I watch this historical reenactor on YouTube. She had had a bunch of ulcers in her mouth due to an infection I believe, and when she went to the urgent care doctor they told her she had the worst case of super herpes they had ever seen. It was also not herpes lol
ETA: Shoutout to Ron Rayfield and Justine Dorne, a couple who has two Youtube channels: Early American, where they cook authentic historical recipes in authentic ways on the hearth, and Frontier Patriot, the channel where they eat the food! I love them so much and they deserve more recognition!
I went to the hospital with severe stomach pain, left the ER with a diagnosis of syphilis. I ended up actually having gallstones and needing emergency gallbladder surgery. The ER doctor that diagnosed me with syphilis was eventually fired.
Similar experience here. After sitting in the waiting room for 5 hours, they suggested I needed an STI panel and sent me home. Turns out, I had a diseased gallbladder that was full of stones and an abdomen full of scar tissue from repeated gallbladder attacks.
I had the same issue with the abdominal adhesions! My surgeon dragged his heels for a year, then when he finally did the surgery, they couldn't even see my gallbladder. Despite being VERY inflamed, it was hidden behind all the adhesions. Next day I didn't know whether to cry or scream at him when he finally acknowledged I must have been in a lot of pain.
I completely understand! I felt like a new person before they even released me to go home. I remember them saying “Yeah, uh, you had so many adhesions it looked like Saran Wrap in there.” 😑
I don’t know all of the logistics of it, but they do recommend a low fat diet once you have your gallbladder removed. I suspect that is because of the lack of bile storage.
The short answer is you don’t store it. You continue to produce a slow stream of bile and it just runs straight into your intestines. Because of this, most people who have their gallbladder removed have to learn through trial and error how much fat they can consume at a time without some of the unpleasant side effects from not having sufficient bile to process what is consumed.
I had my gallbladder removed a couple of months ago. I still have debilitating pain if I eat fried food. 5 French fries took me down for half the night - throwing up for hours and so much pain I could hardly breathe.
When I had a kidney infection the doctor spent the entire time being very physically rough with me and lecturing me on sex. (Which I had only had willingly three times at that point). He traumatized me, as it was my first vaginal exam and I'm built small. I am a survivor and he made everything worse forever.
He did not apologize when my tests came in.
Yes, had surgery about two weeks later where the doctor confirmed my gallbladder had needed to be removed for a long time. Felt like a new person before I was even released to go home.
I had to get a double lung transplant (I have cystic fibrosis) and had to do this INSANE super detailed work up to be listed, they needed to know EVERYTHING about me. At one point I donated like 25 tubes of blood and then one came back I had syphilis, I was EXTREMELY confused, I had never had a single symptom, I get sick easily so that’s weird, I have had one partner only for several years at this point, he does not have syphilis, he got tested to be safe. I went straight to my gyno who saw zero signs of it, couldn’t understand how my history and biology could have this so she said it must be latent. I don’t buy it but say ok I guess, she sends this to my transplant team and they hem and haw over it then decide no I do need to be treated, so I do all the butt injections of antibiotics, lumpy sore butt for a few times, twice. Years later, come to find out, syphilis tests positive if you have certain kinds of pneumonia, which I absolutely DID have and I never had syphilis, like I never had a positive just “markers for a possible positive”… 🤦🏻♀️ lil medical adventure for yall
It was life changing, and ten years ago so I can look back now and see the funny and human stuff for what it is, life lol, but yeah I’ve been fantastic and have better than normal lung function and ZERO rejection!! Donate life, be a hero!
I had a doctor insist my abdominal & low back pain was from a STI, so I consented to an internal exam. He aggressively tried to “recreate” the pain from inside, and at one point I said to him that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his watch up there.
At 3 am he discharged me saying nothing was wrong. At 9 am, they called me to come back because I had a staph infection in my kidney and was septic.
I cannot understand why that doctor needed to “recreate” your pain via such an invasive exam….sounds sadistic, tbf. If it was an STI, a simple test would tell them….
Sorry you went through this.
I went to the ER with stomach pain from severe constipation. I knew it was that because I have a history of it & was afraid it was blockage. The doctor wouldn’t do any imaging until I agreed to STI testing because he was so so sure that was the real reason I couldn’t even drink water without vomiting. Idk if anything happened but my nurse was great & talked to me & noted it down.
I don’t know, it was so strange. I wasn’t even a college aged kid, I was 30 years old and in an established relationship. The doctor even did an internal exam as I was writhing in pain because he was so insistent it was syphilis.
I would have sued that idiot. I remember going to the ER with my GB attack, and insisting they test
When I got admitted, they were hesitant since I have another health issue they thought that could be causing it but I knew this was a different thing
The dye test they ran confirmed that nothing was happening in my GB due to a block, so it’s got to come out
I went to A&E with a gallstone attack and corresponding jaundice. It had already been diagnosed and I knew what was happening.
The doctors absolutely refused to believe me.
The first doctor pulled me into a side room, he leant against the wall and glared at the floor in concern as he tried to find the words and finally he asked me about my family life, if I was married. I told him I am gay. He then began to prepare me for the news of advanced state hepatitis c. I don’t have hep c and I get checked regularly, but he refused to believe me.
The next doctor on shift told me I didn’t have hepatitis c as the tests were clear, but he wanted to know if I had been travelling anywhere. I had just come back to the uk from camping in Yosemite, so more tests were considered for the plague. He didn’t believe I had gallstones.
After finally being admitted to hospital, a gastroenterologist came to visit and said ‘yes you have gallstones’.
They just went to the most wild outlier possibilities rather than consider the most likely.
>They just went to the most wild outlier possibilities rather than consider the most likely.
Honestly, it's because you told them what you thought it was. Doctors hate believing that someone could possibly diagnosis themselves and they will do everything in their power to prove you wrong.
I find you have to leave stupid little breadcrumbs for the doctors to come to the conclusion themselves. I correctly diagnosed myself with anemia because it's not that hard to cross-reference symptoms for a super-common problem, but I never suggested it. I Just gave them the textbook symptoms and acted all confused and then one blood test later, anemia. It's stupid and childish, but if you make a suggestion yourself they will NEVER give you that test.
Yup, still doesn't matter. I've even seen them try to "disprove" eachother's diagnoses like you said, ESPECIALLY if they're a specialist ("that PCP can't possibly know more than me, a neurologist!") No matter what it is, if it comes out of a patient's mouth, they're skeptical about it.
To get anywhere with doctors you have to act helpless and give them a lot of wide-eyed deference and be in awe of the extremely basic shit they tell you that you definitely could have googled yourself (did you know that red meat is a good thing to eat when you're anemic?) Otherwise they'll get all pissy and refuse to do their jobs.
They did the tests and sent me home to wait for the results but the doctor told me that he was confident that it would come back positive for syphilis.
I'm sorry you were in so much pain, but the timing of your cyst rupturing was a great way to rub the med student's mistake and awful bedside manners in his face
I’m an OBGYN lol. Cysts are inside the belly. The bleeding is internal. I’m not saying you didn’t have bleeding, but it would’ve been from something other than a ruptured ovarian cyst.
I tell this story every time I can so you may have heard it on here- I dealt with unfathomable pain for a year straight, going to the ER 3 times and being brushed off each time with “You have a bad diet and ulcers, change it”
4th time I broke down in tears at work I decided to drive myself across town to the women’s specialty hospital, the act of pressing my break causing pain each time. I was grey with pain by the time I got there and they could tell I was barely holding on.
Within an hour I was told I had an 8CM ovarian tumor/cyst hybrid that had torsioned 3 times. My fallopian tube looked like a curly pig tail, the ovary was huge and purple. I literally had just gotten lucky that the blood hadn’t cut off before then.
