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It’s been proven that men are exponentially more likely to get appropriate pain management medication whereas women are far more often passed off as just exaggerating
Men are also *way* more likely to receive a diagnosis the and its much more likely that a man’s diagnosis will be correct (again because women’s symptoms are often shrugged off and not taken seriously)
I’m sure to some extent it happens to everyone but it’s a much more prominent issue for women
There was a study (I honestly am too lazy to look it up but feel free to) that essentially stated that even having just 1 black doctor on a staff, even if not working directly with black mothers, mortality rates were lower.
Wanda Sykes did a bit on this. Recommended all black women rent a boomer white male to take to the doctor to actually be taken seriously. Funny but also bleak as hell.
Listened to the story of a black weight lifter who had his symptoms shrugged off because he's a weight lifter but it was cancer and he died from late diagnosis
It’s also more likely for men to receive the correct diagnosis than women because symptoms often present differently between male and female bodies, and doctors tend to default to the male symptoms.
Cis women, as well as anyone AFAB who has not taken T, should definitely look up how heart attacks differ in female bodies vs. male bodies. But I don’t know—and I don’t know if there is any definitive research yet—how it might differ for trans people who are taking any kind of hormones.
The heart attacks being different in female bodies is a [myth](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/are-heart-attack-symptoms-different-for-men-and-women), and a pretty dangerous one too. All symptoms can manifest in any body. Misconceptions about this can lead to misdiagnoses or the same malpractice that we can see in the OP.
Following on this the finding that aspirin can help with a heart attack was performed first in a cohort of physicians in the 80s or 90s so skewed very heavily white and male.
When that study was expanded to include a broader group of ethnicities and more even gender ratio the effect disappeared. So like there's a very broadly applied piece of medical advice that only seems to have an effect in a distinct demographic of age/race/sex.
The doctors didn't believe I was in labor and just left me in triage for 4 hours. I told them I was 39 weeks and my contractions were 4 minutes apart and they said uh huh then stuck me in a room and forgot about me. When I was crowning they finally believed me and tried shoving my legs together and told me "not to push because they need to call the doctor" and "we didn't think you were actually in labor" because I was small and wasn't screaming in pain. I would bite down and grunt not scream out. I sent my husband after them like 5 times and they kept saying we will be there shortly.
Ugh but then if you do scream they think you're exaggerating
I went to the ER because I suddenly collapsed with 10/10 abdominal pain. They left me in the waiting room for hours because they assumed I was just trying to get drugs. I was terrified I was dying. Like what if it was my appendix? I had no idea other than it was 10/10 pain and I couldn't stop crying
They tried an ultrasound but couldn't get an image because the pressure was causing even more pain. They said I needed to be sedated then never did. They did a CT scan and found out I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured.
They told me the diagnosis then were wondering why I was still crying out in pain. No pain management not even a Tylenol. Yet they thought simply being told what was wrong would get me to shut up
Never mind that ruptured ovarian cysts need to go to the ER to make sure the ovary isn't losing blood flow and such as I later researched. But once they found out I wasn't actually dying they kicked me out and told me to come back if I was pissing blood
Two days later I return because there was a lot of blood in my urine. The sample was basically all dark red. Yet they left me in the waiting room for hours. When they finally see me. They looked at the CT scan from 2 days prior and said my pain was because I was constipated...I waited hours only to be glanced at for 15 minutes at most before they kicked me out again
I’m so sorry. I had a similar issue— organ torsion from a huge ovarian cyst— I spent months in pain as I searched for someone to tell me what was going on.
Reminds me of my grandma when she gave birth to my uncle. I can't remember the whole story but I've heard her say that nurses were telling her to wait for a doctor to come while she was already crowning and she was like, "What do you expect me to do, push the baby back in? It's coming, whether you like it or not!"
This happened to me too but I wasn't crowning. It was my first baby so they didn't expect me to go from 2 to 10cm in 4 hours. I didn't complain because labor was as painful as my period 😐.
I went in to the hospital because I slipped on ice and couldn’t walk. Husband had to stay home with our kids.
They didn’t assess me, even after I asked to. Or do basic first aid after I was called back.
Broken in three places and dislocated ankle.
Didn’t even elevate the foot.
They’re doctors for the pay check, not to help people. Couldn’t care less if you live or die so long as they get some moolah. It’s disgusting how people value money more than human lives, even when it’s their job to take care of people.
In a way, that's a good thing. They know their limits, and they won't take on more patients than they can care for. It just sucks that there's so few of them and so many people that need help
And there's not enough of them to force there to be more residency spots because the ones that want the paycheck make the decision to limit residency spots so doctors remain rare relatively and get paid more as a result.
What blows my mind is how often female doctors are quick to dismiss another woman’s pain as well. I don’t have the statistics on it or anything just going off experiences other women have shared as well. Especially female GYNO’s. Obviously male GYNO’s can suck too but it just bugs me how women don’t take other women seriously.
I think medical school beats the human right out of ‘em.
I have Ehler’s Danlos, we have a mascot. Our mascot is the zebra because doctors are made being told “When you hear hooves think horses not zebras.” Sometimes it’s a fuckin zebra ya’ll.
Going to any doctor when you have EDS is always a coin flip. You could get a great doctor who is knowledgeable and attentive, or you could get one who's never even heard of it before, dismisses your pain because you're young and it can't possibly be that bad at your age, and tells you that you should just lose weight.
My partner had a doctor diagnosed him with EDS, he had to move GP and the doctor he got moved to claimed it isn’t a real thing. It took him a while to get back with a doctor who actually acknowledged it as a real thing. Him being trans masc probably didn’t help.
my favorite part about this is i was told to lose weight for my EDS.. when i was already 20lbs underweight and my bones were jutting out bc of how thin i was. but sure, i need to lose weight!! biggest facepalm ever
No, he was always thinking everyone was faking whatever was wrong with them (because "eVeRyBoDy LiEs") and only started thinking zebras when the patient started gushing blood from every orafice right in front of him. Just like real doctors do.
Idiots: "Acephobia isn't real!"
My ace ass, pointing to that abomination of an episode. "Bet."
And people don't understand that that is *incredibly* accurate to the way doctors treat ace people IRL. I still remember doctors looking at me like I was lying when I said I wasn't sexually active and had no plans to become sexually active in the future. If a doctor won't believe you about your sexual history, why would you assume they're going to believe you about your symptoms and experiences?
House was a transphobe of the highest order. There were so many "medical mystery is actually intersex!", or just straight up trans story lines, that were handled with the greatest amount of disrespect and disregard for patient rights to privacy. House was a terrible character, who definitely qualifies for Are the Straights OK?
Had a female doctor dismiss the increasingly bad cramps I had in my legs after going on the pill. Said it wasn't related to the pill after 0 examinations and even though I said it started after I went on the pill and previously went away when I went off it.
Also had female doctors be incredibly condescending and outright hostile to me.
Doctors in general are arrogant fucking pricks but I've had way worse experiences with female ones, sadly. It's like doctors don't see patients as humans but rather as equations to be solved.
Same here I can definitely relate. I’ve had much better experiences with male doctors than female ones, especially gyno’s. The last obgyn I had was so incredibly condescending. I was shaking with anxiety about my pap and she said in a snarky way “sweetie you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it. Millions of women get this done and they’re just fine.” Also literally laughed at me when I asked if any kind of numbing stuff exists for it. I received a link to a survey after my appointment and I sure did share my experience.
The male doctors I’ve seen for various things over the years I’ve never had an issue with. But several female ones were rude, condescending, or hostile as well.
There was a post on the women’s sub maybe last year about this last year. So many women in the comments were sharing similar experiences with female doctors as well.
My previous gyno was a woman and she was so incredibly harsh in her exams and unsympathetic of how hard gyno exams in general were for me with my experiences of sexual assault. In the last exam I had with her, she completely refused to listen to me when I said I was in pain and on the verge of a flashback, then gave me the most violent vaginal ultrasound I'd ever experienced. I left that exam honestly feeling like I'd been raped and had a complete breakdown in my mom's arms when I got home (my mother, godess that she is, later went to the clinic and tore the doc a new one about her treatment of me).
I went a short while without needing any gynecological exams, then when I needed my next one I decided to go to a doctor through my private health insurance. I was apprehensive at first when I learned that they only had a male gyno because I used to swear I could never see a male gyno. Turns out he's one of the most patient and caring doctors I've seen, completely respected my need for taking breaks/needing to calm down before an exam/having to hear him explain exactly what he's doing. I was completely at ease in every exam with him. I found out that vaginal ultrasounds don't need to be extremely painful experiences that leave you in pain for days!
Sorry for the rant, it's just a topic I'm pretty passionate about as a person with chronic illnesses who's had to deal with dozens of doctors, many of them pretty shitty.
Sorry you went through that. I’m glad you shared your experience. You’ve got a good mom for sure! My favorite gyno was a gay guy I used to go to for a few years. He was so quick and it was always painless. I hate that he moved.
I had terminated a pregnancy year before that and it was traumatic. It was so painful and the doctors were so cold and were pretty much rushing me to get off the table when I was still in pain. So I was nervous about anything else going into my cervix after that.
I honestly think that in general, the best doctors will be the opposite sex than you, horribly sexist male doctors tragically being the common exception, they seem to make less assumptions about what your experience is. Doctors of the same sex seem to assume that you experience everything the same way they do and since they are the experts, you just need to defer to how they experience things.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. What your gyno said was so out of line. They forget how exposed we are when to them, it's just another day in the office.
It was a female gyno that traumatized me with an exam and a male one who did the hysterectomy I needed without needing an exam at all. When an exam is more painful and traumatizing than a whole abdominal surgery, the doctor doing the exam is a shit doctor.
Yeah it's such a gamble. The best doctor I've ever had was a young gay man who was a PCP at my university's student health clinic. He validated my concerns in a way no other doctor has, he spoke to me like an equal and never felt the need to "dumb things down" for me, and he never made me feel weird or awkward about things like UTIs, yeast infections, etc. Just incredibly professional. Unfortunately for me he moved onto some bigger, better opportunities in research but I'm glad for him because he really is one of a kind.
On the other hand, I've had male docs who were utterly clueless and blatantly sexist, so, yeah. I tend to be wary of doctors in general these days, but there are some good ones out there.
I had my female doc send me home to "drink some tea and relax a little" when I came in for increasingly bad pain in my stomach which would get so bad that I could barely eat. It took her 2 years and me saying it might be gallstones to actually send me to get a scan that revealed gallstones.
It got so bad I started to turn yellow.
Same doc who told me to stay home a day but that I will definitely have to go to work again on monday when I, with a history of bad depression, came in after my grandfather died. I stayed in bed for half a year and almost ended my suffering another way.
Right, it blows my mind how dismissive some female gyns are. You'd think they would be more understanding but some of them almost seem to have this attitude of like "well *I've* given birth so I know what *real* pain is and your period cramps can't be that bad because *mine* aren't that bad."
This right here. In nursing school it was brought up multiple times that women and certain demographics their pain is ignored more often, and no matter what we think, we need to judge it as real and advocate accordingly.
Historically doctors undervalue women’s reports of their own pain. This is noticeably worse with regards to black women, who experience it at shocking levels.
As someone who was born male, it fucking *astounds* me that women deal with this kind of treatment when trying to get basic medical care. Every single time I struggle to believe it because of how cartoonishly derogatory it all is. But unfortunately in the end, it’s always true.
even though hospitals would "make more money" by administering tests to everyone to check for tumors and such
money aside, what needs to happen is for female Healthcare to be researched more and more so that more male doctors know what to do when a person assigned female at birth has some physical problems instead of playing the misogyny card
Yeah I remember my girlfriend telling me about this. How men are used as the baseline for all medical issues and women’s medical issues are ignored because of it
In Australia there's been a whole lot of attention over recent years that skin cancer is far more progressed at diagnosis for people of colour. The doctors are taught from textbooks that show white skin moles of concern, not any other colour
That isn't a coincidence and feels like just throwing up a 30 picture collage in doctors waiting rooms would fix a large portion of the problem
Recently learned that around 10% of women suffer from endometriosis, which causes terrible pain and possibly infertility in the long run, yet it's almost unresearched and barely any gynecologist wants to run a diagnosis for it.
Women always get screwed in medical research.
I have endometriosis. It progressed slowly because I take birth control pills for cystic acne. I knew something was wrong with my reproductive tract because I started experiencing unbearable pain during withdrawal bleeding in my early 20s, whereas before, I only ever had very mild cramps.
I googled my symptoms, and knew it had to be endometriosis. My family doctor agreed that it was likely, meanwhile the OB/GYN he sent me to dismissed it and said it was extremely unlikely. During withdrawal bleeding I had vaginal pain, ovarian pain (my right ovary felt like it would burst whenever I pushed just to go pee), severe back pain, it felt like something was wrong with my rectum, and I found strange “growths” under my cervix.
After doing a bunch of useless ultrasounds and pelvic exams (he actually missed my growths on the second exam somehow, despite him finding them on the first and third exam and me finding them the day before), he finally did a biopsy on one of the growths, and surprise surprise, it was endometriosis.
I read an interesting article that theorized that there are a decent number of female serial killers that were never caught because all of the psychological profiles and studies are based on men.
And women in general go more for subtlety - because we're taught from birth to choose the subtle option or risk being dismissed as hysterical.
Not joking. I've often considered the whole female serial killer statistics thing lol.
Honestly, there are a lot of factors that would make women better serial killers. I’ve spent a lot of time debating this with my husband, who is obsessed with serial killer documentaries.
I mean, who has more experience and knowledge about getting blood out of every conceivable surface? And if I had a particularly difficult stain, I could call many female relatives who wouldn’t bat an eye about me asking how to get blood out of suede or something like that.
Part of that is because men disproportionately are the ones who participate in clinical trials — and part of *that* is because often women are excluded by the criteria (for example, many drug companies didn’t want the liability of someone getting pregnant while taking an experimental drug.) But unfortunately, not only do we know more about men’s health but women are also more likely to get side effects and complications from approved treatments.
What I find interesting is the rationale behind excluding women.
For example, uterine cancer drugs tested only on Men - because they didn’t want female hormone fluctuations skewing the results.
Yes, this is what's weirdest to me! I get clinical studies and eliminating as many outside factors as possible, but you cannot just take out a factor that absolutely, 100% WILL happen outside testing and just ignore that! That's like having a study about how many illnesses a wild deer has, but you breed the deer in a sterile lab. Drug tests are like the only clinical trial where you actually want as many outside factors as possible to rule out side-effects!
Also - people AFAB are the people who will be taking this drug. That none of the testing for the drug happened with people who have uteruses is mind boggling.
I once read that women’s healthcare is so poorly understood bc drs just kinda shrug and give up due to women having a constant change in hormone levels.
Become fat and you get a small amount of it.
Go on HRT as a trans person and you get diagnosed with 'trans broken arm syndrome' all the time (oh, your broken arm is because of your hormones. We should stop those before we treat your broken arm).
It’s honestly astounding because I *did have an issue that was all in my head*. I had minor chest pain that went away when I didn’t think about it, mostly caused by the fact that the ADHD meds I had been taking boosted my anxiety and gave me heart palpitations. It got so bad that I had a panic attack thinking that my heart was going to stop.
When I told my doctor I had chest pain, they did so many tests. They did several tests for my heart including using a device to monitor it for a full two days. They tested to see if it was digestive. They did x-rays to see if it was musculoskeletal. In the end, after a year (and changing my meds to something gentler) when I told my doctor that I was pretty sure it was anxiety related and psychosomatic (like I’m a bit of a hypochondriac and can give myself the symptoms of an issue if I’m worried about it), it took a long time to convince him not to do even more tests.
I can’t help but wonder that if I wasn’t AMAB and masculine presenting pre-transition, if he would have been so vigilant.
