless it was taken in my sleep when I was a baby. I personally took the rectal temperatures of two former girlfriends while they were sleeping. One of them woke up, and fortunately, she was cool about it, and allowed me to continue. After that, we had nightly temperature sessions, while we were both awake. Another girlfriend slept through most of it, then woke up after I took the thermometer out of her butt, hid it from her, and pretended to be asleep. She got up, walked into the bathroom, and went back to sleep. Neither of us brought it up the next day. She wasn’t a fun person, and I don’t think she would have been happy.

When I had my snowmobiling accident, I was messed up on painkillers for nearly a week. I remember a nurse telling me she needed to remove my temperature probe. I was halfway senseless, but I felt a little discomfort in my butt when she took it out. It was a coated wire the nurses stuck up my butt when I was sedated for surgery. I didn’t know it was inside me until she removed it. It was a narrow grey colored wire, but my anus was sore for a day or two after she took it out.

I suspect I may have, but may never know for sure. I didn't know catheters could have temp probes until I read RN1993's post in this thread.

COVID got me in 2021 and I was hospitalized in ICU, then LTAC (long term acute care) and finally inpatient physical rehab, a total of 70 days. I don't know what drugs they used on me, but I vaguely remember walking into the ER in early January. The next thing I remember was waking up in the LTAC, asking "what happened?" in February. My son tells me I authorized and signed consent for a tracheostomy and the ventilator, and for hemodialysis but I don't remember any of that. I had a hole in my neck, a peg (feeding tube) and PICC lines in my arm, and bedsores on the point of my left shoulder and on my left eyebrow from having been proned in the ICU. And I was wearing a diaper. They took my temp with a temporal scanner in the LTAC and rehab hospital; I do remember that.

I don't mind talking about it with anyone who has a genuine interest but it probably is a blessing that I cannot remember the worst part of the saga. I only learned afterward how few actually make it off the ventilator.