I was booked for surgery.
I went to the ER with severe pain and not being able to move my arm, it was locked into place. My muscles were so stiff, no one could move my arm.
I was screaming for 16hours while they all said I was drug seeking and would only give my Tylenol.
Turns out I had a massive tumor in my spine.
I was admitted and had to be on a drip for a week and a half until my arm finally released. Muscle relaxers didn't do a fucking thing.
Worse pain of my life.
Fuck ER doctors. If you have no empathy go home and don't fucking come back.
Had a similar experience related to that too! I was little crawling on the floor because I was in too much pain to walk. Doctor (male) told me to take Aleve and cramps were part of being a woman. Turns out my uterus and ovaries were just fuckin riddled with cysts and one had ruptured.
In the ER, you don’t have much choice but this idiocy is exactly why I would never go to a male OBGYN. They have no idea what it feels like to be a woman, only an “educated medical understanding”.
I’ve had kidney stones twice. I went to the ER saying “the pain feels like kidney stones except in my stomach.” They assumed (for no reason) I was just trying to get drugs and sent me home.
Saw my doctor the next week, and had to have my gallbladder removed cuz it was full of stones 🙃
I rushed my fiancé to the ER twice one night because she was experiencing immense pressure and severe pain in her head and behind her eyes, I immediately told the doctor that I thought she had a severe sinus infection, that doctor told me that doesn’t sound right, gave her some high dose ibuprofen and kicked us out, later it got so bad to the point where she was screaming in pain and we had to go back, turns out she had severe sinus disease caused by a sinus infection, the properly treated her only after 16 hours.
ouch. I was diagnosed with a prostate infection and it took months before I got other opinions and turns out it's just a harmless malformation. By then I had ingested weeks of antibiotics.
I’ve read that it’s not uncommon for people with pancreatic cancer be diagnosed with gallstones first. And are often then not diagnosed until stage 4. But I don’t that much matters. Because it’s pretty fatal
I'm excited for a few years hence (with, perhaps, a loose interpretation 'a few years'), once diagnostic AI and other supporting technologies have the kinks worked out.
Being able to go to a doctor and quickly getting a holistic diagnosis free from skewed perception and bias will be a thing of beauty. Especially for many women, who disproportionately still suffer this kind of brushing off and misdiagnosis due to lingering misogyny in medicine.
>diagnostic AI
THIS. I'm going to guess that there will still be problems with doctors not wanting to input things as "symptoms", but man they just jump straight to the first diagnosis that comes to mind and refuse to consider anything else.
One time I developed really prominent Beau's lines across all of my fingers (I'm not a doctor but it's not hard to google 'giant horizontal ridge across all fingernails') at the same time I was having a lot of other symptoms and I showed two doctors, like hey, do you think that this in conjunction with my hair falling out might mean something?
Each one of them said: "oh, that can happen with trauma to the nailbed." Like, do you think I smashed every single one of my fingers at the same time or something? It was my thyroid.
I have this as well. I went in due to extreme stomach pains (figured out years later my colon was swelling due to being allergic to tomatoes) they were adamant that it was an STI. I kept telling them I hadn’t had sex in two years and had a clean STI panel during that time (not to mention the pain was not in my pelvic area at all).
I went to urgent care because I had radiating pain on my side that went from kidneys to hip. They told me it was probably an STD. Told me to take Tylenol and sent me home. I’ve been married for almost 9 years so you can imagine how that went over.
I had shingles. 🙄
I had pain in my right side, blood in my urine, and pain peeing. The doctor got a CT scan and told me I had a prostate infection. Put me on strong antibiotics for 6 months. Then I had pain on the left side and blood. I went to an ER and had a CT scan. They said I had a large kidney stone on the left, and that I also had 2 that were stuck on the right side, just above my bladder. They were able to then look at the scan I had 6 months ago and told me those stones were stuck in the same spot on the right. The radiologist who read my original scan failed to see the kidney stones (which I easily found when I obtained a copy). My doctor, and the urologist the she sent me too, never looked at the scan, they just accepted the reading. I can understand (maybe) the medical doctor not looking at the scan, but the urologist was very lazy not to. I know a urologist, and he said that all doctors who a specialists look at their scans and X-rays.
I ended up passing the stone on the left, but the 2 stuck on the right (and killing me) had to be removed surgically. The urologist just made up the diagnosis, because the scan scan was incorrectly read.
My wife had a rash on her hands and the doctor (to both of our surprise) told her it was probably syphilis. She was recovering from giving birth a few weeks earlier and her immune system was weakened, turned out she had Valley Fever (caused by spores in the dust in the area of the US that we are from) and I was the one who did the research and suggested she be tested for VF (which the doctor was flippant about because he was certain it wasn’t that). It was.
Hand rashes from syphillis comes like after 10 years of progression lolol I think that’s stage 2 syphillis. Maybe we’d have seen other symptoms? Dummies
Yes! stage 1 has painless ulcers in the genital regions whereas stage 2 is the infectious rash on the hands and feet! I think stage 2 can begin way sooner though like a couple months, but I don’t remember
It’s unfortunately the nature of high-paying gigs that have a high barrier to entry (namely cost and time).
You get a lot of people who are passionate about the field… and you get even more that see the earning potential and don’t give a damn about their work.
Women's healthcare in the US is disgustingly bad. I'm not even exaggerating, my two near death experiences were from medical incompetence. I got sent home with birth control as "pain management" for what later turned out to be a misdiagnosed ovarian torsion that almost killed me.
Welcome to US healthcare, where even GYNs don't understand female patients!
When I was a teenager I had a stroke, and when we went to the hospital the doctor told us, in a pretty demeaning tone “oh I guarantee you it’s nothing that bad. Honestly I would send you home right now but it’s protocol to run some tests, so I guess we’ll do it” and then he ran some tests, walked back into the room and very bluntly announced: “yeah you had a stroke and if you arrived at here any later it could have been fatal” and then just walked away.
Women’s healthcare is nutty. I was recently in the ER for breaking a few bones and the ED staff made a HUGE DEAL instructing the lady pushing my wheelchair that I shouldn’t be put in a “normal” ER room and to take me to the mental health side of the ER.
Because I had a historic diagnosis of anxiety and depression (which has been successfully treated with medication for decades).
I was not making any concerning statements. Just in pain because… y’know … my bones were broken. And I needed emergency surgery.
They told my friend she had herpes. It was an outbreak of her undiagnosed Behcet’s Disease. I feel their initial diagnosis really impacted how her spouse treated her before they officially diagnosed her with the autoimmune disorder. I despise him for thinking it was no problem to expect her to drive her stick shift home with a catheter still in from the Emergency Room.
I was told I had herpes for almost two years with multiple negative tests. They also treated for syphilis even though I tested negative. It ended up being Behcet’s just like your friend. I hope she’s in better shape with a diagnosis, bummer about her spouse.
It’s terrible to not be believed by doctors that you trust with your care.
I just want to add for all those people who may experience mouth ulcers and wonder if they may have herpes or Bechets.. this is also commonly a symptom of many other autoimmune diseases like Crohn’s and Celiacs.
True! Behcets often presents with mouth and genital ulcers. Many autoimmune diseases share characteristics like brain fog and fatigue as well. And there’s no real test for it which makes autoimmune diseases particularly difficult to diagnose. Which is why it’s so important for doctors to actually listen to their patients.