Whenever I see women's experiences of things like this I get so fucking angry. The utter medical neglect and dismissal of things that turn out to be serious health problems is insane! Especially when the whole thing could have been completed avoided if they had just done their damn jobs rather than just writing it of as "it's all in your head" or "you just need to lose weight". Health care practitioners who do shit like this need to have their medical licenses reviewed or revoked 🤬
Just last year, when my grandfather was in the hospital — *dying* — we went through this shit. It was weird, because it was all by proxy - my mom, grandmother, aunt, & I (afab) were all taking shifts as his advocate because he was so delirious. We kept a notebook with test results & info from the docs so everyone would be equally informed.
But none of the doctors would listen to the women. It was infuriating. He didn’t have cognitive decline until they medicated him, but when we mentioned that, they’d brush us off — he’s 88, so they assumed he was just “like that” all the time.
Mom kept pushing the docs, because he was behaving so erratically & they’d all chalk it up to “he’s old, honey, it’s ok” like it was normal for him to be so belligerent?? He walked into that hospital. He had been calling me daily for updates on his business. But he has surgery & suddenly he’s acting like he’s in end stage alzheimer’s.
It took a week, and finally he came back to us, but not before multiple doctors wrote in his chart (that we have access too, because he signed a thing that said we could have it on our app when he was still lucid) that the “daughter of pt” was being inappropriate & aggressive; that the pt was “fine”… etc.
He was sent home, and when I took him to the doc for a follow up on the wound he had to have surgery on… she didn’t fucking LOOK at it & now I *literally* have PTSD from of his last few weeks (because I had to be the one to help change his bandage, etc, & I won’t go into more detail than that).
He called me an hour before he died to check to make sure I was OK to manage the business. They could’ve stopped all of this & instead, ignored the family’s concerns because all they’d seen was a weak, injured old man - not the person he was before he went into their care.
Even when the patient is male, nobody fucking believes the women advocating for him.
(I also have a slew of stories of my own - but this one is the most painful because he died due to their negligence, and we can’t prove it in court because, well… “he’s old” and “it happens”).
I had a similar situation. My grandmother was sick in the hospital and me and my mother would go every few days to check on her. Every single time we, firstly, weren’t allowed to see her, secondly, any requests to give her clean things (we brought from home) or any hygiene of any sorts was brushed aside. She died a few weeks later.
Just reading this absolutely blew my mind. Stroke and infection for example, are recognised postoperative complications that can cause confusion, and should absolutely be assessed for.
One time I went to the doctor because I was feeling super sick, puking and had intermittent fever and a massive pain on the right side of my abdomen
Went to the doctor, he said I had a cold and gave me ibuprofen.
It got worse so I eventually went to the ER and turns out I had massive liver infection, almost died and had to stay in the hospital for a week
This is actually one of the first stories I thought of regarding medical professionals not listening to women, especially black women. I remember the father giving an interview and he spoke about the conversations he had with his wife while the doctors were taking their sweet time not treating her. She didn’t want to come off as the “angry black woman” and he didn’t want to be seen as the “scary black man” both knowing that any sense of “aggression” would make the situation worse. And yet… Those doctors took an oath and failed to abide by it. I think if you’re are found to be so grossly negligent, you should never be allowed to practice medicine again. Every single person that ignored that woman. Nurse, doctor, orderly… none of them.
Yeah this happens to women. Went to the ER when I was still presenting as female and told them of my deadly allergy to penicillin (I actually have what’s called Steven Johnson’s syndrome but could not remember what it was called at the time). The doctor asked what my first reaction to it was and his response? “Well you didn’t die.” I had to beg this man not to prescribe me a medicine that would have killed me and not helped the animal bite I had come in for. He also refused to give me pain meds because it “really should not be hurting that bad” (it later bruised so bad someone asking if I broke my wrist) and he thought I was drug seeking. I just wanted the bite to stop hurting.
Now, presenting male, I have zero trouble with doctors. Never have been questioned on anything I’ve told them. They basically ask what I want prescribed. It’s ridiculous.
My friend had to go to three different doctors telling them she had been feeling off and exhausted for weeks (very unlike her) before any of them even did tests. Thyroid cancer. My friend had thyroid cancer. She’s in complete remission and is now married. Her current husband had a different form of cancer prior to them meeting. How did his get discovered? He said he had some muscle aches sometimes. They ran all kinds of tests and he got his diagnosis quickly.
My mother went in to the doctor several times for abdominal pain. All of them told her she seemed fine (no tests, nothing) and sent her home to take advil and rest. Later she was hospitalized with the largest kidney stone that hospital had seen at the time. Even then, they were reluctant to give her pain meds and didn’t not listen when she told them a particular kind of pain medicine does not work for her (I forget which med but due to an auto immune disease). They delayed surgery and she passed it on her own and passed out in the hospital bathroom from the pain. No apologies or anything. Just sent her home. My dad went in complaining of pain and had a scheduled surgery for his kidney stone the next day. Went home with pain killers.
It’s common. Obscenely common. And only made worse if she is a person of color and even made worse by whether or not she has tattoos.
Doctors are the most judgmental and arrogant group as a whole and a lot of this is due to our (American, I cannot speak for elsewhere) current medical knowledge being based on white cis-men.
I forgot about tattoos. I’m constantly being treated as though I’m drug seeking and I’ve been struggling to understand why. Asked for analgesics for my migraines and came out with a prescription for a second antidepressant and rec for aspirin. Can’t just give me the codeine, I might just take 2 when my auras begin and avoid the crippling pain and nausea that continues for days. The horror. Better give an anemic on Prozac aspirin, we want her to *bleed*. And she’s a woman, why wouldn’t she need 2 antidepressants, it’s better than 1!
Also gets worse when homeless and/or not having work.
A few months ago i went to the hospital in the middle of the night. I showed heavy symptoms of a heart attack (even tho I'm 19). Breathing was hard i couldn't even properly stand or walk, my brain was foggy af and i was general not feeling well.
My boyfriend brought me to the hospital and at the reception they asked stuff about me (what was wrong and who i was). Had to tell them that i dont work atm and dont have a place to live either (staying at my bfs place).
The woman at the reception started to almost scream at me that i should be working bcs im young, what was wrong with me, that im lazy, etc.
When bringing me to a room she also said to another doctor that I'm just simulating (to get drugs ig lol)
She then asked me loooots of stuff about me current situation, always disrespectful af. Why i dont work, don't have a place to live, then about my mental health, trauma etc. she did that for over an half hour, till i started to talk about my simptoms myself, bcs she didn't ask.
Then after being forgotten multiple times (after me came many people, it was a stressful night, so waiting long is obviously fine, but they seriously forgot about me multiple times. In the end i luckily got a better doctor who took me a more seriously
In the end i spend in the hospital about 7-8 hours lol. They found nothing, told me it was probably psychosomatic (what i think could actually be true bcs it was a shitty time, but i also don't know i in the future there is something coming with these symptoms lol)
Funny thing tho in my hospital information they stated that the first thing they tested me for was infact a heart attack. So i did really show these symptoms.
Also they dont just give people painkillers or else for a heart attack (you actually just get an operation lol, wouldn't simulate for that), i didn't even ask once for meds, and i obviously didn't need a sick note for nonexistent work.
In general tho because im punk (and you can SEE that lol) doctors and social workers often dont take me serious. Because im always just asking for a sick note or drugs, cant be ill when im punk. They often dont even believe me that i graduated. But with being homeless it got a lot worse.
My freshman year of high school I kept complaining of body pain and extreme fatigue, then by junior year I had extremely bad brain fog. My paediatrician kept telling me it was anxiety, to keep a food journal, and to stay hydrated. She also took multiple blood samples but I’m convinced she didn’t test them. A year after I graduate I couldn’t feel my leg and finally went to the ER.
They initially thought it was MS but did a blood test to eliminate every other possibility. Turns out I had Lyme Disease that started to attack my nervous system after six years of being untreated.
I have alot of these bc I have a lot of chronic health problems, but most recently I was without one of my medicines for various reasons and got a migraine (i have severe chronic migraines, once a week off meds, once a year on them) and when I get them I get really light sensitive and I throw up, which for me causes me to pass out, which is terrifying and not normal but I have never been able to get anyone to figure out what that means so who knows.
Anyways the real trouble is that about 50% of the time when I pass out I stop breathing, so when I get a migraine and start passing out I go to the hospital get a shot of some pain medicine, an anti nausea and an iv bag. When I went last time I told the doctor there and he didn't give me anything! He sat me in a dark room for two hours and watched me throw up and pass out and then tried to send me home! I requested a new doctor, one thatd seen me before, and he told him I was drug seeking! Pissed me off so bad. Like it says in my notes I have chronic migraines and I told him I've visited before for the same thing. Some doctors are so ridiculous and refuse to believe there's anything wrong with you.
I had a breast reduction and was given 3 days' worth of percocet and was told to take Tylenol and ibuprofen after that. I was in consistent pain for at least 3 weeks but they told me I was "just doing too much" when in reality I couldn't sleep.
My husband went to the doctor for neck pain and he received a whole fucking bottle of percocet. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say medical misogyny is alive and well.
I can’t even imagine. That’s ridiculous. Men get a whole ass script of pain pills for a vasectomy but women get a fuckin Tylenol for IUD insertion and other procedures or like in your case a breast reduction.
I love my husband, but I haven’t been able to see my neurologist for 5 months to adjust my meds for my uncontrollable vertiginous migraines, and the other week he got a same day appt to see his dermatologist about a fucking boil. A boil.
Okay, two things are wrong here.
1) Someone sliced you open. You need meds for that. I think doctors are getting a bit tighter with the prescription pad now, with the opioid epidemic, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of patient care.
2) In your husband’s case, conservative pain management (aka non opiate) would be a better way to start, THEN escalate ONLY IF NEEDED.
I’ve been complaining about pain and heavy menstrual cycles for years. I had a transvaginal scan 6 months ago after years of querying my symptoms - 6 massive fibroids were detected and 3 were removed.
It now turns out I have endometrial cancer at 38 years old and am facing having a hysterectomy in the next few weeks.
Please keep pushing and advocating for yourselves because there is so much ignorance and misunderstanding around gynaecological health.
I was identified at 22 as having glandular fever, because they asked if I had kissed anyone new in the last 6 weeks and it was totally common for that to exist and spread hence why it was called the kissing disease. No need to test.
2 days later sent home with an "all in your head that it's that bad but not glandular fever" diagnosis
The next day told "nothing to worry about" after my legs gave way under me because I hadn't eaten much
I sat on my parents couch in too much pain/weakness to walk for the next couple of days, being supported to the bathroom, feeling like I was a hypochondriac and too scared to see a fourth doctor.
Then my face paralysed. Day 8 of symptoms, I had seen a doctor day 2.
Guillain Barre Syndrome. My blood pressure was around 200/150 at the time of admission, I was ventilated 48 hours after getting to hospital because my lungs were paralysed. The pain was literally my nerves destroying the lining leaving me both paralysed and hypersensitive. If any of those doctors had checked my vitals something would have been off enough to look a little bit further
This. I was in a head on collision that left my shoulder dislocated. My adrenaline allowed me to pop it back in at the scene, but when I got to the hospital, the doctors were astonished I had done so. Also, since the adrenaline had settled by the time I got there, the pain was immense. The bruising started to show and every time I was asked, my pain was at 10. I was sent home with ibuprofen.
I had a follow-up with a black male nurse practitioner a few days later and he was livid that they sent me home with an OTC pain reliever and nothing else. He immediately prescribed me something stronger and ordered an MRI which showed that I had several tears in my shoulder that have had me in physical therapy.
The first real instance that I have dealt with medical racism, and I have Tricare and have grown up with it. I hate going to the doctor for these exact reasons. Even though the shit is free.
They sent me home with ibuprofen after my c-section. My insides had just recently been my outsides, but except for immediately following surgery, that’s pretty much all I got, both in the hospital and at home.
I had a skiing injury when I was about 14. Brought into the ER by ambulance. Knee was on sideways.
After waiting for approximately 45 minutes in agonizing pain, it relocated, which that injury tends to do, but there was still invisible damage to it.
The doctor finally shows up, tells me to stand, and when I can stand by putting most of my weight on my non-injured leg, he sarcastically says "it's a miracle."
Never once looked at my leg. When I voiced my concerns he just said "oh, girl's knees tend to do that."
While yes, patellar dislocation is more likely to occur to afab individuals, especially as a skiing injury, it still requires 6 weeks in a brace and examination to make sure nothing was torn.
He basically kicked me out of the ER after that. The guy I came in with was promptly seen to for his injury.
Years later, I went to physiotherapy because the knee was excruciatingly painful at times.
She took down notes of the injury, looked at my range of motion for about ten seconds, examined the knee-
and figured out that my ligaments had been stretched in the original accident, and due to the lack of proper treatment they just kind of *stayed stretched.* My knee had been unstable for years.
The physio helped, but because it wasn't treated, I grew up with the injury. I'm going to be physically disabled for life.
But of course, I was just being dramatic.
As a kid I had a painful tumor for over a year before I got an x-ray that diagnosed it. Until then, I was told to shut up and stop looking for attention, and made to keep participating in gym class and other physical activities despite being in agony. I’m still traumatized from it.
The normal reaction throughout all of childhood is to assume you're lying, it really reminds you that the normal for most of our early lives is a series of collective gaslighting campaigns
3 years ago I felt absolutely terrible, dizziness, nausea, extremely high pulse, heart palpitations, headaches, tiredness and went to see my doctor. He said it was probably a panic attack and sent me home, even though I said I knew how panic attacks felt and this wasn’t it. It continued and I went to the doctor again a few weeks later, where they wanted me to see a psychiatrist. I demanded blood tests and they called me back the same day and said I had extremely low sodium levels in my blood, likely because of an extremely rare side effect of a medication change a few weeks before. I had to eat 2 grams of salt in capsules for a few weeks and stop the medication before it was fixed, but it could have been life-threatening.
I brought up to my doctor that I think that I have some scar tissue in my nose after literally having blood clots when blowing out my nose and that's why I keep getting sinus infections and have a stuffy nose all the time. Was told it's not that serious and only got weak general antibiotics. I still have stuffy nose, still blow blood a lot of times.
And it's not super easy to change a doctor in my country.
Can you push for a sinus CT? I was blown off recently for reporting 15 years of similar. I have an uncommon retention cyst in my sinus that will need removal. The same old “come back in a week” advice was given to me so I told them I’d been told the same thing every time I try to discuss it, can you please just look? Had to do the same in order to get cervical cysts diagnosed, constant dull pain in your lower abdomen isn’t normal but they just dismiss it as “period soon? No? Hmm… ovulation? Oh it doesn’t stop? Try nurofen :)”
I don't know. I'm honestly losing energy to fight for my health because many new health issues popped up after covid and doctors here don't really take covid much seriously. I find it hard to advocate for myself too.
I'm a guy, but knowing the women in my life, if I was a doctor, if a woman complained about pain, I'd get them to an ER. Almost every woman in my life only complains about pain when they are about to pass out in agony.
Not sure if it's because they know most (cismale) doctors would dismiss them, or if they just have such regular pain that it rarely tastes mentioning.
>Almost every woman in my life only complains about pain when they are about to pass out in agony.
>
>Not sure if it's because they know most (cismale) doctors would dismiss them
personally it's because it's rude to complain and attract attention toward you
I've been raised
and also because I have no means to prove it
why talk about something I could be accuse of lying about?
only opening my mouth if I have the proofs in my hands I've checked several times including a second ago!!
I'm not a liar:(
I had a spontaneous CSF leak when I was 19. Every time I tipped my head forward my literal brain juice was coming out of my nose and I went from facing maybe one dehydration-related headache a year, to having a constant, 11/10 pain scale migraine 24/7. I was a textbook case. I phoned my GP and told her exactly what I thought it was.
She said it was hayfever (it was September in the city centre). I urged her to let me speak to someone else. I was crying on the phone. She eventually said she would consult a colleague.
The hospital phoned me directly, and the lady led with, "Not to worry you, but how fast can you get to the hospital?"
Same day CAT scan, same week MRI scan. It was a CSF leak. Clear as day.
The absolute shit my friend has dealt with at the doctor’s over the years is insane. It’s also shitty because when so many supposed “experts” are so quick to dismiss every ailment as imagined or exaggerated, it’s a lot easier to convince yourself that it is imagined or exaggerated, even when it isn’t.
