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Line 1: {{trope}} {{quote\|''"If this is the cure, I'd hate to see the disease."''~~\|[[Flavor Text]] for [[Magic: The Gathering]] card "Maggot Therapy"}}~~ \|[[Flavor Text]] for the ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' card [https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=19594 "Maggot Therapy"]}} Meet the doctor. They may be the greatest, most talented surgeon in the world, or have a [[Healing Potion\|miracle drug]] that can [[Magic Antidote\|cure any illness]], or even a [[Nanomachines\|horde of tiny robots]] designed to heal with precision a scalpel can't even touch. They can patch up your wounds, treat your injuries, rescue you from the brink of death... ''[[Gone Horribly Wrong\|and make you wish you were never born.]]'' Line 6 ⟶ 7: It's entirely possible to be ''great'' at your job and yet have ''absolutely no idea what you're doing.'' This trope is one of the nastier consequences. '''Harmful Healing''' is what happens when a purported "cure" ends up causing more harm than good, either by accident [[Gone Horribly Right\|or design]], and often with horrifying results. Best-case scenario, the victim ends up [[Cursed with Awesome]] due to the botched healing process inadvertently ''[[Emergency Transformation\|enhancing]]'' their body (albeit with a bevy of [[Beauty to Beast\|unattractive]], if not [[Power Degeneration\|outright deleterious]], [[Psycho Serum\|side effects]]); worst-case scenario, the victim suffers a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. When unintentional, can be thought of as the medical equivalent to [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]. When the "cure" is infectious, it's an accidental [[Synthetic Plague]]. Compare [[Came Back Wrong]]. Also compare [[Worst Aid]], where the harm is caused by the would-be helper's [[Did Not Do the Research\|stupidity]] rather than the "cure" itself. {{examples}}▼ ▲{{examples}} == [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] == * ''[[Franken Fran]]'' will keep her patient alive by ''any'' means possible. ''Quality of life'', however, is [[Blue and Orange Morality\|beyond her comprehension.]] Line 19 ⟶ 20: == [[Comic Books]] == * [[The Flash\|Impulse's]] accelerated healing caused him problems when he was shot in the kneecap by ~~Deathstroke-- the~~Deathstroke—the flesh quickly regrew over the bullet, requiring intensive and painful surgery. * Healing in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' relies not on regenerating flesh so much as on reshaping ~~it--a~~it—a bit like [[Vampire: The Masquerade\|Vicissitude]]. The [[Big Bad]] happens to be the most powerful healer alive. [[Body Horror\|Draw your own conclusions]]. * When [[The Savage Dragon]]'s bones are prevented from setting, they simply heal in whatever position they're already in, so having all his bones broken and being stuffed into a smokestack leaves his body horribly malformed, requiring that he have his bones broken again so they can be set properly. Line 30 ⟶ 31: == [[Literature]] == * Healing effects that mend broken bones may cause the bones to knit together and regrow before the fracture has been properly set, leading to pain and deformity. This happened to a character in one of Anne McCaffrey's ''Acorna'' books, among others. Used in ''[[BioShock (series)]]''~~-- one~~—one audio diary mentions that when experimenting with Little Sisters, often a broken bone had to be broken and reset as many as ''dozens'' of times before the doctors got it right. The [[Blessed with Suck]] part is that Little Sisters can still feel pain. ''[[The Sundering]]'' presents a character who'd previously been healed this way, and, as a combined preparation for war and punishment for disobeying [[Evil Overlord\|his master]], has the bones of his right arm magically restored to normal so he can wield a sword. Unfortunately for him, the original breaks must all be recreated before the damage can be repaired. ** Magicians in ''[[The Black Magician Trilogy]]'' 'verse heal their wounds automatically when unconscious. As above, this can lead to bones healing in warped and deformed ways, which requires re-breaking and resetting by a properly trained healer. * In ''[[Harry Potter and ~~The~~the Chamber of Secrets (novel)\|Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets]]'', Gilderoy Lockhart fixes Harry's broken wrist... by making the bones vanish entirely. ** Of course, this being the wizarding world, there's a cure for that too. [[Crazy Prepared\|It's called "Skele-Gro".]] Unfortunately, Skele-Gro regrows bones gradually, so the patient will have to endure a night or two of bone splinters forcing their way through muscle, blood and nerves. * Healing in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' normally causes mild discomfort approximately equivalent to being dunked briefly in ice water. Sometimes, when the ailment that is being Healed is too strong, it can give the subject seizures. And when Semirhage is Healing you, she always makes it very painful so as to remind you not to get injured again. Line 57 ⟶ 58: == [[Tabletop Games]] == * [[Warhammer ~~40000~~40,000\|Ork Doktors]] (Otherwise known as [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast\|"Painboys"]] or just "Doks") have a delightful tendency to "eksperiment on da subjekts" when they are given their "anastetiks" (IE. knocked out with a hammer). To quote the book ''"An unfortunate ork who goes to the Dok to have his toothache fixed might wake up with a set of lungs that allows him to breathe water instead!!"'' * The Lazarus Health Center in the ''[[GURPS]] Illuminati University'' setting approaches their job not unlike Ork Doks. It's usually easier to [[Revolving Door Of Death\|just die and get resurrected.]] Line 64 ⟶ 65: * ''Heavily'' implied to be happening with [[The Medic]]'s healing beam in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', but since the game takes place within the course of the year (and almost everyone he uses it on soon gets gunned down anyways) there's not enough time to see the actual side effects. You can see the side effects pretty well. Healing IS the side effect of his treatment. [http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Medic the Medic considers healing a generally unintended side effect of satisfying his own morbid curiosity.] The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc "Meet the Medic"] video goes into more detail about how the Ubercharge works .