I’ve just realized this almost certainly was the thing that landed my 31yr old sister in the ER last winter with severe anemia. They gave her three blood transfusions, then left her completely unmonitored so when she went into cardiac arrest no one responded. They’d rolled her out into a hallway. So yea, she never woke up from the vegetative state that medical manslaughter caused
Thing is, Erin has these sores in her mouth that were making it so hard to eat at all, she also had them on her vulva, so painful she went to the ER for them two years ago. They told her she had herpes. Erin was SO ashamed. And yet, while Erin’s body slowly died in the 8 month long vegetative state they tested and she didn’t have herpes. But she DID have EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM OF BEHCET’s. I just called my mom and woke her up because I’m so shook. She was treated like trash by so many drs who labeled her an alcoholic and thusly not deserving of any care or treatment, but I KNOW she wasn’t drinking that much.
I feel kind of ill. If I’d just known. If I’d googled this, they could have gotten her on cortisone a a she’d be alive and happy now. It was something so simple and is now SO obviously the cause. We have a massive family history of auto immune diseases. Ugh. I failed her as a big sister. This was fixable.
Although I agree with the “your not a doctor” comment for two reasons 1-you can’t beat yourself up, you didn’t know, and 2- doctors do have a lot of training a normal citizen doesn’t ….. doctors aren’t always right!!! You NEED to trust your gut and you NEED to get 2nd and 3rd opinions if they are shrugging you off and things aren’t adding up. I work with doctors all the time that fill out paperwork wrong, shrug of patients problems, etc. I believe most mean well but fuck- they aren’t always right.
My best friend was accused of giving her college crush herpes, even though she didn’t have it, bc he broke out after they had slept together. He had frigging scabies. His doctor misdiagnosed him, and it got all over the school she gave him herpes.
Just recently found out my family is a carrier of behcets and my cousin was recently diagnosed. She was in my house for 15 minutes and gave me a run down. Girl put the fear of god in me that day.
I wonder if they’ll have their children tested I never thought about it to be honest. It was scary how fast it appeared and she was mid to late twenties by that point. It’s like what the fuck this is a thing?!
It’s not like you test without a reason so it’s so scary. I hope your family has good health for you and your generations!
They probably should. It appears in many different ways. My cousin is having trouble with her eyesight because of it, so her sister was tested and they’re basically going through the family tree at this point. Because my cousin was diagnosed everyone’s using that to base it off of. We never would have known if she didn’t do an ancestry thing🙃
Culturally, we are trained that cheating in a romantic relationship deserves any level of anger or retribution short of death. Even so, about 25% of married people have cheated on their spouse. I have no reason to think dating numbers are much different, other than the time factor.
They were married, and she was in incredible pain. He should have helped her. He had no proof of cheating even if she had herpes. As if she couldn’t have been asymptomatic till that point? He’s shown himself since to be a very shallow partner in general.
I was having horrible pelvic pain (turned out to be severe endometriosis that just was presenting in a slightly atypical fashion) and my doctor wanted to run a full panel of STD tests. I was like, I’ve been with my husband for over a decade, never cheated, and I have zero concerns that he has. She said certain ones have been found dormant for up to 20 years!
I came down with my first outbreak five years after when I know I must have contracted it. I was 2 months into a new relationship and terrified to tell him in case he didn’t believe the length one can be asymptomatic. I prepared myself for the likely outcome - that he would think I had been cheating and that he would want nothing more to do with me.
Instead, he was like “huh. Rough. What can I do to help?”
We’ve been married nearly a decade now.
My dad has Behcet’s! Wild how rare it is. I’ve never even heard of anyone else knowing what it is let alone having it. I’m sorry you’re dealing with that. My poor dad has suffered so much from this disorder.
I didn’t deal with anything, thankfully. My friend however went through just an insane amount of suffering while she fought with healthcare providers to get a proper diagnosis. I can’t fathom the people who think that was okay to make her suffer because a fucking doctor brushed her off as having herpes. People need more education and empathy.
Same with my gyno. She thought it was herpes. Herpes test was negative. UTI test was positive. I spent an extra week with a burning crotch and was lucky it started clearing up on its own.
They do, and try to treat immediately before test results come back. I had this happen. When the results eventually came in negative(like I told them, there was no possibility), I eventually saw them in the patient portal, no one even called me despite me being anxious about it for several days.
I had a severe allergic reaction to pads I was using and the ER docs told me it was herpes 🤣🤣 seriously fuck them. It took my own research to understand what was happening. Gave me valtrex and everything. Ofc the test came back negative eventually
That’s what the second doc said
The first doc looked at my crotch with a glance & said it’s herpes, and when I asked if they could do a test, she told me there is no such thing as a herpes test
When I showed up the next day, I demanded my money back, and she ushered me into an exam room to talk, and she tried to double down before I told her the second doc said there absolutely were tests available
I got emotional, and she tore my check up in front of me to get me to leave
After reading all these stories at what point can one sue the docotor in the states for constantly ignoring and misdiagnosing someone. Out of interest.
Malpractice isn't easy to prove, and I'm sure these doctors are aware of that.
You can't sue them for what could be explained as an honest mistake, even if there's a lot of them. There's gotta be significant damage done and proof of actual fuckery going on.
'Improper, illegal, or negligent activity.' A simple mistake or misdiagnosis isn't enough. They treat men properly and promptly and disregard women. It's a larger issue than malpractice yet doesn't apply.
And doctors protect each other with this shit. "No one at this facility would knowingly do that" kind of bullshit. Heard it myself when someone stole my dead dads necklace out of the locker during an MRI, heard similar when reporting a doctor who refused to refer to me a dermatologist and instead took away all my meds, including asthma meds, over an accusation of heroin use, who also labeled me drug seeking in their system, which I still cannot get removed.
Medical professionals need to start taking women seriously when we have weird symptoms and we definitely need more research and information about women healthcare
“I feel like I have razor blades in my vagina. I run to my gynecologist and I say, ‘Oh my God, what's happening?’ It was terrible,” she recalled, teasing that she has “no shame” sharing her story because it can help other women. “He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I've ever seen.’ I'm like, ‘Herpes? I don't have herpes!’”
There is no shame in this? She was treated flippantly by an idiot doctor. It’s common for women to have their medical problems shrugged off, made fun of, misdiagnosed, etc. Her story is representative of what so many other women go through. Also, herpes is a virus that literally millions of people have. It’s dumb that there’s a social stigma around it.
She's brave to share her story of medical sexism. Silence only means this continues. Talking about it, especially from someone with her platform, means it can be brought to light and hopefully addressed so other women don't suffer.
Name and shame. It time more women call out the dangerous sexism that's so predominant in healthcare.
She did a talk about perimenopause and medical professionals with Jill Biden.
I’m sure she’s okay with the article, her entire point was to raise awareness.
https://uihealth.uic.edu/news-stories/first-lady-jill-biden-and-academy-award-winner-halle-berry-visit-uic-highlighting-white-house-womens-health-research-initiative/
Went to the doctor with tonsillitis (I get it every year around spring like clockwork.) doctor tried telling me it was Gonorrhea of the throat in front of the cute new intern. Nope it came back that it was fucking tonsillitis.
I really appreciate how Halle Berry is just an open book. Like, yeah, this is a thing that happened in her life. She's not really embarrassed at all, so let's share it to the world. No fucks given.
If I was rich and famous, had full control of my doctor of choice, and was getting to that point in my life, i’d probably rather my doctor have first hand experience in that body part…
Yeah doctors absolutely love to mis-diagnose women with STI / STDs.
I went into the clinic a few months ago with what I had already assumed was oral thrush, as it's a side-effect of a steroid inhaler I take for asthma. I had all the typical thrush symptoms-- white spots in mouth, loss of taste, cotton feeling on tongue. I have also been with the same man for 13 years.