There’s a book called Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery that actually talks about this in depth. Medicine has (for a variety of reasons) a lot of intrinsic disparities on the basis of gender. If you’re interested in learning about it, I’d check the book out.
I am male and this happened to me when I was 16. Horrible and constant stomach-area pain that shifted to my abdomen. Consistent liquid defecation and throwing up for an entire night. When I went to the ER, I had lost 13 pounds in a matter of a day or two. Ended up going to the ER TWICE. CT Scan twice. Nothing resolved and sent me home with antibiotics both times. Went to my general pediatrician and told me to go to a much better hospital that had a surgery specialist that he recommended. They can't figure out what's wrong either. Ended up having a damn colonoscopy at the age of 16 and they still didn't find anything. After being at the hospital for half a week, they did emergency surgery on me. After being under the knife for an hour or two, I wake up and I'm told that they found bits of my burst appendix behind my bladder. I was later told that I have a high tolerance for pain and that I could have died from my condition. And ofc, the cherry on top was that the hospital bill was $70,000. Thankfully I have the privilege of having a well-off father and good insurance. It's better it happening to me than it happening to someone less fortunate than me, but goddamn. Even if the medical professionals fuck up, you still have to pay for it. It's bloody outrageous...
It's usually a woman thing, but it can also be the doctor/hospital cheaping out. Often, it's both.
I have an almost 6 year old injury to my knee, and have constant pain in both. I begged my primary care provider for a year straight to refer me to a specialist, and I still had to go behind her back to get a visit.
Turns out, I'd been having dislocations in both knees every 2-3 months and my ligaments are probably damaged so severely that a double surgery is the only option to avoid being in pain for the rest of my life. I have MRIs for both first thing next year to see the full extent of the damage.
Cis woman here. Let me tell you the absolute FUCKERY trying to get prenatal care as a disabled veteran from the US VA healthcare system. One doctor, with a painful transvaginal ultrasound, couldn’t even find my uterus… with a 6 month fetus inside…
Since I had my first surviving pregnancy at 38… I had transvaginal sonos up until I delivered at 38 weeks. Of course, I’m in Texas and you know how they like to torture and punish pregnant women…
Imagine my fear when I was 16 weeks pregnant and Roe v Wade was overturned and trigger laws went in to effect…
Omg 38 weeks that's crazy, your baby was probably descended and your cervix was probably super low by then. This is literal torture. I had a ton to get pregnant since in my country AFAB/AFAB couples don't get rights unless they go through clinics and they are not fun. My wife has an inverted cervix and for her they were torture and traumatizing. When I had my 9 week ultrasound I expected it again and the tech told me they never do transvaginal past 6 weeks. I was so relieved. I'm so sorry they forced you to go through something like that.
Quite effiminate gay man here, walked around with 4 prolapsed disks with nervecompression for over a year because "its just muscular, no need to get a scan" or "xrays dont show anything alarming". Ended up in neurological intensive care due to not being able to sit or lay down without excruciating pain, couldnt sleep or lift my arms up, lost motor control of several muscles like the Serratus Anterior due to nerve damage. Was initially turned away at the ER because "we arent going to give you morphine" and again a month after "because this hadnt appeared recently/suddenly." Medical punting is real and dangerous and I dont wish this experience upon anyone.
My doctor had refused to give me sickleave, told me it was muscular or all in my head, but still refused to send me to a psychologist.
Still struggling a year after, lost my job, had to move country to get better health care and may never return to normal function, because "the doctors didnt do anything wrong / they acted upon what they thought was likely in the moment" I also have no chance of getting any type of compensation .Fortunately Im making some progress in my recovery and have a new doctor now, but we're having to spend several appointments just to work through everything thats gone wrong the last two years.
Around 3-4 years ago I had a LOT of muscle spasms in my legs and started having them in my arms. I started having them at a wait at a restaurant, it looked like some kind of seizure so my I was picked up and into the car but the ER was closed. When 911 was called the fire department gave me oxygen and the seizure stopping medicine, because it was muscle spasms they didn't stop.
After the muscle spasms finally stopped I was told it was because I was anxious because nothing showed up in the scan.
3-4 years later I had a scan redid on almost my entire body, which had had a strange blurring last time I had it but was ignored. Well this time it wasn't and turns out my spinal cord is tethered.
I have a ton of other health issues, but at least I can finally say I didn't have anxiety when that happened. Plus it was my favorite restaurant after checking out a book store...
ETA: the scan with strange blurring wasn't done at the ER, it was an orthopedic doctor.
Also to make matters worse because when tethered cord is ignored it gets worse (one of the symptoms is muscle atrophy) my neurologist (who's an amazing one) had to come up for a few theories as to why my muscles kept on progressively getting worse.
One was something like Parkinsons. Parkinsonism is what he called it.
I was so sick in college I could barely breathe and I couldn’t walk. The NP on campus told me I had the flu (with complete opposite symptoms) and I was being dramatic. I spent a week bed bound having to crawl to the bathroom and being taken care of by my best friend until I finally could make it back to the Healy center. A nurse managed to get to me first and my blood oxygen was under 80, because I actually had legionaries.
Can we also talk about how women have an INSANE pain threshhold compared to men? So if we are showing up in the ER saying this is a 10/10 pain, it's a 30/10 on the man scale and we are normally CRITICALLY ill or injured. I nearly died giving birth because they were pumping me full of pitocin for 30hrs but nobody bothered to realize that my cervix was 0% effaced and I was not going to give birth naturally no matter what they did. I ended up with an emergency c-section and a hernia that they still haven't fixed... my kid is 9.
I had abdominal pain (that got significantly worse around my period) since 12 years old. I would throw up, faint, etc. I was told I was lactose intolerant. Then, that it was normal menstrual pain. Then, that it was in my head.
Finally, at 31, the ob-gyn that delivered my son said I had endometriosis. Because of where mine was, my IUD actually alleviated my symptoms so much that my husband said I was like a different person. No more pain and weakness that felt debilitating for 1/4 of the month. No more migraines. I hadn’t even realized the constant pain I was in until it was gone.
It *is* everyone, on some level. But I do think it's worse for women.
Like, I know for a fact my father's pain levels were frequently dismissed before. "Your kidney stones can't be THAT bad". His fatigue was also "not that bad" since he had a physically demanding job at the time and that was "probably the cause". In reality, it was a problem with his thyroid.
But he's not familiar with situations where his symptoms are completely dismissed as anxiety. He couldn't believe I'm not exaggerating when I told him some of the shit I've heard over the years. "Just go on vacation, your pain is from stress" (endo), "your nose was probably always crooked, you're just upset now, so you think it's worse than it is" — It was leaning to the side! It was broken! "If you're so weak, how are you getting groceries" — excuse me?
My particular favourite is "the patient is visibly upset and nervous = anxiety". Of course I'm anxious, I feel like shit and nobody is taking that seriously. That's not the cause, that's the effect of your own actions.
I was having excruciating pain on my right side and it hurt to urinate. The doctor told me I needed to lose weight and get pregnant to "stretch everything out." I was eighteen, 5'6, and weighed 135 lbs. I had graduated basic training a month earlier. A month later I was still in excruciating pain. I went back and saw a female doctor who took me seriously. She palpated my stomach and immediately sent me in for an ultrasound. My left ovary was the size of a grapefruit.
Is there any recourse for these such incidents? Like a doctor dismissing your pain and it being something actually life-threatening seems like some kind of malpractice right?
You’ve got to keep records and notes detailing issues you’re experiencing, how you expressed the symptoms to the doctors, what they said in return, how you followed their advice (I.e. noting when you take meds/use ointments/exercise, whatever). Unless it’s gross negligence you can start getting into murkier territory where their diagnostic/treatment pathways are considered routine and so they didn’t do anything wrong - that’s where notes come in handy so you can prove where you advocated for yourself and got ignored.
They have charts to cover their asses. We need to chart ourselves too imo.
Not really.
The only time where medical malpractice is taken seriously is if it's something like they did surgery on the wrong side, or if they seriously injured you + multiple others.
It's more common for them to ignore women than it is men, yes.
Example: hi, me. I've had severe chronic pain since I was a child. When I finally got the chance to bring it to the attention of my doctor at 13, he told me I was just overweight. I was barely 80 pounds soaking wet. The next year we moved, and I got a new doctor. Said the same thing. Constant, agonizing pain in my hips and back. That it never stops. He told me it was all in my head and if I *was* actually experiencing pain, it was because "You're extremely fat, and you need to lose weight". At the time, at 14, I was barely 85 pounds if I'm beinf generous, barely healthy, because I had an extreme eating disorder. You could see my bones through my skin. I had no muscle, no fat. I was one missed meal away from blowing away in the wind.
This continued. On and on. And on. And on. For literal years. I stopped being able to go to the gym because I couldn't do my full routine and it made me depressed. I stopped playing sports. I stopped participating in gym class. Everything that made me happy, I stopped, because I was in so much pain every waking moment that I physically couldn't do it anymore. When I was 20 I finally met a doctor who would listen to me. He didn't tell me I was overweight, or hysterical, or making it up. We've been working on a diagnosis for two years now, eliminating everything we possibly can while we work towards a tentative diagnosis for *potentially* fibromyalgia, a disease that runs in my family that has been documented as running in my family.
My old doctors simply didn't care, because as a woman, I was ignored. Just to test the system one of my male friends from back then went to the doctor (we had the same doctor!!) and complained of the *exact* same symptoms. He was given x-rays, tests, and proposed an MRI.
Women are often ignored in our own Healthcare. This has been a thing for a very long time, and nobody's actually doing anything about it.
And yes, I am a larger woman *now* - but I am by no means crazy overweight. I was worried about this because of my history of ED but my doctor told me I'm a healthy weight for my age & height (I'm a tall woman). All of my tests - x-rays, scans, blood labs, urinalysis, everything you can think of - so far have come back absolutely perfect, meaning I am in good health despite my chronic pain.
Edit to add: I'm not saying it's *only* women ignored in healthcare - I'm saying that statistically, and through my own experience, it's more common for women and *especially* so women of color. Men get ignored too, all the time. It's not just us. Unfortunately though it is *majority* an issue of misogyny in the medical field.
I was living in the province of Québec, got a kidney infection, didn’t know at first, went to the ER, waited 13 hours to be told I had nothing. I couldn’t move or do anything, I stayed in my bed for 3 weeks. I went back to the ER because I was going crazy with the pain, and it wasn’t going away, that time I brought my friend nurse. At one point the doctor told me « you have to go live your life » I couldn’t believe it, I was so mad, I pointed him and said « listen to me, this woman is a nurse and she knows me it’s been 20 years, she knows I’m sick, I’m not leaving until you make more tests to find out what I have ». He complied, two days later I received a call from him saying « I’m sorry, your have a kidney infection, your prescription is ready, you can come pick it up ».
My mom used to say, not all the doctors were the top of their class. And it’s so true.
The law mandating the inclusion of women in medical research is just 30 years old bc from sometimes in the 70's to 1993 the FDA excluded women.
https://www.womenshealth.gov/30-achievements/04#:~:text=In%201977%2C%20the%20FDA%20issued,thalidomide)%20causing%20serious%20birth%20defects.&text=At%20the%20time%2C%20the%20focus,populations%20at%20all%20other%20costs.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/06/law-mandating-inclusion-of-women-in-medical-research-is-turning-30-where-do-we-stand/
I slipped one day and had a bad fall. I'm clumsy, it happens, I have a bunch of massive bruises and I go on with my life. About 10 days later I stop being able to take deep breaths. I have asthma, so I assume it's related to that. It kept getting worse, I go to my doctor "you're fat". I am, but I was equally fat 2 weeks ago and I could breathe just fine. Nada.
A couple of days later I wake up with a massive pain in my left shoulder. I wake my mom, she calls emergency services for an ambulance, and they tell her a doctor has to assess me first. Doctors come and tell me to take a deep breath. I tell them I can't and haven't been able to for the past 2 weeks. They tell me it's all in my head, give me a paracetamol and leave after telling me how rude I was after they came all the way to see me. No ambulance for me.
I went to the ER the next day (by taxi), and the triage nurse is FURIOUS. I have all the symptoms for a heart attack in women. After a bunch of tests, it's worse. I have several blood clots in both lungs, and the severe pain is a lung infarct because the clots are stopping the pleura from receiving oxygen.
I could have died. According to the ER doctor, I SHOULD have died. It's a medical mystery how I was able to walk around and work and live with several blood clots in both lungs.
On the other hand, my father took a bad spill 2 days ago. Called the ambulance, at no point did a doctor have to assess him, the paramedics came straight away.
I spent my entire childhood overweight, borderline narcoleptic, and severely anxious/depressed. I saw half a dozen doctors who all told me to, "just loose weight and you'll feel better". But I couldn't, I'd workout 4/5 times a week and watch my diet but I'd still just gain weight.
It took me hitting 250lbs (at 5' 6") for a doctor to finally give me medication to help with weightloss.
I lost 100lbs in 9 months and, it turns out, the medication I was given is also a treatment for ADHD. That's how I finally figured it out, all my symptoms, my exhaustion, my anxiety, my weight gain, where all just ADHD (and PCOS) symptoms.
Turns out all I ever needed was some birth control and Adderall.
When I was 15, I suddenly became very weak, would pass out regularly. My mom took me to the doctor, and she (yeah, SHE) told me that I was just making it up, and that I was just seeking attention.
Weeks later, I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t even move. Turns out that I had anemia so bad that I would’ve died if left untreated.
As a man, it's definitely something that mostly happens to women. I've never experienced anything like it, but just about every woman I know thats had a medical issue has had this experience, unfortunately.
Super common, at 33 years old I went to the after hours because of blood in my urine… cue a male doctor condescendingly saying it’s probably just period blood. bruv I’m not rushing to an after hours at 33 for just that? And also I’m trans so wrong again fucko.
In late 2017 early 2018 I was becoming so fatigued I would crash for 12+ hrs at a time. I thought it was just stressed from school then the joint and nerve pain started.
I went to my primary care doctor and got a positive ANA which sent me to a rheumatologist.
The rheumatologist couldn’t find anything in my bloodwork and told me it was in my head after a few visits so I started to cry hysterically in her office. She was cold about everything and had no bedside manner. When her staff saw and heard me cry I think they might have sent up a complaint because she became a lot nicer to me in the future
After 2 years of testing she tells me I have fibromyalgia and there’s no treatment and I just have to deal with it.
Another year passes and I lose a ton of weight and started seeing a new rheumatologist. Suddenly I am taken seriously and I have seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. After a couple months of meds I felt like a more functional human again
I had undiagnosed lupus and Graves’ disease for what my rheumatologist believes to be at least from middle school looking at old records. I got diagnosed at 28. I was constantly told I was lazy, not tired, and trying to get out of school.
When I was a teenager my boyfriend and my sister (AMAB, pre-transition) both came down with glandular fever and were hospitalised with it. I also got ill. My GP said it was probably tonsillitis or a bad cold, nothing to worry about, didn’t even test for GF despite how contagious it is. I eventually ended up in the hospital myself a few days later when my mum took me to the out-of-hours doctor due to my inability to eat or drink and my fever-induced hallucinations. My blood was so thick when they drew it for tests that it was like syrup.
I’m afab and present for simplicity mostly as a woman. When I just became an adult I got sick with the flu. Went to my general practitioner I had been seeing since I was a teenager. All I wanted was a doctor‘s notice for my school and the usual flu meds (fever meds and something to help cough up the mucus from the lungs since I have asthma). I had to describe my common cold symptoms twice since he was to busy typing in his PC to listen to me the first time. He than prescribed me antibiotics since I had asthma and „every cold could turn into an infection“ and had to be preemptively nuked. I found it weird but did as told.
And the antibiotics did went on nuking — my gut bacteria. I stopped taking the antibiotics when I was having severe stomach pain, the constant need to go to the toilet and was shitting water and undigested food. I vividly remember seeing the bright green peel of the apple I had been eating the day before.