<ref> a cyborg heart implant</ref>. ** [https://web.archive.org/web/20120529072914/http://tf2wiki.net/w/images/8/86/Medic_taunts13.wav "All I can tell you about this next procedure is that it will be... excruciating!"] * Reflected in the mechanics of the first three ''[[Avernum]]'' ~~games--attempting~~games—attempting to apply first aid with no knowledge of the skill usually does damage, often killing the unfortunate victim. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20130925034132/http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/~~Super_stimpack~~Super_Stimpack#Super_stimpak Super stimpacks] from the [[Fallout]] series cause damage after healing and can be used as a potential assassination tool. * Alluded to by the doctor's lines in ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]''. ** "''I've concocted a tincture of lead and pomegranate! Ideal for the liver!''" "''A weekly bleeding is part of a balanced and healthy lifestyle!''" "''I've fresh caught leeches today!''" * The children's powder in ''[[Pathologic]]'' is one of the very few ways to {{spoiler\|reduce your infection level}}, but it reduces your health to critical levels. There's "harmful buffing" as well, of ~~sorts -- many~~sorts—many medicines that boost your immunity have an adverse effect on your health as well, though not nearly to the extent of the powder. Though the powder is perhaps the most prominent example, due to the game's multiple survival meters, this happens for most healing items. Usually, something that restores one bar will reduce the ~~other -- for~~other—for example, eating lemons will reduce your exhaustion and boost your immune system, but it'll make you hungrier. Painkillers will restore some health, but greatly increase exhaustion. And so on... * Urgot in ''[[League of Legends]]'' was a warrior brought back from death to exact vengeance on the one who killed him. As a [[Body Horror\|spider-crab cyborg]]. As he tells you in champion select: ''"Eternal life... endless torture..."'' * According to a lore interview for ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', undead (Being forsaken and death knights in this context) are still patched up by light, but since holy light is the undead's kryptonite, it causes them excrutiating pain, likened to fire. Line 90 ⟶ 91: * ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' has an amulet with healing properties ([http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-427 SCP-427]) that, if used improperly, will continue to "heal" the target even after bringing them up to perfect health. They eventually mutate into a nigh invincible mass of flesh with beyond human intelligence and a desire to make other people become like them. There's also a fixing robot ([http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-212 SCP-212]) that likes to rejuvenate your organs and makes other alterations based on its own unknown criteria. It's about as likely to make you able to breathe under water as just killing you. Employees are allowed to volunteer for treatment by it, obviously at their own risk. There's also [http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-135 SCP-135], a girl with an aura that makes her and any other organic matter within a 10  cm radius immortal while causing rapid and uncontrolled cell ~~growth-- AKA~~growth—AKA ''cancer''~~-- within~~—within 2.25 m. Having developed this aura in utero, she is stuck in a fetal position and permanently encrusted in a constantly growing mass of plant, fungus, and microorganisms. The most that can be done for her is to have robots cut off some of the excess matter when it gets too big. ''[[Fate Worse Than Death\|She has full]] [[And I Must Scream\|brain activity]].'' * ''[[Ruby Quest]]'' makes use of this. The all-purpose 'Miracle Cure' has some... [[The Corruption\|unfortunate side effects.]] ** Essentially, it's {{spoiler\|some sort of [[Eldritch Abomination]] that can heal any injury or illness or even revive the dead, but the longer it's applied the more horribly mutated the subject will become}}. Mild cases may result in an extra pair of hands, [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family]], or a third eye; a ''severe'' case turns the afflicted into... well... {{spoiler\|[http://evilcorporation.com.br/rubyquest/images/3223688/79.gif this] or [http://evilcorporation.com.br/rubyquest/images/3494380/73.gif this]}}. Line 99 ⟶ 100: * [[Real Life]] example: ''[[wikipedia:Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva\|Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva]]'' or FOP, a disease that causes the body's self-repair system to replace damaged soft tissue with bone. It has the potential to eventually lead to [[And I Must Scream]] when the afflicted individual's limbs become too rigid to move. * If done slightly wrong, life saving techniques such as CPR and the Heimlich can injure or break your ribs, leading to several weeks of it being painful to breathe. ** CPR will probably crack a a rib even when it's ''done right'' ~~-- not~~—not a full break, but some fractures are likely. And of course it's preferable to [[Killed Off for Real\|not being able to breath at all]]. * Some antipsychotics can cause horrible physical symptoms like skin chapping in often-used places, constant shaking and suicidal urges. * Treatment for burns can be excruciatingly painful, especially when you get up to second-degree. Debridement and Escharotomy are common treatments, and are, respectively, to scrape the burned tissue of the skin and to slice the skin open in long incisions. They are as horrifyingly painful as they sound. Line 106 ⟶ 107: {{reflist}} [[Category:Medical Horror]] [[Category:~~Harmful Healing~~{{PAGENAME}}]]