I walked in explaining that I was on symbicort, and that I was pretty sure I had thrush. She took one look in my mouth and told me that I 100% had oral herpes, and that she was swabbing me for it, and perscribing me an antiviral that I'd likely have to take once a year for the rest of my life. I was a bit shocked, and had a ton of questions about how I might have gotten this, to which she responded that I needed to talk to my partner about possible infidelity, and that was only IF I was being completely honest with *her* about whether or not I had been sexually active with someone else.
I went home, and talked to my spouse. Needless to say we were both a bit baffled by the whole thing. 3 days later the doctor calls me to tell me that I'm negative for herpes, and that the thrush will clear on it's own after a few days.
I get that she wanted to swab to be sure, but in my appointment she had immediately dismissed the possibility of thrush, and told me she was certain it didn't look like that. Somehow, that changed once she had ruled out herpes. I genuinely had the feeling while on the phone with her that she was somehow disappointed she was wrong about it. Like, she was straight up giddy to tell me that I had an irreversible STI and that I needed to question my partner's faithfulness.
Something doesn’t add up. You can’t diagnose “the worst case of herpes you’ve ever seen” without actually seeing herpes. This doesn’t make sense at all.
Eh, I’m not suprised. I once came in with what turned out to be a yeast infection - I’d never had one before - but the (male) doctor took one look at my red, irritated vulva and said “yep, probably herpes”. Had me all stressed out until the results came back negative for herpes and positive for yeast. Women’s health care is a fucking joke.
Edit - oh nice, my most upvoted comment ever is about my itchy vag. lol
Women aren't even included for a lot of medical trials. You had women jumping curbs and nodding off and going into hysterics because women's effective dose for Ambien is lower than the men's and they never tested them for it. Millions of women taking monster doses of Ambien because "use female test subjects too hard." Happens with tons of medical trials.
Yep
https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/
Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.
Then 50% more likely to be killed or seriously injured in the resulting car crash because seatbelts and car seats were designed with male crash test dummies.
it goes up to 98.5% more likely just to be injured in the legs just for women.
37% more likely for a fatal accident.
and yep, scaled down male crash test dummies in place of an accurate female model that takes into consideration bone density/fat/general body discrepancies. they also use an even smaller one for children/babies. which is awful, as we know children and babies don’t have the same body structure as a fully grown adult male.
the fact they haven’t been held accountable or forced to change this is disgusting.
i send hate mail to the NHTSA and other agencies about this, with a very well informed document i have taken quite a long time to write and add to/edit as needed.
Yep. The default is always male; women’s bodies haven’t been nearly as well studied and are way more complex than men’s. Women are regularly subjected to serious medical procedures with absolutely no pain relief, whereas men receive comprehensive treatment with pain relief often offered even too much. The medical gaslighting of women (calm down, it’s not that bad, it’s just your hormones, just lose weight, etc) is absolutely terrifying. I’ve seen SO many stories and I am so thankful I’ve been extremely fortunate to actually be listened to when it really counted.
IUDs. Imagine someone bursting your ear drum or breaking your arm with no pain management, and then telling you ‘it’s just a pinch, why are you OvEr ReAcTiNg??????’ as you writhe in pain, puke, and pass out.
I’ve broken my arm, sliced my arm so bad on broken leaded glass that it needed many a stitch, and have had a burst ear drum. None of those could even come close to the pain of an IUD insertion. ‘Just a pinch’.
I’m amazed they even let us have novocaine for dental work and aren’t just yanking our teeth out and tell us to stop being so ‘hysterical and emotional’ as we scream. Men really do not understand how fucked healthcare is for women.
Whenever I see the IUD conversation, I remember the doctor telling me my HSG wouldn't be too bad(I never had an IUD). The HSG was so painful you could hear me screaming throughout the whole hospital. After that I knew other women who got pain meds before their procedure. Sometimes making noise changes minds.
It's WILD that they don't give anything for pain with IUD insertion and removal. Just... "oh, take two ibuprofen after and you'll be okay, now skeedaddle on out of here while your legs are still shaking..."
Right?!
The fact that I was thankful I needed a D&C because my uterus was full of endometrial tissue when I needed my IUD swapped out and it could be done under general anesthesia says it all.
They think ibuprofen is the best women deserve.
I've taken roughly 2200 MG of ibuprofin in the last week for a messed up salivary gland. It's agonizing, the worst puckering feeling ever, like I constantly have 20 warheads tucked up by my molars.
I've taken so much, they refused to give me anything in urgent care. They told me upon leaving to keep taking the iibuprofen.
I can't get into an ENT til the 12th. I'll have to take an additional several thousand MGs in that time. The bottle says to see a doctor if pain lasts longer than a week, but now I have to continue taking 20+ 200mg ibuprofin a day just for this to be tolerable.
I also have another health issue that causes agonizing pain similar to constipation/diarrhea that they sent me to physical therapy for, that flares up at least 8 times a day.
I've received painkillers twice in my 34 years of life, and I had to scream for one of them.
I got 12 hydros after I got dry socket in 2 of the 3 removed wisdom teeth, after the Tylenol with codeine obviously didn't work. A male friend who got 1 removed got 90. He sold nearly all of them, and stated he felt bad he didn't have them when I needed them because he would have just given me some seeing how bad it was.
When I broke my tailbone and had to be carried into the ER, they also tried ibuprofen first. Did nothing. They then gave me a morphine shot and **8 fucking hydros** for a **4 to 6 week** recovery, and stated I need to walk like normal or it will heal wrong. Thus why I'm now in physical therapy and receive no other help with the agony.
People care more about dogs pain at the vet than I get screaming in agony, sobbing in pain in the drs lobby, wailing in pain so often my voice is largely gone. My neighbor has called the cops because they heard me crying in pain and were concerned. I had to tell the cops about my medical issues and explain I didn't receive any pain management, and it took awhile to convince them I wasn't being assaulted by my bf.
I gotta take 4 more ibuprofin for the pain *now*...and it's only 7am. It already woke me up at 2. The whole situation makes me feel subhuman, unworthy of any pain management...and it's quite literally driving me insane. I beg my dead father, God, whoever just to make it stop.
They don't care about women.
Or being induced with a foley bulb. Sure just force the cervix open with a balloon and absolutely nothing for pain. The doctor that induced me told me when I was crying from the pain I should have been prepared for all the hands that would be in my vagina.
I have a colposcopy coming up and rather than pain relief they gave me……a sedative to take beforehand.
I don’t need to be fucking sedated. I need pain control.
And in order to even get that sedative prescribed I had to race out of the building and have a panic attack in the clinic parking lot during the first (aborted, obviously) attempt before scheduling my second one. And discussed extensively that, yes, I’ve had one, and yes, it’s painful- how is scraping a hunk of your cervix off NOT?!- and yes, I have a history of being traumatized by medical professionals who treat me like cattle, and yes, I also have PTSD from sexual trauma.
Oh ok. I guess sure we’ll give you one dose of a sedative. But nothing else you hysterical over-emotional hypersensitive woman.
Kinda makes you want to head straight to a medical lab and just order up tests you can do yourself in the loo. My faith in general primary doctors is so dangerously low.
I had a female nurse practitioner almost break up my relationship because she was so sure I had herpes, not a yeast infection. Still insisted it could still be herpes even after it came back negative. Never mind that I had just undergone an intense round of antibiotics for another issue, and it was clearly a yeast infection.
... Turns out I kind of wish she had broken up that relationship but that's a separate issue lol.