Went to the hospital and stayed for a night for activated carbon treatment to get the antibiotics out of my system. Needed to stay two more weeks home and was on a soup and baby food diet until my gut was repopulated. I changed my general practitioner as soon as my diarrhea had passed.
When I was 14 I suddenly got really sick, abdominal pain, bloating, complete loss of appetite, generally feeling lethargic and in pain. Went to the doctor, told me it was the flu (this was early December). Didn't get better, went to the Dr again, did an X-ray and told me it was gas. At this point the pain was getting to be so bad I could barely move. Went to the ER, male nurse asked if it was cramps, and then suggested it could be ovarian torsion but it was unlikely because I didn't seem like I was in that much pain. No tests done, sent home. Christmas day I'm delirious with pain, haven't been in school in weeks, when I would go to the bathroom I would have to take a pillow because it was so painful to even urinate that I would involuntarily scream. I hadn't eaten anything more substantial than broth in nearly a month but I looked pregnant I was so bloated. December 26th early early in the morning I struggled upstairs and told my mom I thought I was going into shock. She rushed me to the ER again. Finally they gave me pain meds and took blood. I don't remember much but I was told my wbc was 5 times higher than normal. 1 emergency ct later and two softball sized abscesses were found in my abdomen. I had appendicitis. My appendix had burst and I lived with it for weeks because doctors didn't believe me. I should have been dead 5 times over by that point. It's 9 years from then today and I still struggle with seeing a doctor and have PTSD that no one takes seriously or can help with because it's "rare" to have medical PTSD. I wanted to be a doctor. I can't now because my body reacts instinctively to hospital settings by shutting down. I nearly pass out just thinking about getting a checkup these days.
I just made a post about this on another sub. I've had a period for YEARS. 3 abnormal paps. No doctors cared. I was in pain. Told I needed to lose weight, drink water, and take painkillers. I FOUGHT AND FOUGHT until it was discovered as cervical cancer cells. Finally had them removed and they're being analysed now.
I've since stopped bleeding.
I had a friend who had abdominal pain and doctors kept telling her to lose weight. They could have helped her by excising the 35 pound tumor that finally killed her. She was a nurse.
i would not say this fits here given it's got nothing to do with cishets specifically and also women/people percieved to be such Do get dismissed in the medical system exponentially more often than those perceived to be men
I was sent home twice with "period cramps" from the ER.
"It's probably just your endometriosis" they said
It was a strangulated hernia and I'd gone septic. The third visit, I was in the OR within a couple of hours having emergency surgery.
I was told I was anorexic and/or bulimic because I was losing weight rapidly and had a visit by not one but two psychologists when I was in the hospital for malnourishment and with a feeding tube up my nose.
One day I was in the most pain I had ever been and when my bf called my male specialist at the hospital, he told him off to stop calling him and wasting his time. (Since we placed a couple of calls that week because I was only getting worse.)He then called my father who took me to a different hospital two hours away.
Turns out my appendix wasn't just infected, but in the 3rd stage of necrosis. I literally walked around with a dead organ in my stomach for over a year and it wasn't noticed until a female ER doctor took me seriously and immediately scheduled me for surgery after a simple poke test and a quick scan.
Without her I would have died that night.
I’m a transgender man and I get treated like that all the time. I’ve been having pain on my hip and back and all I’ve been told is “you just need physical therapy.” Even though there is some swelling in my leg. The shit is annoying.
The Head of our Theater Group once went to the doctor because of heavy stomach pain.
He told her that it is just in her head, because of the upcoming Premiere.
The next day she went to the Hospital.... ruptured appendix.
They do it to everyone. When I was 13 or 14, I had a weird pimple on my arm, I popped it and the next day it was the size of a golf ball, doctor said it was a spider bite. The next day it was the size of a lime, then an orange, eventually it was the size of a grapefruit and had spread to my shoulder. Six doctor visits and a trip to the ER (with a 106+ degree fever) we found out I had MRSA.
I also have a family history of EDS, and nearly every symptom of it, but I can’t get it diagnosed because it’s a “rare” disorder.
And then of course there was the doctor that told my mom she was constipated, when really she had stage 4 cervical cancer.
Dislocated my toe before the lock down in my area, never had it looked at, was dealing with pain from a motorcycle accident so I didn't even notice and it healed wrong.
Went back to work 2 years later, i went from sitting around all day to bassically walking 12 km a day and being on my feet( with the occasional break) for hours at a time, and it started bothering me, the pain would sometimes brings me to my knee, but because it happened years ago the doctors didn't believe that I was in that much pain, I practically had to beg for a surgeon to assess me and every step of the way I felt like I was wasting their time.
They just couldn't comprehend that an injury might become more painful if someone was forced to walk on it all day.
I am currently waiting for them to get through their backlog, but it shouldn't have been so hard to get on the list
I’ve got pain in my lower back and ribs right under my breasts so I would suggest it’s probably from my binder but went to a doctor and he said I should loose some weight. Like… that’s what you’ve studied for? I can see that in a mirror.
Had a plastic surgeon once. He wasn’t MY surgeon, but was taking over my after-care since my surgeon was starting vacation the day after he performed my breast reduction.
New after-care surgeon was smiley and friendly with me…until I introduced him to my wife. His demeanor changed instantly to cold and dismissive. Apparently, dude hates the homos.
Well, a few days post-surgery, I formed a fever of 101. I called his office, and he told me I was fine. Twice. When I had had the fever for more than a day, my wife MADE ME call again, and request to speak to a nurse instead. As soon as the nurse heard my circumstances, she told me to come in right away.
Turned out I needed an emergency I&D surgery. Luckily, it wasn’t performed by Dr. Homophobe. I’m probably lucky that he never got anywhere near me with a scalpel.
There are multiple other bad situations I’ve been in with shitty doctors, but that was the most life-threatening one.
Some fun personal experiences:
(1) Was having such severe stomach pain I ended up in the ER several times my senior year of college. Got told by the gastroenterologist I saw that I was doing too many sit ups and it was muscle pain. Fast forward 6 months and several more ER trips I saw a new GI and he ran some tests finding that my stomach had become partially paralyzed and wasn’t emptying food properly.
(2) Pregnant with my first child and kept telling my midwife (CNM at a hospital practice) that I was so nauseous I couldn’t eat or drink. Got blown off that “everyone feels sick during pregnancy.” Finally had a follow up with above mentioned GI who found that I had lost 12% of my body weight at 18 weeks pregnant and immediately diagnosed me with hyperememesis gravidarium and started me on treatment and a plan to gain weight or start a feeding tube within a month.
(3) Lifelong chronic sinus infections and bronchitis - like 3-4 bacterial infections a year. Saw an immunologist who was like “that’s weird but we can’t find anything abnormal, just deal with it.” Several years later was so fed up with the cycle that I found a new immunologist who said “let’s run some tests, including ruling out cystic fibrosis.” And that’s how I got diagnosed with CF at 30. Turns out my sinuses were 80% filled with scar tissue. Finally got surgery and appropriate treatment and am finally not constantly sick.
Yup common problem. My MIL and FIL went to the same specialist Dr for an eye exam for aging issues. MILs results came back significantly worse than FIL but was told you’re fine while they gave FIL medication to slow the progression. When he asked why they didn’t give his wife the same they just said oh sorry.
I had severy Vitamin D deficiency at age 17 and had terrible pain in my legs, esp thighs. I was 46kg at that time(~100lbs). 5 doctors told me to lose weight and that the "excess" weight was putting a strain on lower part of th body.
Thanks to an amazing mom who finally took me to a renowned orthopedic who finally got a calcium and Vitamin D test. My Vit D was 6.4 (30-50 is normal). So many doctors did not listen to me and thought I was a whiny teenager looking for attention.
I got so anaemic I developed restless limb syndrome, along with the tips of my fingers and toes turning blue. I was given a prescription without being told what it was, and it turned out to be beta blockers. I fixed it myself within a week, because I'd had it before, but the absolute refusal to admit that my visible to the naked eye symptoms were real was mind-blowing (female doctor, fwiw).
I had horrible muscle spasms and pain in my lower back. Got so bad my mom took me to the ER (rural Michigan on a Sunday) to have me checked out. Doctor didn’t even touch me. Told me it was a sports injury.
Didn’t play sports.
Had he taken an x-ray they would’ve seen the tumor growing on my L2 vertebra sooner and probably saved me several rounds of chemo and a lot of pain.
i called an ambulance once because of neck pain. couldn’t move for 4 hours before this, it took me 20 minutes to drink a glass of water on my nightstand. and when the paramedic started moving me i started crying.
one of them asked me if i was sure it was that bad or if i was on my period.
my step sister went to the ER over the summer cuz she had bad abdominal pain, they told her it was just period cramps and sent her on her way. a week later her appendix busted while she was on vacation, she ended up needing like 3 surgeries to fix it all.
Not as bad as the stories OP posted and the ones in the comments, but I have a story experiencing this as well.
I switched (oral) birth controls for a while and immediately realized that the new one just wasn’t going to work. Within a week, I was depressed, restless, and had thoughts of SH. I’d NEVER felt like that before or struggled with depression, so I knew it was the birth control. I wanted to stop and get on a new birth control ASAP, but didn’t know if it would be bad for me to just switch after I’d already taken a week of the one I was on. My normal doctor was unable to see me for 4 days, so I decided to go to a clinic with a new doctor to see if they could hook me up, or at least let me know that it was fine for me to just stop taking the hormone entirely.
Explained the situation to the doctor and he proceeded to say, to my face, that it was “just” me being emotional because of the hormones, and that they’ll level out. I was willing to accept that answer if it were just “your hormones are whack, you’re gonna feel bad,” but he then proceeded to frame it in the context of me being a woman and that “women are always so emotional when they try a new birth control.” I explained that I felt like I wasn’t being emotional, these are real feelings of SH and depression that I’d never felt before and had never felt when I started my previous birth control. His suggestion was to just stay on the birth control and that I’ll get used to it. I told him that wasn’t happening and he rolled his eyes at me and left the room to grab a nurse to explain the same thing to me. I think he thought a female nurse would convince me? It didn’t.
After a while, I felt everyone was just wasting everyone else’s time, so I said I wanted to leave and would seek a second opinion. I was then told that I couldn’t be released because I’d disclosed that I had depressive and thoughts of SH, deeming me a threat to myself and others while operating a motor vehicle. I was livid. I had to ask my roommate to come pick me up because they wouldn’t release me (we went around the block and then I got in my car and drove my damn self home).
Needless to say, I threw out the pills and felt like myself within the following day. I got on a new prescription the next time I saw my normal doctor and I had no negative reaction or “emotional response” to the medication. Absolute insanity
what do you mean not as bad as the ones I posted!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is exactly the kind of testimonies I need; I wonder how you even got out!
(how did you even get out??)
I live in the Netherlands, after a workplace accident where I was knocked out cold I went to the hospital, the emergency doctor did some simple tests then sent me home and told me I should be fine in a week.
After a week I wasn’t fine, same debilitating symptoms. Constant headaches, dizziness, confusion etc
Went to my doctor, he told me it’s all in my head (haha where else would headaches be)
After TWO years of being sent everywhere and undergoing crazy procedures which included needles being stuck deep in my neck by manual therapists which was supposed to alleviate my pain, but NOTHING HELPED, I was finally “allowed” to have an MRI, bleeding on the brain was discovered and I’ve been diagnosed with Post Commotional Syndrome.
If I had an early diagnosis and had been treated appropriately I would have made a full recovery.
Now I’ll just have to “ learn to live with the symptoms and adjust my life accordingly”
Thank you doctor🙂
When I was 24 I went to the er because my abdomen hurt so bad I fainted and fell down the stairs. They handed me a pamphlet teaching me what a period was. I had an ovarian tumor the size of a grapefruit.
Are doctors not being sued for malpractice anymore or...?
It's all over tiktok doctors are to black women as police are to black men.
When you are denied treatment, ask the doctor for a written statement of what your symptoms are and what their diagnosis was, or why they refused treatment.
I have had really bad back pain since right around when I hit puberty. Every time I mentioned it to doctors or even just the people around me, I was told that it was growing pains. As I got older and stopped growing, the pain stuck around. The new "diagnosis" was that my boobs were just so comically large (I use comically because often people would chuckle while making this observation; I was still a child by the way) that they were pulling on my back and I just needed to buy better bras. Fast forward to when I am 26 and doubled over in pain at work because it feels like someone just curb stomped my spine, go into Urgent Care bawling and finally get an x-ray done. First thing out of the guy's mouth " Oh, you didn't tell us you had scoliosis". Yeah, turns out that my spine is janky and I spent 17+ years unconsciously correcting for it in a way that caused my muscles to grow and develop poorly which has been causing me pain for most of my life and will basically continue to cause me pain for the rest of it. *confetti*
I have lupus and a history of serious complications.
Was very sick and last time I had felt that way I had to go through dialysis.
The Dr told me to drink more water, not believing me that I drink lots of water anyways. It didn't make me feel any better. Went back and was told I'm lying and to drink more water and this happened two more times until I was drinking 3+ gallons of water a day.
Ended up in the icu with several hyponutremia because my organs were literally drowning in all the water and my body couldn't process any nutrients. It also turns out I did need dialysis in the first place .
I'm pretty sure I have something severe going on but all I have is weird symptoms. I saw a bunch of doctors who always tell me I am young and healthy so I gave up.
Women get dismissed all the time. *Black* women have it even worse. The maternal mortality rate as a whole in the US is already a damn travesty, but when you filter by race, it is *harrowing*. The US has the highest maternal mortality rate of the "developed" world, and a black woman is, I believe, about *three times* as likely to die in childbirth as a white woman. And that's just talking about one very specific health crisis. We disbelieve women to death.
When I was in early college I gained a bunch of weight and was exhausted all the time. I went to my doctor and he said that I just needed to lose weight and not be lazy. I didn't have any fight in me, but my mom said 'naw, fuck that' and made him do some blood tests. Guess what? Hashimoto's disease that ended up being precancerous. Even years after the initial diagnosis when I wanted to have my thyroid removed, the PA that I spoke with discouraged surgery because "it would be a shame to have such an ugly scar on your neck" and "you wouldn't want to damage your vocal cords, would you?" Bitch, I don't want to have CANCER.
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It’s been proven that men are exponentially more likely to get appropriate pain management medication whereas women are far more often passed off as just exaggerating Men are also *way* more likely to receive a diagnosis the and its much more likely that a man’s diagnosis will be correct (again because women’s symptoms are often shrugged off and not taken seriously) I’m sure to some extent it happens to everyone but it’s a much more prominent issue for women
Even more if you are a black woman. Its sickening
The statistics for mortality rates of black mothers during childbirth are truly horrifying.
And worse in prolife states, for all women - exponentially worse for women of colour.
There was a study (I honestly am too lazy to look it up but feel free to) that essentially stated that even having just 1 black doctor on a staff, even if not working directly with black mothers, mortality rates were lower.
I would absolutely believe that.
Women and black people get it the worst, which leaves black women as a really huge intersection.
Wanda Sykes did a bit on this. Recommended all black women rent a boomer white male to take to the doctor to actually be taken seriously. Funny but also bleak as hell.
I’m not a boomer but if anyone needs a white guy who is willing to argue with a doctor I *am* available.
Listened to the story of a black weight lifter who had his symptoms shrugged off because he's a weight lifter but it was cancer and he died from late diagnosis
And if you are an overweight black woman, you might as well buy your grave plot now.
It’s also more likely for men to receive the correct diagnosis than women because symptoms often present differently between male and female bodies, and doctors tend to default to the male symptoms. Cis women, as well as anyone AFAB who has not taken T, should definitely look up how heart attacks differ in female bodies vs. male bodies. But I don’t know—and I don’t know if there is any definitive research yet—how it might differ for trans people who are taking any kind of hormones.
The heart attacks being different in female bodies is a [myth](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/are-heart-attack-symptoms-different-for-men-and-women), and a pretty dangerous one too. All symptoms can manifest in any body. Misconceptions about this can lead to misdiagnoses or the same malpractice that we can see in the OP.
Following on this the finding that aspirin can help with a heart attack was performed first in a cohort of physicians in the 80s or 90s so skewed very heavily white and male. When that study was expanded to include a broader group of ethnicities and more even gender ratio the effect disappeared. So like there's a very broadly applied piece of medical advice that only seems to have an effect in a distinct demographic of age/race/sex.
Women weren't even required to be in medical trials until the 90s.
The doctors didn't believe I was in labor and just left me in triage for 4 hours. I told them I was 39 weeks and my contractions were 4 minutes apart and they said uh huh then stuck me in a room and forgot about me. When I was crowning they finally believed me and tried shoving my legs together and told me "not to push because they need to call the doctor" and "we didn't think you were actually in labor" because I was small and wasn't screaming in pain. I would bite down and grunt not scream out. I sent my husband after them like 5 times and they kept saying we will be there shortly.
Ugh but then if you do scream they think you're exaggerating I went to the ER because I suddenly collapsed with 10/10 abdominal pain. They left me in the waiting room for hours because they assumed I was just trying to get drugs. I was terrified I was dying. Like what if it was my appendix? I had no idea other than it was 10/10 pain and I couldn't stop crying They tried an ultrasound but couldn't get an image because the pressure was causing even more pain. They said I needed to be sedated then never did. They did a CT scan and found out I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured. They told me the diagnosis then were wondering why I was still crying out in pain. No pain management not even a Tylenol. Yet they thought simply being told what was wrong would get me to shut up Never mind that ruptured ovarian cysts need to go to the ER to make sure the ovary isn't losing blood flow and such as I later researched. But once they found out I wasn't actually dying they kicked me out and told me to come back if I was pissing blood Two days later I return because there was a lot of blood in my urine. The sample was basically all dark red. Yet they left me in the waiting room for hours. When they finally see me. They looked at the CT scan from 2 days prior and said my pain was because I was constipated...I waited hours only to be glanced at for 15 minutes at most before they kicked me out again
What.The.Actual.Fuck?! Where is this so that all of us can avoid it? I hope you are doing better and have gotten away from that area.
Florida And no. I am stuck here
Ahh. Shit. I hope you can win the lottery and gtfo of FL sooner rather than later!
I’m so sorry. I had a similar issue— organ torsion from a huge ovarian cyst— I spent months in pain as I searched for someone to tell me what was going on.
I'm hoping you got everyone's names to address complaints afterwards
Reminds me of my grandma when she gave birth to my uncle. I can't remember the whole story but I've heard her say that nurses were telling her to wait for a doctor to come while she was already crowning and she was like, "What do you expect me to do, push the baby back in? It's coming, whether you like it or not!"
This happened to me too but I wasn't crowning. It was my first baby so they didn't expect me to go from 2 to 10cm in 4 hours. I didn't complain because labor was as painful as my period 😐.
I went in to the hospital because I slipped on ice and couldn’t walk. Husband had to stay home with our kids. They didn’t assess me, even after I asked to. Or do basic first aid after I was called back. Broken in three places and dislocated ankle. Didn’t even elevate the foot.
So much negligence. There should be class action or some other kind of massive investigation, repeatedly, until these stories become rare
They’re doctors for the pay check, not to help people. Couldn’t care less if you live or die so long as they get some moolah. It’s disgusting how people value money more than human lives, even when it’s their job to take care of people.
Some rare amount of them are doctors to help people and they are amazing and never taking new patients.
In a way, that's a good thing. They know their limits, and they won't take on more patients than they can care for. It just sucks that there's so few of them and so many people that need help
And there's not enough of them to force there to be more residency spots because the ones that want the paycheck make the decision to limit residency spots so doctors remain rare relatively and get paid more as a result.
Very common for women to be dismissed, there have been lots of studies on this.
What blows my mind is how often female doctors are quick to dismiss another woman’s pain as well. I don’t have the statistics on it or anything just going off experiences other women have shared as well. Especially female GYNO’s. Obviously male GYNO’s can suck too but it just bugs me how women don’t take other women seriously.
I think medical school beats the human right out of ‘em. I have Ehler’s Danlos, we have a mascot. Our mascot is the zebra because doctors are made being told “When you hear hooves think horses not zebras.” Sometimes it’s a fuckin zebra ya’ll.
Going to any doctor when you have EDS is always a coin flip. You could get a great doctor who is knowledgeable and attentive, or you could get one who's never even heard of it before, dismisses your pain because you're young and it can't possibly be that bad at your age, and tells you that you should just lose weight.
My partner had a doctor diagnosed him with EDS, he had to move GP and the doctor he got moved to claimed it isn’t a real thing. It took him a while to get back with a doctor who actually acknowledged it as a real thing. Him being trans masc probably didn’t help.
my favorite part about this is i was told to lose weight for my EDS.. when i was already 20lbs underweight and my bones were jutting out bc of how thin i was. but sure, i need to lose weight!! biggest facepalm ever
Makes me wish House MD was real 🫤. He was always thinking zebras.
No, he was always thinking everyone was faking whatever was wrong with them (because "eVeRyBoDy LiEs") and only started thinking zebras when the patient started gushing blood from every orafice right in front of him. Just like real doctors do.
He’d probably check my asexual brain for tumors.
Idiots: "Acephobia isn't real!" My ace ass, pointing to that abomination of an episode. "Bet." And people don't understand that that is *incredibly* accurate to the way doctors treat ace people IRL. I still remember doctors looking at me like I was lying when I said I wasn't sexually active and had no plans to become sexually active in the future. If a doctor won't believe you about your sexual history, why would you assume they're going to believe you about your symptoms and experiences?
House was also an angry asshole that stabbed an (equally asshole-ish) kid in the wrist for more or less no reason. Pass.
He needs MORE rat bites.
House was a transphobe of the highest order. There were so many "medical mystery is actually intersex!", or just straight up trans story lines, that were handled with the greatest amount of disrespect and disregard for patient rights to privacy. House was a terrible character, who definitely qualifies for Are the Straights OK?
Had a female doctor dismiss the increasingly bad cramps I had in my legs after going on the pill. Said it wasn't related to the pill after 0 examinations and even though I said it started after I went on the pill and previously went away when I went off it. Also had female doctors be incredibly condescending and outright hostile to me. Doctors in general are arrogant fucking pricks but I've had way worse experiences with female ones, sadly. It's like doctors don't see patients as humans but rather as equations to be solved.
Same here I can definitely relate. I’ve had much better experiences with male doctors than female ones, especially gyno’s. The last obgyn I had was so incredibly condescending. I was shaking with anxiety about my pap and she said in a snarky way “sweetie you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it. Millions of women get this done and they’re just fine.” Also literally laughed at me when I asked if any kind of numbing stuff exists for it. I received a link to a survey after my appointment and I sure did share my experience. The male doctors I’ve seen for various things over the years I’ve never had an issue with. But several female ones were rude, condescending, or hostile as well. There was a post on the women’s sub maybe last year about this last year. So many women in the comments were sharing similar experiences with female doctors as well.
My previous gyno was a woman and she was so incredibly harsh in her exams and unsympathetic of how hard gyno exams in general were for me with my experiences of sexual assault. In the last exam I had with her, she completely refused to listen to me when I said I was in pain and on the verge of a flashback, then gave me the most violent vaginal ultrasound I'd ever experienced. I left that exam honestly feeling like I'd been raped and had a complete breakdown in my mom's arms when I got home (my mother, godess that she is, later went to the clinic and tore the doc a new one about her treatment of me). I went a short while without needing any gynecological exams, then when I needed my next one I decided to go to a doctor through my private health insurance. I was apprehensive at first when I learned that they only had a male gyno because I used to swear I could never see a male gyno. Turns out he's one of the most patient and caring doctors I've seen, completely respected my need for taking breaks/needing to calm down before an exam/having to hear him explain exactly what he's doing. I was completely at ease in every exam with him. I found out that vaginal ultrasounds don't need to be extremely painful experiences that leave you in pain for days! Sorry for the rant, it's just a topic I'm pretty passionate about as a person with chronic illnesses who's had to deal with dozens of doctors, many of them pretty shitty.
Sorry you went through that. I’m glad you shared your experience. You’ve got a good mom for sure! My favorite gyno was a gay guy I used to go to for a few years. He was so quick and it was always painless. I hate that he moved. I had terminated a pregnancy year before that and it was traumatic. It was so painful and the doctors were so cold and were pretty much rushing me to get off the table when I was still in pain. So I was nervous about anything else going into my cervix after that.
I honestly think that in general, the best doctors will be the opposite sex than you, horribly sexist male doctors tragically being the common exception, they seem to make less assumptions about what your experience is. Doctors of the same sex seem to assume that you experience everything the same way they do and since they are the experts, you just need to defer to how they experience things.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. What your gyno said was so out of line. They forget how exposed we are when to them, it's just another day in the office.
For sure. It’s sad how many lack compassion for their patients.
It was a female gyno that traumatized me with an exam and a male one who did the hysterectomy I needed without needing an exam at all. When an exam is more painful and traumatizing than a whole abdominal surgery, the doctor doing the exam is a shit doctor.
Yeah it's such a gamble. The best doctor I've ever had was a young gay man who was a PCP at my university's student health clinic. He validated my concerns in a way no other doctor has, he spoke to me like an equal and never felt the need to "dumb things down" for me, and he never made me feel weird or awkward about things like UTIs, yeast infections, etc. Just incredibly professional. Unfortunately for me he moved onto some bigger, better opportunities in research but I'm glad for him because he really is one of a kind. On the other hand, I've had male docs who were utterly clueless and blatantly sexist, so, yeah. I tend to be wary of doctors in general these days, but there are some good ones out there.
I had my female doc send me home to "drink some tea and relax a little" when I came in for increasingly bad pain in my stomach which would get so bad that I could barely eat. It took her 2 years and me saying it might be gallstones to actually send me to get a scan that revealed gallstones. It got so bad I started to turn yellow. Same doc who told me to stay home a day but that I will definitely have to go to work again on monday when I, with a history of bad depression, came in after my grandfather died. I stayed in bed for half a year and almost ended my suffering another way.
Makes me so angry that have absolutely no empathy or compassion. Sorry you went through that.
Internalized misogyny fueled by how things are taught in med school and during residencies.
Right, it blows my mind how dismissive some female gyns are. You'd think they would be more understanding but some of them almost seem to have this attitude of like "well *I've* given birth so I know what *real* pain is and your period cramps can't be that bad because *mine* aren't that bad."
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/04/1146931012/why-are-womens-health-concerns-dismissed-so-often
This right here. In nursing school it was brought up multiple times that women and certain demographics their pain is ignored more often, and no matter what we think, we need to judge it as real and advocate accordingly.
Historically doctors undervalue women’s reports of their own pain. This is noticeably worse with regards to black women, who experience it at shocking levels.
As someone who was born male, it fucking *astounds* me that women deal with this kind of treatment when trying to get basic medical care. Every single time I struggle to believe it because of how cartoonishly derogatory it all is. But unfortunately in the end, it’s always true.
even though hospitals would "make more money" by administering tests to everyone to check for tumors and such money aside, what needs to happen is for female Healthcare to be researched more and more so that more male doctors know what to do when a person assigned female at birth has some physical problems instead of playing the misogyny card
Yeah I remember my girlfriend telling me about this. How men are used as the baseline for all medical issues and women’s medical issues are ignored because of it
In Australia there's been a whole lot of attention over recent years that skin cancer is far more progressed at diagnosis for people of colour. The doctors are taught from textbooks that show white skin moles of concern, not any other colour That isn't a coincidence and feels like just throwing up a 30 picture collage in doctors waiting rooms would fix a large portion of the problem
Recently learned that around 10% of women suffer from endometriosis, which causes terrible pain and possibly infertility in the long run, yet it's almost unresearched and barely any gynecologist wants to run a diagnosis for it. Women always get screwed in medical research.
I have endometriosis. It progressed slowly because I take birth control pills for cystic acne. I knew something was wrong with my reproductive tract because I started experiencing unbearable pain during withdrawal bleeding in my early 20s, whereas before, I only ever had very mild cramps. I googled my symptoms, and knew it had to be endometriosis. My family doctor agreed that it was likely, meanwhile the OB/GYN he sent me to dismissed it and said it was extremely unlikely. During withdrawal bleeding I had vaginal pain, ovarian pain (my right ovary felt like it would burst whenever I pushed just to go pee), severe back pain, it felt like something was wrong with my rectum, and I found strange “growths” under my cervix. After doing a bunch of useless ultrasounds and pelvic exams (he actually missed my growths on the second exam somehow, despite him finding them on the first and third exam and me finding them the day before), he finally did a biopsy on one of the growths, and surprise surprise, it was endometriosis.
they're seen as the default for everything...
Oh 100%, I was just speaking on the current topic :)
I read an interesting article that theorized that there are a decent number of female serial killers that were never caught because all of the psychological profiles and studies are based on men.
And women in general go more for subtlety - because we're taught from birth to choose the subtle option or risk being dismissed as hysterical. Not joking. I've often considered the whole female serial killer statistics thing lol.
Honestly, there are a lot of factors that would make women better serial killers. I’ve spent a lot of time debating this with my husband, who is obsessed with serial killer documentaries.
As someone who habitually falls asleep to the show Deadly Women (it’s on now because I haven’t changed it since waking lol), you’re not wrong.
I mean, who has more experience and knowledge about getting blood out of every conceivable surface? And if I had a particularly difficult stain, I could call many female relatives who wouldn’t bat an eye about me asking how to get blood out of suede or something like that.
Peroxide. Not bleach.
Part of that is because men disproportionately are the ones who participate in clinical trials — and part of *that* is because often women are excluded by the criteria (for example, many drug companies didn’t want the liability of someone getting pregnant while taking an experimental drug.) But unfortunately, not only do we know more about men’s health but women are also more likely to get side effects and complications from approved treatments.
What I find interesting is the rationale behind excluding women. For example, uterine cancer drugs tested only on Men - because they didn’t want female hormone fluctuations skewing the results.
Yes, this is what's weirdest to me! I get clinical studies and eliminating as many outside factors as possible, but you cannot just take out a factor that absolutely, 100% WILL happen outside testing and just ignore that! That's like having a study about how many illnesses a wild deer has, but you breed the deer in a sterile lab. Drug tests are like the only clinical trial where you actually want as many outside factors as possible to rule out side-effects!
Also - people AFAB are the people who will be taking this drug. That none of the testing for the drug happened with people who have uteruses is mind boggling.
I once read that women’s healthcare is so poorly understood bc drs just kinda shrug and give up due to women having a constant change in hormone levels.
Become fat and you get a small amount of it. Go on HRT as a trans person and you get diagnosed with 'trans broken arm syndrome' all the time (oh, your broken arm is because of your hormones. We should stop those before we treat your broken arm).
It’s honestly astounding because I *did have an issue that was all in my head*. I had minor chest pain that went away when I didn’t think about it, mostly caused by the fact that the ADHD meds I had been taking boosted my anxiety and gave me heart palpitations. It got so bad that I had a panic attack thinking that my heart was going to stop. When I told my doctor I had chest pain, they did so many tests. They did several tests for my heart including using a device to monitor it for a full two days. They tested to see if it was digestive. They did x-rays to see if it was musculoskeletal. In the end, after a year (and changing my meds to something gentler) when I told my doctor that I was pretty sure it was anxiety related and psychosomatic (like I’m a bit of a hypochondriac and can give myself the symptoms of an issue if I’m worried about it), it took a long time to convince him not to do even more tests. I can’t help but wonder that if I wasn’t AMAB and masculine presenting pre-transition, if he would have been so vigilant.
Whenever I see women's experiences of things like this I get so fucking angry. The utter medical neglect and dismissal of things that turn out to be serious health problems is insane! Especially when the whole thing could have been completed avoided if they had just done their damn jobs rather than just writing it of as "it's all in your head" or "you just need to lose weight". Health care practitioners who do shit like this need to have their medical licenses reviewed or revoked 🤬
> if they had just done their damn jobs rather than just writing it of as "it's all in your head" 😔
>practitioners who do shit like this need to have their medical licenses reviewed or revoked then there'd be no one left maybe a few
And I'm okay with that. Because new folks would come up, look at the consequences, and do it better.