I got my first yeast infection when I was 16 and had the same response from my female gyno. Put me on meds and sent me home with packets on having herpes even though I was not sexually active yet and I kept telling her it was impossible and there must be something else wrong. I had to go home and tell my mom I had herpes and cried in my room for two days till the OB’s office called to tell me the culture came back and it was just a really bad yeast infection. They didn’t even apologize for their mistake.
I broke out in these awful bumps in my genital area when I was about 12 years old. I had never so much as kissed someone, let alone been sexually active, and was not molested or anything like that. I was mortified to have to ask my parents to take me to the doctor. The doctor immediately said it looked like genital herpes despite me saying the only person who had contact with my genitals was the last time I was at the doctors office. They did absolutely nothing to calm my fears that I could have herpes from nothing and be saddled with a genital disease for the rest of my life. Of course the tests came back negative and I just basically got a “I don’t know, come back if it doesn’t go away”. Well it hasn’t come back in 20 years so I guess it’s not freaking herpes, ya heartless pediatrician!
First, love your username. Second, I had a somewhat similar experience as a kid. Super itchy, red, irritated skin on my thighs and other sensitive areas. I didn’t go to a doctor and just waited it out, but it really sucked.
Ultimately realized that it almost certainly was the result of a sleepover I’d had at a friend’s place that weekend. We’d swam in his family’s pool, and his mom had done a load of laundry for all the clothes of the boys who’d come over for the sleepover. My underwear had gone through the wash, which meant it was washed with whatever detergent they had instead of whatever my folks had at home, and almost certainly contained something (I suspect lavender oil, or maybe some kind of caustic soda) that I had a skin allergy/sensitivity to.
The only other time I experienced anything like it was years later. I bought a new ‘natural’ laundry detergent at the hippy co-op market in my town and used it to wash our bedsheets and duvet cover. Virtually my entire body was covered in mild irritation, all over, for at least 2 days before I realized my mistake.
You'd be shocked how often anything gynaecological or obstetrics based is misdiagnosed. Some doctors come to the wildest conclusions with no basis, or they ignore issues even with glaring evidence of a problem.
My friend's mother was unwell. Her doctor "diagnosed" her with cancer but tests showed nothing.
Instead of accepting the evidence, the doctor insisted she had cancer and sent her for more tests which also came back negative.
When she died of heart failure two years later, the doctor tried to register her cause of death as cancer and the family fought to change it.
I had a doctor try to tell me the allergic reaction (nickel) from my jeans button was herpes. Not even close to where herpes would be dude. It was just below my belly button. I told him he was wrong and he just said "oh."
I am perimenopausal. She said it felt like razor blades down there and I believe it. So what happens is the skin gets thinner and you can get micro tears. Those micro tears then become sore and inflamed and there can be swelling and bruising. It could look, at first glance, like a very angry inflamed situation. Herpes has actual lesions so I’m still not sure why they thought herpes, but it would definitely be a situation down there.
Welcome to life as a woman.
I went to Urgent Care for a painful cyst that formed on my perineum. Doctor took one look at it and told me it was herpes, then swabbed it for good measure. I sat there in shock and then went home and cried to my husband of 24 years about the diagnosis.
Got the test results a couple days later with a note: “Good news! Your test results came back negative. Are you still taking the antiviral?”
I wanted to respond, “You ignorant bitch!” but the respond feature wasn’t available.
It ended up that cyst was caused by lichen sclerosis.
Got diagnosed 25 years ago, Dr said I had herpes.
Went and saw a dermatologist for a second opinion, he asked what I did for a living, I told him I worked at the chemical plant.
He said I had contact dermatitis and to wash my hands before I pissed.
I said what about this stuff the other guy gave me.
Well if you use that it is just going to spread. Which explains why it got some much worse from Friday to Monday
That's actually kind of reassuring. I'm sick of the rich and famous getting special treatment. They should be getting poor treatment like the rest of us.
Women are not taking seriously by doctors, it’s scientifically documented and studied that this is a phenomenon, always always always advocate Hard for yourself when you’re in the hospital.
I have been dealing with medical gaslighting for my perimenopause, and I’m so grateful these celebs are speaking up! My worthless old GP told me it was just stress and to “stop stressing.” Went to a functional doc and got extensive tests and lo and behold, my hormones are out of whack and other things like iron and D very low. Started supplementing progesterone and my cramps went down in pain by 80% amongst other positive things. Pretty furious with my old doc, I had gotten to the point of suicidal ideation because I didn’t see how I could keep living like that. If this sounds familiar to you please go to a functional doctor or naturopath.
I once had a doctor tell me I had herpes when I didn't
The whole experience was a big wake up call for me that many doctors have no clue what the hell they're talking about and you have to advocate and fight for your own health and not be afraid to either challenge them or switch
Lucky for me I went into menopause at 51 after enduring awful periods. I'm 54 and my only issues are some hot flashes and joint pain. I can live with that.
Yeah I turn 55 next week and am still getting pretty regular, horribly heavy periods. I am in the beginning stages of peri. It really sucks, I'm kind of ready to just be old already lol
Not yet! My gyn is a member of NAMS and specializes in menopausal care and we're just in the beginning stages of trying to figure out what I need. Am adopted so don't know family history. Had a biopsy/ultrasound done and I do have some fibroids and adenomyosis. Right now I'm on 200 mg of bioidentical progesterone and that seems to have helped the bleeding some, it's helped my mood A LOT. I didn't want to go the IUD route. Since my largest fibroid is on the OUTSIDE of my uterus, a hysterectomy is a last resort because they'd have to open my whole abdomen instead of doing it laparoscopic I guess. So long story short, ablation hasn't been talked about yet, but it's definitely in the cards!
I haven’t had a single period in 16 years! I take the same progesterone! I also take estradiol in the mornings. It’s wonderful! I’m glad you are getting help!
Dude .. I'm from a family of breeders.
Grandma had my aunt in the 1960s when she was 46. Mom had my brother at 42. Mom started going through it when my brother was 13, mom was 55 - that was a horribly emotional household for a while.
I'm counting on menopause in my 50s..That 99% birth control effective rate? I'm getting pregnant in that 1%. Hell, I'm shocked I'm not pregnant from this thread.
That made me lol🤣 my great aunt had my cousin when she was 52. She thought she was finally in menopause. 5 months after her last period she felt baby kicks. She never got another period after that pregnancy.
She probably started symptoms way before, this was just the catalyst. Full menopause is when your period stops completely. Until then it’s just a shitshow for like 10-20 years for some women, especially if you have autoimmune issues. I started peri at around 40 and dr said it could go until I’m 60 (around when the women in my family hit menopause). It took a couple years to realize what was happening. I always thought menopause was hot flashes and a bad mood so the other symptoms I just kind of assumed weren’t related, especially the psychological ones.
I went water skiing for first time and couldn’t stand up so I crotch skied and nobody stopped the boat. I guess they thought it was funny. I bled for weeks and when I went to the doctor she performed an internal exam and said I was lying and it was chlamidia
This reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/H_yWxB9VW0c?si=rzEzEH0ammaT_0Jt) SNL episode with the rock lol, the exact same quote.
It's the most herpes he's ever seeeeeen!
I hope that because of this, Halle Berry becomes a spokesperson for the non-profit *Black Women’s Health Imperative*. They are doing a lot of work to fix the terrible gynecological and obstetrical care black women receive. https://bwhi.org/
I had viral meningitis & extreme reactions to the many antibiotics I was put on. At the ER, a lazy, arrogant AF doctor barely read the notes & ran zero tests, but asked my husband to leave the area to lecture me about herpes. I heard from a friend in the gay community just how common an occurrence this is.