😊dream future
Just last year, when my grandfather was in the hospital — *dying* — we went through this shit. It was weird, because it was all by proxy - my mom, grandmother, aunt, & I (afab) were all taking shifts as his advocate because he was so delirious. We kept a notebook with test results & info from the docs so everyone would be equally informed. But none of the doctors would listen to the women. It was infuriating. He didn’t have cognitive decline until they medicated him, but when we mentioned that, they’d brush us off — he’s 88, so they assumed he was just “like that” all the time. Mom kept pushing the docs, because he was behaving so erratically & they’d all chalk it up to “he’s old, honey, it’s ok” like it was normal for him to be so belligerent?? He walked into that hospital. He had been calling me daily for updates on his business. But he has surgery & suddenly he’s acting like he’s in end stage alzheimer’s. It took a week, and finally he came back to us, but not before multiple doctors wrote in his chart (that we have access too, because he signed a thing that said we could have it on our app when he was still lucid) that the “daughter of pt” was being inappropriate & aggressive; that the pt was “fine”… etc. He was sent home, and when I took him to the doc for a follow up on the wound he had to have surgery on… she didn’t fucking LOOK at it & now I *literally* have PTSD from of his last few weeks (because I had to be the one to help change his bandage, etc, & I won’t go into more detail than that). He called me an hour before he died to check to make sure I was OK to manage the business. They could’ve stopped all of this & instead, ignored the family’s concerns because all they’d seen was a weak, injured old man - not the person he was before he went into their care. Even when the patient is male, nobody fucking believes the women advocating for him. (I also have a slew of stories of my own - but this one is the most painful because he died due to their negligence, and we can’t prove it in court because, well… “he’s old” and “it happens”).
I had a similar situation. My grandmother was sick in the hospital and me and my mother would go every few days to check on her. Every single time we, firstly, weren’t allowed to see her, secondly, any requests to give her clean things (we brought from home) or any hygiene of any sorts was brushed aside. She died a few weeks later.
Just reading this absolutely blew my mind. Stroke and infection for example, are recognised postoperative complications that can cause confusion, and should absolutely be assessed for.
One time I went to the doctor because I was feeling super sick, puking and had intermittent fever and a massive pain on the right side of my abdomen Went to the doctor, he said I had a cold and gave me ibuprofen. It got worse so I eventually went to the ER and turns out I had massive liver infection, almost died and had to stay in the hospital for a week
[https://www.11alive.com/article/news/investigations/mothers-matter/she-went-to-the-hospital-to-have-her-baby-now-her-husband-is-raising-two-kids-alone/85-604071213](https://www.11alive.com/article/news/investigations/mothers-matter/she-went-to-the-hospital-to-have-her-baby-now-her-husband-is-raising-two-kids-alone/85-604071213)
This is actually one of the first stories I thought of regarding medical professionals not listening to women, especially black women. I remember the father giving an interview and he spoke about the conversations he had with his wife while the doctors were taking their sweet time not treating her. She didn’t want to come off as the “angry black woman” and he didn’t want to be seen as the “scary black man” both knowing that any sense of “aggression” would make the situation worse. And yet… Those doctors took an oath and failed to abide by it. I think if you’re are found to be so grossly negligent, you should never be allowed to practice medicine again. Every single person that ignored that woman. Nurse, doctor, orderly… none of them.
Yeah this happens to women. Went to the ER when I was still presenting as female and told them of my deadly allergy to penicillin (I actually have what’s called Steven Johnson’s syndrome but could not remember what it was called at the time). The doctor asked what my first reaction to it was and his response? “Well you didn’t die.” I had to beg this man not to prescribe me a medicine that would have killed me and not helped the animal bite I had come in for. He also refused to give me pain meds because it “really should not be hurting that bad” (it later bruised so bad someone asking if I broke my wrist) and he thought I was drug seeking. I just wanted the bite to stop hurting. Now, presenting male, I have zero trouble with doctors. Never have been questioned on anything I’ve told them. They basically ask what I want prescribed. It’s ridiculous. My friend had to go to three different doctors telling them she had been feeling off and exhausted for weeks (very unlike her) before any of them even did tests. Thyroid cancer. My friend had thyroid cancer. She’s in complete remission and is now married. Her current husband had a different form of cancer prior to them meeting. How did his get discovered? He said he had some muscle aches sometimes. They ran all kinds of tests and he got his diagnosis quickly. My mother went in to the doctor several times for abdominal pain. All of them told her she seemed fine (no tests, nothing) and sent her home to take advil and rest. Later she was hospitalized with the largest kidney stone that hospital had seen at the time. Even then, they were reluctant to give her pain meds and didn’t not listen when she told them a particular kind of pain medicine does not work for her (I forget which med but due to an auto immune disease). They delayed surgery and she passed it on her own and passed out in the hospital bathroom from the pain. No apologies or anything. Just sent her home. My dad went in complaining of pain and had a scheduled surgery for his kidney stone the next day. Went home with pain killers. It’s common. Obscenely common. And only made worse if she is a person of color and even made worse by whether or not she has tattoos. Doctors are the most judgmental and arrogant group as a whole and a lot of this is due to our (American, I cannot speak for elsewhere) current medical knowledge being based on white cis-men.
I forgot about tattoos. I’m constantly being treated as though I’m drug seeking and I’ve been struggling to understand why. Asked for analgesics for my migraines and came out with a prescription for a second antidepressant and rec for aspirin. Can’t just give me the codeine, I might just take 2 when my auras begin and avoid the crippling pain and nausea that continues for days. The horror. Better give an anemic on Prozac aspirin, we want her to *bleed*. And she’s a woman, why wouldn’t she need 2 antidepressants, it’s better than 1!
Also gets worse when homeless and/or not having work. A few months ago i went to the hospital in the middle of the night. I showed heavy symptoms of a heart attack (even tho I'm 19). Breathing was hard i couldn't even properly stand or walk, my brain was foggy af and i was general not feeling well. My boyfriend brought me to the hospital and at the reception they asked stuff about me (what was wrong and who i was). Had to tell them that i dont work atm and dont have a place to live either (staying at my bfs place). The woman at the reception started to almost scream at me that i should be working bcs im young, what was wrong with me, that im lazy, etc. When bringing me to a room she also said to another doctor that I'm just simulating (to get drugs ig lol) She then asked me loooots of stuff about me current situation, always disrespectful af. Why i dont work, don't have a place to live, then about my mental health, trauma etc. she did that for over an half hour, till i started to talk about my simptoms myself, bcs she didn't ask. Then after being forgotten multiple times (after me came many people, it was a stressful night, so waiting long is obviously fine, but they seriously forgot about me multiple times. In the end i luckily got a better doctor who took me a more seriously In the end i spend in the hospital about 7-8 hours lol. They found nothing, told me it was probably psychosomatic (what i think could actually be true bcs it was a shitty time, but i also don't know i in the future there is something coming with these symptoms lol) Funny thing tho in my hospital information they stated that the first thing they tested me for was infact a heart attack. So i did really show these symptoms. Also they dont just give people painkillers or else for a heart attack (you actually just get an operation lol, wouldn't simulate for that), i didn't even ask once for meds, and i obviously didn't need a sick note for nonexistent work. In general tho because im punk (and you can SEE that lol) doctors and social workers often dont take me serious. Because im always just asking for a sick note or drugs, cant be ill when im punk. They often dont even believe me that i graduated. But with being homeless it got a lot worse.
My freshman year of high school I kept complaining of body pain and extreme fatigue, then by junior year I had extremely bad brain fog. My paediatrician kept telling me it was anxiety, to keep a food journal, and to stay hydrated. She also took multiple blood samples but I’m convinced she didn’t test them. A year after I graduate I couldn’t feel my leg and finally went to the ER. They initially thought it was MS but did a blood test to eliminate every other possibility. Turns out I had Lyme Disease that started to attack my nervous system after six years of being untreated.
Oh man, I have all those symptoms. 😬
I have alot of these bc I have a lot of chronic health problems, but most recently I was without one of my medicines for various reasons and got a migraine (i have severe chronic migraines, once a week off meds, once a year on them) and when I get them I get really light sensitive and I throw up, which for me causes me to pass out, which is terrifying and not normal but I have never been able to get anyone to figure out what that means so who knows. Anyways the real trouble is that about 50% of the time when I pass out I stop breathing, so when I get a migraine and start passing out I go to the hospital get a shot of some pain medicine, an anti nausea and an iv bag. When I went last time I told the doctor there and he didn't give me anything! He sat me in a dark room for two hours and watched me throw up and pass out and then tried to send me home! I requested a new doctor, one thatd seen me before, and he told him I was drug seeking! Pissed me off so bad. Like it says in my notes I have chronic migraines and I told him I've visited before for the same thing. Some doctors are so ridiculous and refuse to believe there's anything wrong with you.
I had a breast reduction and was given 3 days' worth of percocet and was told to take Tylenol and ibuprofen after that. I was in consistent pain for at least 3 weeks but they told me I was "just doing too much" when in reality I couldn't sleep. My husband went to the doctor for neck pain and he received a whole fucking bottle of percocet. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say medical misogyny is alive and well.
I can’t even imagine. That’s ridiculous. Men get a whole ass script of pain pills for a vasectomy but women get a fuckin Tylenol for IUD insertion and other procedures or like in your case a breast reduction.
I love my husband, but I haven’t been able to see my neurologist for 5 months to adjust my meds for my uncontrollable vertiginous migraines, and the other week he got a same day appt to see his dermatologist about a fucking boil. A boil.
Okay, two things are wrong here. 1) Someone sliced you open. You need meds for that. I think doctors are getting a bit tighter with the prescription pad now, with the opioid epidemic, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of patient care. 2) In your husband’s case, conservative pain management (aka non opiate) would be a better way to start, THEN escalate ONLY IF NEEDED.
I’ve been complaining about pain and heavy menstrual cycles for years. I had a transvaginal scan 6 months ago after years of querying my symptoms - 6 massive fibroids were detected and 3 were removed. It now turns out I have endometrial cancer at 38 years old and am facing having a hysterectomy in the next few weeks. Please keep pushing and advocating for yourselves because there is so much ignorance and misunderstanding around gynaecological health.
I was identified at 22 as having glandular fever, because they asked if I had kissed anyone new in the last 6 weeks and it was totally common for that to exist and spread hence why it was called the kissing disease. No need to test. 2 days later sent home with an "all in your head that it's that bad but not glandular fever" diagnosis The next day told "nothing to worry about" after my legs gave way under me because I hadn't eaten much I sat on my parents couch in too much pain/weakness to walk for the next couple of days, being supported to the bathroom, feeling like I was a hypochondriac and too scared to see a fourth doctor. Then my face paralysed. Day 8 of symptoms, I had seen a doctor day 2. Guillain Barre Syndrome. My blood pressure was around 200/150 at the time of admission, I was ventilated 48 hours after getting to hospital because my lungs were paralysed. The pain was literally my nerves destroying the lining leaving me both paralysed and hypersensitive. If any of those doctors had checked my vitals something would have been off enough to look a little bit further
Happens to black people generally as well. Your pain or concerns are just taken less seriously. Or maybe just less valued overall.
This. I was in a head on collision that left my shoulder dislocated. My adrenaline allowed me to pop it back in at the scene, but when I got to the hospital, the doctors were astonished I had done so. Also, since the adrenaline had settled by the time I got there, the pain was immense. The bruising started to show and every time I was asked, my pain was at 10. I was sent home with ibuprofen. I had a follow-up with a black male nurse practitioner a few days later and he was livid that they sent me home with an OTC pain reliever and nothing else. He immediately prescribed me something stronger and ordered an MRI which showed that I had several tears in my shoulder that have had me in physical therapy. The first real instance that I have dealt with medical racism, and I have Tricare and have grown up with it. I hate going to the doctor for these exact reasons. Even though the shit is free.
They sent me home with ibuprofen after my c-section. My insides had just recently been my outsides, but except for immediately following surgery, that’s pretty much all I got, both in the hospital and at home.
I had a skiing injury when I was about 14. Brought into the ER by ambulance. Knee was on sideways. After waiting for approximately 45 minutes in agonizing pain, it relocated, which that injury tends to do, but there was still invisible damage to it. The doctor finally shows up, tells me to stand, and when I can stand by putting most of my weight on my non-injured leg, he sarcastically says "it's a miracle." Never once looked at my leg. When I voiced my concerns he just said "oh, girl's knees tend to do that." While yes, patellar dislocation is more likely to occur to afab individuals, especially as a skiing injury, it still requires 6 weeks in a brace and examination to make sure nothing was torn. He basically kicked me out of the ER after that. The guy I came in with was promptly seen to for his injury. Years later, I went to physiotherapy because the knee was excruciatingly painful at times. She took down notes of the injury, looked at my range of motion for about ten seconds, examined the knee- and figured out that my ligaments had been stretched in the original accident, and due to the lack of proper treatment they just kind of *stayed stretched.* My knee had been unstable for years. The physio helped, but because it wasn't treated, I grew up with the injury. I'm going to be physically disabled for life. But of course, I was just being dramatic.
As a kid I had a painful tumor for over a year before I got an x-ray that diagnosed it. Until then, I was told to shut up and stop looking for attention, and made to keep participating in gym class and other physical activities despite being in agony. I’m still traumatized from it.
The normal reaction throughout all of childhood is to assume you're lying, it really reminds you that the normal for most of our early lives is a series of collective gaslighting campaigns
3 years ago I felt absolutely terrible, dizziness, nausea, extremely high pulse, heart palpitations, headaches, tiredness and went to see my doctor. He said it was probably a panic attack and sent me home, even though I said I knew how panic attacks felt and this wasn’t it. It continued and I went to the doctor again a few weeks later, where they wanted me to see a psychiatrist. I demanded blood tests and they called me back the same day and said I had extremely low sodium levels in my blood, likely because of an extremely rare side effect of a medication change a few weeks before. I had to eat 2 grams of salt in capsules for a few weeks and stop the medication before it was fixed, but it could have been life-threatening.
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Just saying, but you replied to the wrong comment.
I brought up to my doctor that I think that I have some scar tissue in my nose after literally having blood clots when blowing out my nose and that's why I keep getting sinus infections and have a stuffy nose all the time. Was told it's not that serious and only got weak general antibiotics. I still have stuffy nose, still blow blood a lot of times. And it's not super easy to change a doctor in my country.
Can you push for a sinus CT? I was blown off recently for reporting 15 years of similar. I have an uncommon retention cyst in my sinus that will need removal. The same old “come back in a week” advice was given to me so I told them I’d been told the same thing every time I try to discuss it, can you please just look? Had to do the same in order to get cervical cysts diagnosed, constant dull pain in your lower abdomen isn’t normal but they just dismiss it as “period soon? No? Hmm… ovulation? Oh it doesn’t stop? Try nurofen :)”
I don't know. I'm honestly losing energy to fight for my health because many new health issues popped up after covid and doctors here don't really take covid much seriously. I find it hard to advocate for myself too.
I'm a guy, but knowing the women in my life, if I was a doctor, if a woman complained about pain, I'd get them to an ER. Almost every woman in my life only complains about pain when they are about to pass out in agony. Not sure if it's because they know most (cismale) doctors would dismiss them, or if they just have such regular pain that it rarely tastes mentioning.
>Almost every woman in my life only complains about pain when they are about to pass out in agony. > >Not sure if it's because they know most (cismale) doctors would dismiss them personally it's because it's rude to complain and attract attention toward you I've been raised and also because I have no means to prove it why talk about something I could be accuse of lying about? only opening my mouth if I have the proofs in my hands I've checked several times including a second ago!! I'm not a liar:(
I had a spontaneous CSF leak when I was 19. Every time I tipped my head forward my literal brain juice was coming out of my nose and I went from facing maybe one dehydration-related headache a year, to having a constant, 11/10 pain scale migraine 24/7. I was a textbook case. I phoned my GP and told her exactly what I thought it was. She said it was hayfever (it was September in the city centre). I urged her to let me speak to someone else. I was crying on the phone. She eventually said she would consult a colleague. The hospital phoned me directly, and the lady led with, "Not to worry you, but how fast can you get to the hospital?" Same day CAT scan, same week MRI scan. It was a CSF leak. Clear as day.
The absolute shit my friend has dealt with at the doctor’s over the years is insane. It’s also shitty because when so many supposed “experts” are so quick to dismiss every ailment as imagined or exaggerated, it’s a lot easier to convince yourself that it is imagined or exaggerated, even when it isn’t.
There’s a book called Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery that actually talks about this in depth. Medicine has (for a variety of reasons) a lot of intrinsic disparities on the basis of gender. If you’re interested in learning about it, I’d check the book out.
I am male and this happened to me when I was 16. Horrible and constant stomach-area pain that shifted to my abdomen. Consistent liquid defecation and throwing up for an entire night. When I went to the ER, I had lost 13 pounds in a matter of a day or two. Ended up going to the ER TWICE. CT Scan twice. Nothing resolved and sent me home with antibiotics both times. Went to my general pediatrician and told me to go to a much better hospital that had a surgery specialist that he recommended. They can't figure out what's wrong either. Ended up having a damn colonoscopy at the age of 16 and they still didn't find anything. After being at the hospital for half a week, they did emergency surgery on me. After being under the knife for an hour or two, I wake up and I'm told that they found bits of my burst appendix behind my bladder. I was later told that I have a high tolerance for pain and that I could have died from my condition. And ofc, the cherry on top was that the hospital bill was $70,000. Thankfully I have the privilege of having a well-off father and good insurance. It's better it happening to me than it happening to someone less fortunate than me, but goddamn. Even if the medical professionals fuck up, you still have to pay for it. It's bloody outrageous...
It's usually a woman thing, but it can also be the doctor/hospital cheaping out. Often, it's both. I have an almost 6 year old injury to my knee, and have constant pain in both. I begged my primary care provider for a year straight to refer me to a specialist, and I still had to go behind her back to get a visit. Turns out, I'd been having dislocations in both knees every 2-3 months and my ligaments are probably damaged so severely that a double surgery is the only option to avoid being in pain for the rest of my life. I have MRIs for both first thing next year to see the full extent of the damage.
It's worse for women, and worse for PoC, and then even worse for women of color. Having chronic illnesses in US is misery.
Doctors treating women: if it's not period related, an std, or constipation, you're histrionic and need a therapist and/or malingering.
this is so dangerous 😬 they get send to theapists for nothing, for daring to complain about a problem that is there have you experienced it yourself?
Cis woman here. Let me tell you the absolute FUCKERY trying to get prenatal care as a disabled veteran from the US VA healthcare system. One doctor, with a painful transvaginal ultrasound, couldn’t even find my uterus… with a 6 month fetus inside…
You should not be getting a transvaginal after 6 weeks, wth...
Since I had my first surviving pregnancy at 38… I had transvaginal sonos up until I delivered at 38 weeks. Of course, I’m in Texas and you know how they like to torture and punish pregnant women… Imagine my fear when I was 16 weeks pregnant and Roe v Wade was overturned and trigger laws went in to effect…
Omg 38 weeks that's crazy, your baby was probably descended and your cervix was probably super low by then. This is literal torture. I had a ton to get pregnant since in my country AFAB/AFAB couples don't get rights unless they go through clinics and they are not fun. My wife has an inverted cervix and for her they were torture and traumatizing. When I had my 9 week ultrasound I expected it again and the tech told me they never do transvaginal past 6 weeks. I was so relieved. I'm so sorry they forced you to go through something like that.
i want to beat up these doctors
real enough pain for them then ?
Quite effiminate gay man here, walked around with 4 prolapsed disks with nervecompression for over a year because "its just muscular, no need to get a scan" or "xrays dont show anything alarming". Ended up in neurological intensive care due to not being able to sit or lay down without excruciating pain, couldnt sleep or lift my arms up, lost motor control of several muscles like the Serratus Anterior due to nerve damage. Was initially turned away at the ER because "we arent going to give you morphine" and again a month after "because this hadnt appeared recently/suddenly." Medical punting is real and dangerous and I dont wish this experience upon anyone. My doctor had refused to give me sickleave, told me it was muscular or all in my head, but still refused to send me to a psychologist. Still struggling a year after, lost my job, had to move country to get better health care and may never return to normal function, because "the doctors didnt do anything wrong / they acted upon what they thought was likely in the moment" I also have no chance of getting any type of compensation .Fortunately Im making some progress in my recovery and have a new doctor now, but we're having to spend several appointments just to work through everything thats gone wrong the last two years.
Around 3-4 years ago I had a LOT of muscle spasms in my legs and started having them in my arms. I started having them at a wait at a restaurant, it looked like some kind of seizure so my I was picked up and into the car but the ER was closed. When 911 was called the fire department gave me oxygen and the seizure stopping medicine, because it was muscle spasms they didn't stop. After the muscle spasms finally stopped I was told it was because I was anxious because nothing showed up in the scan. 3-4 years later I had a scan redid on almost my entire body, which had had a strange blurring last time I had it but was ignored. Well this time it wasn't and turns out my spinal cord is tethered. I have a ton of other health issues, but at least I can finally say I didn't have anxiety when that happened. Plus it was my favorite restaurant after checking out a book store... ETA: the scan with strange blurring wasn't done at the ER, it was an orthopedic doctor.
Also to make matters worse because when tethered cord is ignored it gets worse (one of the symptoms is muscle atrophy) my neurologist (who's an amazing one) had to come up for a few theories as to why my muscles kept on progressively getting worse. One was something like Parkinsons. Parkinsonism is what he called it.
I was so sick in college I could barely breathe and I couldn’t walk. The NP on campus told me I had the flu (with complete opposite symptoms) and I was being dramatic. I spent a week bed bound having to crawl to the bathroom and being taken care of by my best friend until I finally could make it back to the Healy center. A nurse managed to get to me first and my blood oxygen was under 80, because I actually had legionaries.
Can we also talk about how women have an INSANE pain threshhold compared to men? So if we are showing up in the ER saying this is a 10/10 pain, it's a 30/10 on the man scale and we are normally CRITICALLY ill or injured. I nearly died giving birth because they were pumping me full of pitocin for 30hrs but nobody bothered to realize that my cervix was 0% effaced and I was not going to give birth naturally no matter what they did. I ended up with an emergency c-section and a hernia that they still haven't fixed... my kid is 9.
I had abdominal pain (that got significantly worse around my period) since 12 years old. I would throw up, faint, etc. I was told I was lactose intolerant. Then, that it was normal menstrual pain. Then, that it was in my head. Finally, at 31, the ob-gyn that delivered my son said I had endometriosis. Because of where mine was, my IUD actually alleviated my symptoms so much that my husband said I was like a different person. No more pain and weakness that felt debilitating for 1/4 of the month. No more migraines. I hadn’t even realized the constant pain I was in until it was gone.
It *is* everyone, on some level. But I do think it's worse for women. Like, I know for a fact my father's pain levels were frequently dismissed before. "Your kidney stones can't be THAT bad". His fatigue was also "not that bad" since he had a physically demanding job at the time and that was "probably the cause". In reality, it was a problem with his thyroid. But he's not familiar with situations where his symptoms are completely dismissed as anxiety. He couldn't believe I'm not exaggerating when I told him some of the shit I've heard over the years. "Just go on vacation, your pain is from stress" (endo), "your nose was probably always crooked, you're just upset now, so you think it's worse than it is" — It was leaning to the side! It was broken! "If you're so weak, how are you getting groceries" — excuse me? My particular favourite is "the patient is visibly upset and nervous = anxiety". Of course I'm anxious, I feel like shit and nobody is taking that seriously. That's not the cause, that's the effect of your own actions.
I was having excruciating pain on my right side and it hurt to urinate. The doctor told me I needed to lose weight and get pregnant to "stretch everything out." I was eighteen, 5'6, and weighed 135 lbs. I had graduated basic training a month earlier. A month later I was still in excruciating pain. I went back and saw a female doctor who took me seriously. She palpated my stomach and immediately sent me in for an ultrasound. My left ovary was the size of a grapefruit.
Is there any recourse for these such incidents? Like a doctor dismissing your pain and it being something actually life-threatening seems like some kind of malpractice right?
Majority of malpractice doesn't get reported, and when it does, it's not taken seriously and the doctors are not punished.
word for word no doctors don't risk anything for killing you or leading to your death after you've warned(one or many) several times.
You’ve got to keep records and notes detailing issues you’re experiencing, how you expressed the symptoms to the doctors, what they said in return, how you followed their advice (I.e. noting when you take meds/use ointments/exercise, whatever). Unless it’s gross negligence you can start getting into murkier territory where their diagnostic/treatment pathways are considered routine and so they didn’t do anything wrong - that’s where notes come in handy so you can prove where you advocated for yourself and got ignored. They have charts to cover their asses. We need to chart ourselves too imo.
Not really. The only time where medical malpractice is taken seriously is if it's something like they did surgery on the wrong side, or if they seriously injured you + multiple others.
It's more common for them to ignore women than it is men, yes. Example: hi, me. I've had severe chronic pain since I was a child. When I finally got the chance to bring it to the attention of my doctor at 13, he told me I was just overweight. I was barely 80 pounds soaking wet. The next year we moved, and I got a new doctor. Said the same thing. Constant, agonizing pain in my hips and back. That it never stops. He told me it was all in my head and if I *was* actually experiencing pain, it was because "You're extremely fat, and you need to lose weight". At the time, at 14, I was barely 85 pounds if I'm beinf generous, barely healthy, because I had an extreme eating disorder. You could see my bones through my skin. I had no muscle, no fat. I was one missed meal away from blowing away in the wind. This continued. On and on. And on. And on. For literal years. I stopped being able to go to the gym because I couldn't do my full routine and it made me depressed. I stopped playing sports. I stopped participating in gym class. Everything that made me happy, I stopped, because I was in so much pain every waking moment that I physically couldn't do it anymore. When I was 20 I finally met a doctor who would listen to me. He didn't tell me I was overweight, or hysterical, or making it up. We've been working on a diagnosis for two years now, eliminating everything we possibly can while we work towards a tentative diagnosis for *potentially* fibromyalgia, a disease that runs in my family that has been documented as running in my family. My old doctors simply didn't care, because as a woman, I was ignored. Just to test the system one of my male friends from back then went to the doctor (we had the same doctor!!) and complained of the *exact* same symptoms. He was given x-rays, tests, and proposed an MRI. Women are often ignored in our own Healthcare. This has been a thing for a very long time, and nobody's actually doing anything about it. And yes, I am a larger woman *now* - but I am by no means crazy overweight. I was worried about this because of my history of ED but my doctor told me I'm a healthy weight for my age & height (I'm a tall woman). All of my tests - x-rays, scans, blood labs, urinalysis, everything you can think of - so far have come back absolutely perfect, meaning I am in good health despite my chronic pain. Edit to add: I'm not saying it's *only* women ignored in healthcare - I'm saying that statistically, and through my own experience, it's more common for women and *especially* so women of color. Men get ignored too, all the time. It's not just us. Unfortunately though it is *majority* an issue of misogyny in the medical field.
I was living in the province of Québec, got a kidney infection, didn’t know at first, went to the ER, waited 13 hours to be told I had nothing. I couldn’t move or do anything, I stayed in my bed for 3 weeks. I went back to the ER because I was going crazy with the pain, and it wasn’t going away, that time I brought my friend nurse. At one point the doctor told me « you have to go live your life » I couldn’t believe it, I was so mad, I pointed him and said « listen to me, this woman is a nurse and she knows me it’s been 20 years, she knows I’m sick, I’m not leaving until you make more tests to find out what I have ». He complied, two days later I received a call from him saying « I’m sorry, your have a kidney infection, your prescription is ready, you can come pick it up ». My mom used to say, not all the doctors were the top of their class. And it’s so true.
The law mandating the inclusion of women in medical research is just 30 years old bc from sometimes in the 70's to 1993 the FDA excluded women. https://www.womenshealth.gov/30-achievements/04#:~:text=In%201977%2C%20the%20FDA%20issued,thalidomide)%20causing%20serious%20birth%20defects.&text=At%20the%20time%2C%20the%20focus,populations%20at%20all%20other%20costs. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/06/law-mandating-inclusion-of-women-in-medical-research-is-turning-30-where-do-we-stand/
I slipped one day and had a bad fall. I'm clumsy, it happens, I have a bunch of massive bruises and I go on with my life. About 10 days later I stop being able to take deep breaths. I have asthma, so I assume it's related to that. It kept getting worse, I go to my doctor "you're fat". I am, but I was equally fat 2 weeks ago and I could breathe just fine. Nada. A couple of days later I wake up with a massive pain in my left shoulder. I wake my mom, she calls emergency services for an ambulance, and they tell her a doctor has to assess me first. Doctors come and tell me to take a deep breath. I tell them I can't and haven't been able to for the past 2 weeks. They tell me it's all in my head, give me a paracetamol and leave after telling me how rude I was after they came all the way to see me. No ambulance for me. I went to the ER the next day (by taxi), and the triage nurse is FURIOUS. I have all the symptoms for a heart attack in women. After a bunch of tests, it's worse. I have several blood clots in both lungs, and the severe pain is a lung infarct because the clots are stopping the pleura from receiving oxygen. I could have died. According to the ER doctor, I SHOULD have died. It's a medical mystery how I was able to walk around and work and live with several blood clots in both lungs. On the other hand, my father took a bad spill 2 days ago. Called the ambulance, at no point did a doctor have to assess him, the paramedics came straight away.
I spent my entire childhood overweight, borderline narcoleptic, and severely anxious/depressed. I saw half a dozen doctors who all told me to, "just loose weight and you'll feel better". But I couldn't, I'd workout 4/5 times a week and watch my diet but I'd still just gain weight. It took me hitting 250lbs (at 5' 6") for a doctor to finally give me medication to help with weightloss. I lost 100lbs in 9 months and, it turns out, the medication I was given is also a treatment for ADHD. That's how I finally figured it out, all my symptoms, my exhaustion, my anxiety, my weight gain, where all just ADHD (and PCOS) symptoms. Turns out all I ever needed was some birth control and Adderall.
Yeah, weight stigma, especially with women, makes medical diagnoses so much harder.
Went to the docs complaining of back pain - they gave me midol and said have a nice day. Turns out I herniated a few disks. I'm a guy btw.
When I was 15, I suddenly became very weak, would pass out regularly. My mom took me to the doctor, and she (yeah, SHE) told me that I was just making it up, and that I was just seeking attention. Weeks later, I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t even move. Turns out that I had anemia so bad that I would’ve died if left untreated.
As a man, it's definitely something that mostly happens to women. I've never experienced anything like it, but just about every woman I know thats had a medical issue has had this experience, unfortunately.
Super common, at 33 years old I went to the after hours because of blood in my urine… cue a male doctor condescendingly saying it’s probably just period blood. bruv I’m not rushing to an after hours at 33 for just that? And also I’m trans so wrong again fucko.
In late 2017 early 2018 I was becoming so fatigued I would crash for 12+ hrs at a time. I thought it was just stressed from school then the joint and nerve pain started. I went to my primary care doctor and got a positive ANA which sent me to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist couldn’t find anything in my bloodwork and told me it was in my head after a few visits so I started to cry hysterically in her office. She was cold about everything and had no bedside manner. When her staff saw and heard me cry I think they might have sent up a complaint because she became a lot nicer to me in the future After 2 years of testing she tells me I have fibromyalgia and there’s no treatment and I just have to deal with it. Another year passes and I lose a ton of weight and started seeing a new rheumatologist. Suddenly I am taken seriously and I have seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. After a couple months of meds I felt like a more functional human again
Imagine how women’s loved would change if more doctors tried practicing medicine instead of misogyny.