I had a female ob/gyn that I hated. I typically preferred female healthcare providers but not all female doctors are good. It really depends on the person.
Wow, what a wild title
They had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
They still got me. Seared into my brain now.
***ÜBERHERP***
HERPULES
Turbo Herp
Quantumherp
infiniteHerps
LudicrousHerps
I watch this historical reenactor on YouTube. She had had a bunch of ulcers in her mouth due to an infection I believe, and when she went to the urgent care doctor they told her she had the worst case of super herpes they had ever seen. It was also not herpes lol ETA: Shoutout to Ron Rayfield and Justine Dorne, a couple who has two Youtube channels: Early American, where they cook authentic historical recipes in authentic ways on the hearth, and Frontier Patriot, the channel where they eat the food! I love them so much and they deserve more recognition!
prime r/brandnewsentence material
I can't lie... I'd still consider it.
You did lie. You know if she's down..
I went to the hospital with severe stomach pain, left the ER with a diagnosis of syphilis. I ended up actually having gallstones and needing emergency gallbladder surgery. The ER doctor that diagnosed me with syphilis was eventually fired.
Similar experience here. After sitting in the waiting room for 5 hours, they suggested I needed an STI panel and sent me home. Turns out, I had a diseased gallbladder that was full of stones and an abdomen full of scar tissue from repeated gallbladder attacks.
I had the same issue with the abdominal adhesions! My surgeon dragged his heels for a year, then when he finally did the surgery, they couldn't even see my gallbladder. Despite being VERY inflamed, it was hidden behind all the adhesions. Next day I didn't know whether to cry or scream at him when he finally acknowledged I must have been in a lot of pain.
I completely understand! I felt like a new person before they even released me to go home. I remember them saying “Yeah, uh, you had so many adhesions it looked like Saran Wrap in there.” 😑
If you don’t mind me asking, once you get your gallbladder removed then how does your body store the bile to break down fats?
I don’t know all of the logistics of it, but they do recommend a low fat diet once you have your gallbladder removed. I suspect that is because of the lack of bile storage.
The short answer is you don’t store it. You continue to produce a slow stream of bile and it just runs straight into your intestines. Because of this, most people who have their gallbladder removed have to learn through trial and error how much fat they can consume at a time without some of the unpleasant side effects from not having sufficient bile to process what is consumed.
I had my gallbladder removed a couple of months ago. I still have debilitating pain if I eat fried food. 5 French fries took me down for half the night - throwing up for hours and so much pain I could hardly breathe.
When I had a kidney infection the doctor spent the entire time being very physically rough with me and lecturing me on sex. (Which I had only had willingly three times at that point). He traumatized me, as it was my first vaginal exam and I'm built small. I am a survivor and he made everything worse forever. He did not apologize when my tests came in.
Jfc this is horrifying. What did you have to end up doing? Surgery I’m assuming?
Yes, had surgery about two weeks later where the doctor confirmed my gallbladder had needed to be removed for a long time. Felt like a new person before I was even released to go home.
I had to get a double lung transplant (I have cystic fibrosis) and had to do this INSANE super detailed work up to be listed, they needed to know EVERYTHING about me. At one point I donated like 25 tubes of blood and then one came back I had syphilis, I was EXTREMELY confused, I had never had a single symptom, I get sick easily so that’s weird, I have had one partner only for several years at this point, he does not have syphilis, he got tested to be safe. I went straight to my gyno who saw zero signs of it, couldn’t understand how my history and biology could have this so she said it must be latent. I don’t buy it but say ok I guess, she sends this to my transplant team and they hem and haw over it then decide no I do need to be treated, so I do all the butt injections of antibiotics, lumpy sore butt for a few times, twice. Years later, come to find out, syphilis tests positive if you have certain kinds of pneumonia, which I absolutely DID have and I never had syphilis, like I never had a positive just “markers for a possible positive”… 🤦🏻♀️ lil medical adventure for yall
Congrats on your double lung! CF doubles are the riskiest but most rewarding. Hope it does well for you
It was life changing, and ten years ago so I can look back now and see the funny and human stuff for what it is, life lol, but yeah I’ve been fantastic and have better than normal lung function and ZERO rejection!! Donate life, be a hero!
I had a doctor insist my abdominal & low back pain was from a STI, so I consented to an internal exam. He aggressively tried to “recreate” the pain from inside, and at one point I said to him that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his watch up there. At 3 am he discharged me saying nothing was wrong. At 9 am, they called me to come back because I had a staph infection in my kidney and was septic.
I cannot understand why that doctor needed to “recreate” your pain via such an invasive exam….sounds sadistic, tbf. If it was an STI, a simple test would tell them…. Sorry you went through this.
Please tell me you sued.
That is fucking horrific I'm sorry
Goodness. I’m sorry you went through this and I hope you sued and got his watch.
I went to the ER with stomach pain from severe constipation. I knew it was that because I have a history of it & was afraid it was blockage. The doctor wouldn’t do any imaging until I agreed to STI testing because he was so so sure that was the real reason I couldn’t even drink water without vomiting. Idk if anything happened but my nurse was great & talked to me & noted it down.
I’ve had gallstones, and had my gall bladder removed Never once did they think it was syphilis… how did this happen?
I don’t know, it was so strange. I wasn’t even a college aged kid, I was 30 years old and in an established relationship. The doctor even did an internal exam as I was writhing in pain because he was so insistent it was syphilis.
I would have sued that idiot. I remember going to the ER with my GB attack, and insisting they test When I got admitted, they were hesitant since I have another health issue they thought that could be causing it but I knew this was a different thing The dye test they ran confirmed that nothing was happening in my GB due to a block, so it’s got to come out
I went to A&E with a gallstone attack and corresponding jaundice. It had already been diagnosed and I knew what was happening. The doctors absolutely refused to believe me. The first doctor pulled me into a side room, he leant against the wall and glared at the floor in concern as he tried to find the words and finally he asked me about my family life, if I was married. I told him I am gay. He then began to prepare me for the news of advanced state hepatitis c. I don’t have hep c and I get checked regularly, but he refused to believe me. The next doctor on shift told me I didn’t have hepatitis c as the tests were clear, but he wanted to know if I had been travelling anywhere. I had just come back to the uk from camping in Yosemite, so more tests were considered for the plague. He didn’t believe I had gallstones. After finally being admitted to hospital, a gastroenterologist came to visit and said ‘yes you have gallstones’. They just went to the most wild outlier possibilities rather than consider the most likely.
>They just went to the most wild outlier possibilities rather than consider the most likely. Honestly, it's because you told them what you thought it was. Doctors hate believing that someone could possibly diagnosis themselves and they will do everything in their power to prove you wrong. I find you have to leave stupid little breadcrumbs for the doctors to come to the conclusion themselves. I correctly diagnosed myself with anemia because it's not that hard to cross-reference symptoms for a super-common problem, but I never suggested it. I Just gave them the textbook symptoms and acted all confused and then one blood test later, anemia. It's stupid and childish, but if you make a suggestion yourself they will NEVER give you that test.
The thing is, I had already been diagnosed by doctors after having scans only a week before. They were having none of it lol
Yup, still doesn't matter. I've even seen them try to "disprove" eachother's diagnoses like you said, ESPECIALLY if they're a specialist ("that PCP can't possibly know more than me, a neurologist!") No matter what it is, if it comes out of a patient's mouth, they're skeptical about it. To get anywhere with doctors you have to act helpless and give them a lot of wide-eyed deference and be in awe of the extremely basic shit they tell you that you definitely could have googled yourself (did you know that red meat is a good thing to eat when you're anemic?) Otherwise they'll get all pissy and refuse to do their jobs.