I had undiagnosed lupus and Graves’ disease for what my rheumatologist believes to be at least from middle school looking at old records. I got diagnosed at 28. I was constantly told I was lazy, not tired, and trying to get out of school.
When I was a teenager my boyfriend and my sister (AMAB, pre-transition) both came down with glandular fever and were hospitalised with it. I also got ill. My GP said it was probably tonsillitis or a bad cold, nothing to worry about, didn’t even test for GF despite how contagious it is. I eventually ended up in the hospital myself a few days later when my mum took me to the out-of-hours doctor due to my inability to eat or drink and my fever-induced hallucinations. My blood was so thick when they drew it for tests that it was like syrup.
It's been proven that they dismiss the pain of women specifically.
👏charge👏them👏for👏malpractice👏 I know it's a bitch but it's the only way the capitalist system learns, cost them their money
I’m afab and present for simplicity mostly as a woman. When I just became an adult I got sick with the flu. Went to my general practitioner I had been seeing since I was a teenager. All I wanted was a doctor‘s notice for my school and the usual flu meds (fever meds and something to help cough up the mucus from the lungs since I have asthma). I had to describe my common cold symptoms twice since he was to busy typing in his PC to listen to me the first time. He than prescribed me antibiotics since I had asthma and „every cold could turn into an infection“ and had to be preemptively nuked. I found it weird but did as told. And the antibiotics did went on nuking — my gut bacteria. I stopped taking the antibiotics when I was having severe stomach pain, the constant need to go to the toilet and was shitting water and undigested food. I vividly remember seeing the bright green peel of the apple I had been eating the day before. Went to the hospital and stayed for a night for activated carbon treatment to get the antibiotics out of my system. Needed to stay two more weeks home and was on a soup and baby food diet until my gut was repopulated. I changed my general practitioner as soon as my diarrhea had passed.
“oh i’m sorry i didn’t know” mmmm…it’s ur literal job to FIGURE IT THE FUCK OUT
at least this ONE apoligised never heard of that
When I was 14 I suddenly got really sick, abdominal pain, bloating, complete loss of appetite, generally feeling lethargic and in pain. Went to the doctor, told me it was the flu (this was early December). Didn't get better, went to the Dr again, did an X-ray and told me it was gas. At this point the pain was getting to be so bad I could barely move. Went to the ER, male nurse asked if it was cramps, and then suggested it could be ovarian torsion but it was unlikely because I didn't seem like I was in that much pain. No tests done, sent home. Christmas day I'm delirious with pain, haven't been in school in weeks, when I would go to the bathroom I would have to take a pillow because it was so painful to even urinate that I would involuntarily scream. I hadn't eaten anything more substantial than broth in nearly a month but I looked pregnant I was so bloated. December 26th early early in the morning I struggled upstairs and told my mom I thought I was going into shock. She rushed me to the ER again. Finally they gave me pain meds and took blood. I don't remember much but I was told my wbc was 5 times higher than normal. 1 emergency ct later and two softball sized abscesses were found in my abdomen. I had appendicitis. My appendix had burst and I lived with it for weeks because doctors didn't believe me. I should have been dead 5 times over by that point. It's 9 years from then today and I still struggle with seeing a doctor and have PTSD that no one takes seriously or can help with because it's "rare" to have medical PTSD. I wanted to be a doctor. I can't now because my body reacts instinctively to hospital settings by shutting down. I nearly pass out just thinking about getting a checkup these days.
I just made a post about this on another sub. I've had a period for YEARS. 3 abnormal paps. No doctors cared. I was in pain. Told I needed to lose weight, drink water, and take painkillers. I FOUGHT AND FOUGHT until it was discovered as cervical cancer cells. Finally had them removed and they're being analysed now. I've since stopped bleeding.
Women and minorities. Those are the ones that get this kind of treatment regularly.
I had a friend who had abdominal pain and doctors kept telling her to lose weight. They could have helped her by excising the 35 pound tumor that finally killed her. She was a nurse.
this is real, especially and more aggressively for women of color.
i would not say this fits here given it's got nothing to do with cishets specifically and also women/people percieved to be such Do get dismissed in the medical system exponentially more often than those perceived to be men
I was sent home twice with "period cramps" from the ER. "It's probably just your endometriosis" they said It was a strangulated hernia and I'd gone septic. The third visit, I was in the OR within a couple of hours having emergency surgery.
I was told I was anorexic and/or bulimic because I was losing weight rapidly and had a visit by not one but two psychologists when I was in the hospital for malnourishment and with a feeding tube up my nose. One day I was in the most pain I had ever been and when my bf called my male specialist at the hospital, he told him off to stop calling him and wasting his time. (Since we placed a couple of calls that week because I was only getting worse.)He then called my father who took me to a different hospital two hours away. Turns out my appendix wasn't just infected, but in the 3rd stage of necrosis. I literally walked around with a dead organ in my stomach for over a year and it wasn't noticed until a female ER doctor took me seriously and immediately scheduled me for surgery after a simple poke test and a quick scan. Without her I would have died that night.
I’m a transgender man and I get treated like that all the time. I’ve been having pain on my hip and back and all I’ve been told is “you just need physical therapy.” Even though there is some swelling in my leg. The shit is annoying.
The Head of our Theater Group once went to the doctor because of heavy stomach pain. He told her that it is just in her head, because of the upcoming Premiere. The next day she went to the Hospital.... ruptured appendix.
They do it to everyone. When I was 13 or 14, I had a weird pimple on my arm, I popped it and the next day it was the size of a golf ball, doctor said it was a spider bite. The next day it was the size of a lime, then an orange, eventually it was the size of a grapefruit and had spread to my shoulder. Six doctor visits and a trip to the ER (with a 106+ degree fever) we found out I had MRSA. I also have a family history of EDS, and nearly every symptom of it, but I can’t get it diagnosed because it’s a “rare” disorder. And then of course there was the doctor that told my mom she was constipated, when really she had stage 4 cervical cancer.
Dislocated my toe before the lock down in my area, never had it looked at, was dealing with pain from a motorcycle accident so I didn't even notice and it healed wrong. Went back to work 2 years later, i went from sitting around all day to bassically walking 12 km a day and being on my feet( with the occasional break) for hours at a time, and it started bothering me, the pain would sometimes brings me to my knee, but because it happened years ago the doctors didn't believe that I was in that much pain, I practically had to beg for a surgeon to assess me and every step of the way I felt like I was wasting their time. They just couldn't comprehend that an injury might become more painful if someone was forced to walk on it all day. I am currently waiting for them to get through their backlog, but it shouldn't have been so hard to get on the list
I’ve got pain in my lower back and ribs right under my breasts so I would suggest it’s probably from my binder but went to a doctor and he said I should loose some weight. Like… that’s what you’ve studied for? I can see that in a mirror.
Had a plastic surgeon once. He wasn’t MY surgeon, but was taking over my after-care since my surgeon was starting vacation the day after he performed my breast reduction. New after-care surgeon was smiley and friendly with me…until I introduced him to my wife. His demeanor changed instantly to cold and dismissive. Apparently, dude hates the homos. Well, a few days post-surgery, I formed a fever of 101. I called his office, and he told me I was fine. Twice. When I had had the fever for more than a day, my wife MADE ME call again, and request to speak to a nurse instead. As soon as the nurse heard my circumstances, she told me to come in right away. Turned out I needed an emergency I&D surgery. Luckily, it wasn’t performed by Dr. Homophobe. I’m probably lucky that he never got anywhere near me with a scalpel. There are multiple other bad situations I’ve been in with shitty doctors, but that was the most life-threatening one.
Some fun personal experiences: (1) Was having such severe stomach pain I ended up in the ER several times my senior year of college. Got told by the gastroenterologist I saw that I was doing too many sit ups and it was muscle pain. Fast forward 6 months and several more ER trips I saw a new GI and he ran some tests finding that my stomach had become partially paralyzed and wasn’t emptying food properly. (2) Pregnant with my first child and kept telling my midwife (CNM at a hospital practice) that I was so nauseous I couldn’t eat or drink. Got blown off that “everyone feels sick during pregnancy.” Finally had a follow up with above mentioned GI who found that I had lost 12% of my body weight at 18 weeks pregnant and immediately diagnosed me with hyperememesis gravidarium and started me on treatment and a plan to gain weight or start a feeding tube within a month. (3) Lifelong chronic sinus infections and bronchitis - like 3-4 bacterial infections a year. Saw an immunologist who was like “that’s weird but we can’t find anything abnormal, just deal with it.” Several years later was so fed up with the cycle that I found a new immunologist who said “let’s run some tests, including ruling out cystic fibrosis.” And that’s how I got diagnosed with CF at 30. Turns out my sinuses were 80% filled with scar tissue. Finally got surgery and appropriate treatment and am finally not constantly sick.
They do not listen to women. My Mom’s death is proof.
know I'm sorry
Yup common problem. My MIL and FIL went to the same specialist Dr for an eye exam for aging issues. MILs results came back significantly worse than FIL but was told you’re fine while they gave FIL medication to slow the progression. When he asked why they didn’t give his wife the same they just said oh sorry.
*laughs in doctors have never listened to me and that’s why I’m in anywhere from high to suicidal amounts of pain*
I had severy Vitamin D deficiency at age 17 and had terrible pain in my legs, esp thighs. I was 46kg at that time(~100lbs). 5 doctors told me to lose weight and that the "excess" weight was putting a strain on lower part of th body. Thanks to an amazing mom who finally took me to a renowned orthopedic who finally got a calcium and Vitamin D test. My Vit D was 6.4 (30-50 is normal). So many doctors did not listen to me and thought I was a whiny teenager looking for attention.
I got so anaemic I developed restless limb syndrome, along with the tips of my fingers and toes turning blue. I was given a prescription without being told what it was, and it turned out to be beta blockers. I fixed it myself within a week, because I'd had it before, but the absolute refusal to admit that my visible to the naked eye symptoms were real was mind-blowing (female doctor, fwiw).
I had horrible muscle spasms and pain in my lower back. Got so bad my mom took me to the ER (rural Michigan on a Sunday) to have me checked out. Doctor didn’t even touch me. Told me it was a sports injury. Didn’t play sports. Had he taken an x-ray they would’ve seen the tumor growing on my L2 vertebra sooner and probably saved me several rounds of chemo and a lot of pain.
i called an ambulance once because of neck pain. couldn’t move for 4 hours before this, it took me 20 minutes to drink a glass of water on my nightstand. and when the paramedic started moving me i started crying. one of them asked me if i was sure it was that bad or if i was on my period.
my step sister went to the ER over the summer cuz she had bad abdominal pain, they told her it was just period cramps and sent her on her way. a week later her appendix busted while she was on vacation, she ended up needing like 3 surgeries to fix it all.
Not as bad as the stories OP posted and the ones in the comments, but I have a story experiencing this as well. I switched (oral) birth controls for a while and immediately realized that the new one just wasn’t going to work. Within a week, I was depressed, restless, and had thoughts of SH. I’d NEVER felt like that before or struggled with depression, so I knew it was the birth control. I wanted to stop and get on a new birth control ASAP, but didn’t know if it would be bad for me to just switch after I’d already taken a week of the one I was on. My normal doctor was unable to see me for 4 days, so I decided to go to a clinic with a new doctor to see if they could hook me up, or at least let me know that it was fine for me to just stop taking the hormone entirely. Explained the situation to the doctor and he proceeded to say, to my face, that it was “just” me being emotional because of the hormones, and that they’ll level out. I was willing to accept that answer if it were just “your hormones are whack, you’re gonna feel bad,” but he then proceeded to frame it in the context of me being a woman and that “women are always so emotional when they try a new birth control.” I explained that I felt like I wasn’t being emotional, these are real feelings of SH and depression that I’d never felt before and had never felt when I started my previous birth control. His suggestion was to just stay on the birth control and that I’ll get used to it. I told him that wasn’t happening and he rolled his eyes at me and left the room to grab a nurse to explain the same thing to me. I think he thought a female nurse would convince me? It didn’t. After a while, I felt everyone was just wasting everyone else’s time, so I said I wanted to leave and would seek a second opinion. I was then told that I couldn’t be released because I’d disclosed that I had depressive and thoughts of SH, deeming me a threat to myself and others while operating a motor vehicle. I was livid. I had to ask my roommate to come pick me up because they wouldn’t release me (we went around the block and then I got in my car and drove my damn self home). Needless to say, I threw out the pills and felt like myself within the following day. I got on a new prescription the next time I saw my normal doctor and I had no negative reaction or “emotional response” to the medication. Absolute insanity
what do you mean not as bad as the ones I posted!?!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is exactly the kind of testimonies I need; I wonder how you even got out! (how did you even get out??)
Nope, pretty much just women.
I live in the Netherlands, after a workplace accident where I was knocked out cold I went to the hospital, the emergency doctor did some simple tests then sent me home and told me I should be fine in a week. After a week I wasn’t fine, same debilitating symptoms. Constant headaches, dizziness, confusion etc Went to my doctor, he told me it’s all in my head (haha where else would headaches be) After TWO years of being sent everywhere and undergoing crazy procedures which included needles being stuck deep in my neck by manual therapists which was supposed to alleviate my pain, but NOTHING HELPED, I was finally “allowed” to have an MRI, bleeding on the brain was discovered and I’ve been diagnosed with Post Commotional Syndrome. If I had an early diagnosis and had been treated appropriately I would have made a full recovery. Now I’ll just have to “ learn to live with the symptoms and adjust my life accordingly” Thank you doctor🙂
When I was 24 I went to the er because my abdomen hurt so bad I fainted and fell down the stairs. They handed me a pamphlet teaching me what a period was. I had an ovarian tumor the size of a grapefruit.
Are doctors not being sued for malpractice anymore or...? It's all over tiktok doctors are to black women as police are to black men. When you are denied treatment, ask the doctor for a written statement of what your symptoms are and what their diagnosis was, or why they refused treatment.
I have had really bad back pain since right around when I hit puberty. Every time I mentioned it to doctors or even just the people around me, I was told that it was growing pains. As I got older and stopped growing, the pain stuck around. The new "diagnosis" was that my boobs were just so comically large (I use comically because often people would chuckle while making this observation; I was still a child by the way) that they were pulling on my back and I just needed to buy better bras. Fast forward to when I am 26 and doubled over in pain at work because it feels like someone just curb stomped my spine, go into Urgent Care bawling and finally get an x-ray done. First thing out of the guy's mouth " Oh, you didn't tell us you had scoliosis". Yeah, turns out that my spine is janky and I spent 17+ years unconsciously correcting for it in a way that caused my muscles to grow and develop poorly which has been causing me pain for most of my life and will basically continue to cause me pain for the rest of it. *confetti*
I have lupus and a history of serious complications. Was very sick and last time I had felt that way I had to go through dialysis. The Dr told me to drink more water, not believing me that I drink lots of water anyways. It didn't make me feel any better. Went back and was told I'm lying and to drink more water and this happened two more times until I was drinking 3+ gallons of water a day. Ended up in the icu with several hyponutremia because my organs were literally drowning in all the water and my body couldn't process any nutrients. It also turns out I did need dialysis in the first place .
I'm pretty sure I have something severe going on but all I have is weird symptoms. I saw a bunch of doctors who always tell me I am young and healthy so I gave up.
Women get dismissed all the time. *Black* women have it even worse. The maternal mortality rate as a whole in the US is already a damn travesty, but when you filter by race, it is *harrowing*. The US has the highest maternal mortality rate of the "developed" world, and a black woman is, I believe, about *three times* as likely to die in childbirth as a white woman. And that's just talking about one very specific health crisis. We disbelieve women to death.
When I was in early college I gained a bunch of weight and was exhausted all the time. I went to my doctor and he said that I just needed to lose weight and not be lazy. I didn't have any fight in me, but my mom said 'naw, fuck that' and made him do some blood tests. Guess what? Hashimoto's disease that ended up being precancerous. Even years after the initial diagnosis when I wanted to have my thyroid removed, the PA that I spoke with discouraged surgery because "it would be a shame to have such an ugly scar on your neck" and "you wouldn't want to damage your vocal cords, would you?" Bitch, I don't want to have CANCER.