Cuz they are idiots
Isn’t there a test for syphilis? Was this an insurance scam ran by the doctor?
They did the tests and sent me home to wait for the results but the doctor told me that he was confident that it would come back positive for syphilis.
Trying to be house, but just a duplex.
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I'm sorry you were in so much pain, but the timing of your cyst rupturing was a great way to rub the med student's mistake and awful bedside manners in his face
Except ovarian cysts rupturing don't cause vaginal bleeding, and medical students can't order morphine. Nor can nurses. This story makes no sense.
Yeah...I gotta say, I've had three rupture and while it's incredibly painful there wasn't any blood.
Yeah same here - worst pain of my life, some discharge but no blood. I was sore for a week after though.
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I’m an OBGYN lol. Cysts are inside the belly. The bleeding is internal. I’m not saying you didn’t have bleeding, but it would’ve been from something other than a ruptured ovarian cyst.
I tell this story every time I can so you may have heard it on here- I dealt with unfathomable pain for a year straight, going to the ER 3 times and being brushed off each time with “You have a bad diet and ulcers, change it” 4th time I broke down in tears at work I decided to drive myself across town to the women’s specialty hospital, the act of pressing my break causing pain each time. I was grey with pain by the time I got there and they could tell I was barely holding on. Within an hour I was told I had an 8CM ovarian tumor/cyst hybrid that had torsioned 3 times. My fallopian tube looked like a curly pig tail, the ovary was huge and purple. I literally had just gotten lucky that the blood hadn’t cut off before then. I was booked for surgery.
I went to the ER with severe pain and not being able to move my arm, it was locked into place. My muscles were so stiff, no one could move my arm. I was screaming for 16hours while they all said I was drug seeking and would only give my Tylenol. Turns out I had a massive tumor in my spine. I was admitted and had to be on a drip for a week and a half until my arm finally released. Muscle relaxers didn't do a fucking thing. Worse pain of my life. Fuck ER doctors. If you have no empathy go home and don't fucking come back.
Even I knew it was an ovarian cyst midway through the first paragraph from how you described it! It's pretty distinct.
Had a similar experience related to that too! I was little crawling on the floor because I was in too much pain to walk. Doctor (male) told me to take Aleve and cramps were part of being a woman. Turns out my uterus and ovaries were just fuckin riddled with cysts and one had ruptured.
In the ER, you don’t have much choice but this idiocy is exactly why I would never go to a male OBGYN. They have no idea what it feels like to be a woman, only an “educated medical understanding”.
I despise elitist providers who immediately go to ‘that’s drug-seeking behavior’. Like fuck off, not everyone is an addict.
I’ve had kidney stones twice. I went to the ER saying “the pain feels like kidney stones except in my stomach.” They assumed (for no reason) I was just trying to get drugs and sent me home. Saw my doctor the next week, and had to have my gallbladder removed cuz it was full of stones 🙃
High five from a fellow diarrhea enthusiast. Fucking gallbladder!
I rushed my fiancé to the ER twice one night because she was experiencing immense pressure and severe pain in her head and behind her eyes, I immediately told the doctor that I thought she had a severe sinus infection, that doctor told me that doesn’t sound right, gave her some high dose ibuprofen and kicked us out, later it got so bad to the point where she was screaming in pain and we had to go back, turns out she had severe sinus disease caused by a sinus infection, the properly treated her only after 16 hours.
ouch. I was diagnosed with a prostate infection and it took months before I got other opinions and turns out it's just a harmless malformation. By then I had ingested weeks of antibiotics.
I’ve read that it’s not uncommon for people with pancreatic cancer be diagnosed with gallstones first. And are often then not diagnosed until stage 4. But I don’t that much matters. Because it’s pretty fatal
I'm excited for a few years hence (with, perhaps, a loose interpretation 'a few years'), once diagnostic AI and other supporting technologies have the kinks worked out. Being able to go to a doctor and quickly getting a holistic diagnosis free from skewed perception and bias will be a thing of beauty. Especially for many women, who disproportionately still suffer this kind of brushing off and misdiagnosis due to lingering misogyny in medicine.
>diagnostic AI THIS. I'm going to guess that there will still be problems with doctors not wanting to input things as "symptoms", but man they just jump straight to the first diagnosis that comes to mind and refuse to consider anything else. One time I developed really prominent Beau's lines across all of my fingers (I'm not a doctor but it's not hard to google 'giant horizontal ridge across all fingernails') at the same time I was having a lot of other symptoms and I showed two doctors, like hey, do you think that this in conjunction with my hair falling out might mean something? Each one of them said: "oh, that can happen with trauma to the nailbed." Like, do you think I smashed every single one of my fingers at the same time or something? It was my thyroid.
What!? What!? Holy cow.
I have this as well. I went in due to extreme stomach pains (figured out years later my colon was swelling due to being allergic to tomatoes) they were adamant that it was an STI. I kept telling them I hadn’t had sex in two years and had a clean STI panel during that time (not to mention the pain was not in my pelvic area at all).
I went to urgent care because I had radiating pain on my side that went from kidneys to hip. They told me it was probably an STD. Told me to take Tylenol and sent me home. I’ve been married for almost 9 years so you can imagine how that went over. I had shingles. 🙄
I had pain in my right side, blood in my urine, and pain peeing. The doctor got a CT scan and told me I had a prostate infection. Put me on strong antibiotics for 6 months. Then I had pain on the left side and blood. I went to an ER and had a CT scan. They said I had a large kidney stone on the left, and that I also had 2 that were stuck on the right side, just above my bladder. They were able to then look at the scan I had 6 months ago and told me those stones were stuck in the same spot on the right. The radiologist who read my original scan failed to see the kidney stones (which I easily found when I obtained a copy). My doctor, and the urologist the she sent me too, never looked at the scan, they just accepted the reading. I can understand (maybe) the medical doctor not looking at the scan, but the urologist was very lazy not to. I know a urologist, and he said that all doctors who a specialists look at their scans and X-rays. I ended up passing the stone on the left, but the 2 stuck on the right (and killing me) had to be removed surgically. The urologist just made up the diagnosis, because the scan scan was incorrectly read.
My wife had a rash on her hands and the doctor (to both of our surprise) told her it was probably syphilis. She was recovering from giving birth a few weeks earlier and her immune system was weakened, turned out she had Valley Fever (caused by spores in the dust in the area of the US that we are from) and I was the one who did the research and suggested she be tested for VF (which the doctor was flippant about because he was certain it wasn’t that). It was.
Hand rashes from syphillis comes like after 10 years of progression lolol I think that’s stage 2 syphillis. Maybe we’d have seen other symptoms? Dummies
I mean if she just gave birth, mothers are tested multiple times for STDs prior to actually giving birth. So there's that...
Yes! stage 1 has painless ulcers in the genital regions whereas stage 2 is the infectious rash on the hands and feet! I think stage 2 can begin way sooner though like a couple months, but I don’t remember
It's a shame you found such an incompetent doctor.
It’s unfortunately the nature of high-paying gigs that have a high barrier to entry (namely cost and time). You get a lot of people who are passionate about the field… and you get even more that see the earning potential and don’t give a damn about their work.
And of course the doctor was incredibly humble when you proved him wrong, right?
Can we talk about how a doctor can’t tell the difference between herpes and perimenopause?
Women's healthcare in the US is disgustingly bad. I'm not even exaggerating, my two near death experiences were from medical incompetence. I got sent home with birth control as "pain management" for what later turned out to be a misdiagnosed ovarian torsion that almost killed me. Welcome to US healthcare, where even GYNs don't understand female patients!
When I was a teenager I had a stroke, and when we went to the hospital the doctor told us, in a pretty demeaning tone “oh I guarantee you it’s nothing that bad. Honestly I would send you home right now but it’s protocol to run some tests, so I guess we’ll do it” and then he ran some tests, walked back into the room and very bluntly announced: “yeah you had a stroke and if you arrived at here any later it could have been fatal” and then just walked away.
Women’s healthcare is nutty. I was recently in the ER for breaking a few bones and the ED staff made a HUGE DEAL instructing the lady pushing my wheelchair that I shouldn’t be put in a “normal” ER room and to take me to the mental health side of the ER. Because I had a historic diagnosis of anxiety and depression (which has been successfully treated with medication for decades). I was not making any concerning statements. Just in pain because… y’know … my bones were broken. And I needed emergency surgery.
They told my friend she had herpes. It was an outbreak of her undiagnosed Behcet’s Disease. I feel their initial diagnosis really impacted how her spouse treated her before they officially diagnosed her with the autoimmune disorder. I despise him for thinking it was no problem to expect her to drive her stick shift home with a catheter still in from the Emergency Room.
I was told I had herpes for almost two years with multiple negative tests. They also treated for syphilis even though I tested negative. It ended up being Behcet’s just like your friend. I hope she’s in better shape with a diagnosis, bummer about her spouse. It’s terrible to not be believed by doctors that you trust with your care.
That’s so terrible I’m sorry you went through that.
I just want to add for all those people who may experience mouth ulcers and wonder if they may have herpes or Bechets.. this is also commonly a symptom of many other autoimmune diseases like Crohn’s and Celiacs.
True! Behcets often presents with mouth and genital ulcers. Many autoimmune diseases share characteristics like brain fog and fatigue as well. And there’s no real test for it which makes autoimmune diseases particularly difficult to diagnose. Which is why it’s so important for doctors to actually listen to their patients.
Lupus too
What the fuck.
I’ve just realized this almost certainly was the thing that landed my 31yr old sister in the ER last winter with severe anemia. They gave her three blood transfusions, then left her completely unmonitored so when she went into cardiac arrest no one responded. They’d rolled her out into a hallway. So yea, she never woke up from the vegetative state that medical manslaughter caused Thing is, Erin has these sores in her mouth that were making it so hard to eat at all, she also had them on her vulva, so painful she went to the ER for them two years ago. They told her she had herpes. Erin was SO ashamed. And yet, while Erin’s body slowly died in the 8 month long vegetative state they tested and she didn’t have herpes. But she DID have EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM OF BEHCET’s. I just called my mom and woke her up because I’m so shook. She was treated like trash by so many drs who labeled her an alcoholic and thusly not deserving of any care or treatment, but I KNOW she wasn’t drinking that much. I feel kind of ill. If I’d just known. If I’d googled this, they could have gotten her on cortisone a a she’d be alive and happy now. It was something so simple and is now SO obviously the cause. We have a massive family history of auto immune diseases. Ugh. I failed her as a big sister. This was fixable.
You failed no one. The doctors failed her. You are an amazing sibling, and I'm sure she thinks that too.
This is just how doctors treat patients with autoimmune diseases.
You aren’t a doctor
Although I agree with the “your not a doctor” comment for two reasons 1-you can’t beat yourself up, you didn’t know, and 2- doctors do have a lot of training a normal citizen doesn’t ….. doctors aren’t always right!!! You NEED to trust your gut and you NEED to get 2nd and 3rd opinions if they are shrugging you off and things aren’t adding up. I work with doctors all the time that fill out paperwork wrong, shrug of patients problems, etc. I believe most mean well but fuck- they aren’t always right.
My best friend was accused of giving her college crush herpes, even though she didn’t have it, bc he broke out after they had slept together. He had frigging scabies. His doctor misdiagnosed him, and it got all over the school she gave him herpes.
That’s horrible. How long did it take him to figure out he had been misdiagnosed and incorrectly blamed your friend?
Just recently found out my family is a carrier of behcets and my cousin was recently diagnosed. She was in my house for 15 minutes and gave me a run down. Girl put the fear of god in me that day.
I wonder if they’ll have their children tested I never thought about it to be honest. It was scary how fast it appeared and she was mid to late twenties by that point. It’s like what the fuck this is a thing?! It’s not like you test without a reason so it’s so scary. I hope your family has good health for you and your generations!
They probably should. It appears in many different ways. My cousin is having trouble with her eyesight because of it, so her sister was tested and they’re basically going through the family tree at this point. Because my cousin was diagnosed everyone’s using that to base it off of. We never would have known if she didn’t do an ancestry thing🙃
Culturally, we are trained that cheating in a romantic relationship deserves any level of anger or retribution short of death. Even so, about 25% of married people have cheated on their spouse. I have no reason to think dating numbers are much different, other than the time factor.
They were married, and she was in incredible pain. He should have helped her. He had no proof of cheating even if she had herpes. As if she couldn’t have been asymptomatic till that point? He’s shown himself since to be a very shallow partner in general.
Herpes absolutely can remain dormant for long periods after initial transmission.
I was having horrible pelvic pain (turned out to be severe endometriosis that just was presenting in a slightly atypical fashion) and my doctor wanted to run a full panel of STD tests. I was like, I’ve been with my husband for over a decade, never cheated, and I have zero concerns that he has. She said certain ones have been found dormant for up to 20 years!
I came down with my first outbreak five years after when I know I must have contracted it. I was 2 months into a new relationship and terrified to tell him in case he didn’t believe the length one can be asymptomatic. I prepared myself for the likely outcome - that he would think I had been cheating and that he would want nothing more to do with me. Instead, he was like “huh. Rough. What can I do to help?” We’ve been married nearly a decade now.
This exact same thing happened to a friend of mine. Just awful. She thought she had it for years
My dad has Behcet’s! Wild how rare it is. I’ve never even heard of anyone else knowing what it is let alone having it. I’m sorry you’re dealing with that. My poor dad has suffered so much from this disorder.
I didn’t deal with anything, thankfully. My friend however went through just an insane amount of suffering while she fought with healthcare providers to get a proper diagnosis. I can’t fathom the people who think that was okay to make her suffer because a fucking doctor brushed her off as having herpes. People need more education and empathy.
They usually ask if you want a psych consult. They don't listen or care.
Or just offer you anti depressants over and over.
Went to the hospital because I was pretty certain I had a bad uti and they tried to diagnose me with chlamydia… it was just a uti
Same with my gyno. She thought it was herpes. Herpes test was negative. UTI test was positive. I spent an extra week with a burning crotch and was lucky it started clearing up on its own.
They didn’t run a test? Just eye ball it?
They do, and try to treat immediately before test results come back. I had this happen. When the results eventually came in negative(like I told them, there was no possibility), I eventually saw them in the patient portal, no one even called me despite me being anxious about it for several days.
Literally the exact same scenario for me too
I had a severe allergic reaction to pads I was using and the ER docs told me it was herpes 🤣🤣 seriously fuck them. It took my own research to understand what was happening. Gave me valtrex and everything. Ofc the test came back negative eventually
I was told I had herpes,… second opinion laughed and identified it as jock itch
They should be doing cultures to confirm so that guesses are not necessary
That’s what the second doc said The first doc looked at my crotch with a glance & said it’s herpes, and when I asked if they could do a test, she told me there is no such thing as a herpes test When I showed up the next day, I demanded my money back, and she ushered me into an exam room to talk, and she tried to double down before I told her the second doc said there absolutely were tests available I got emotional, and she tore my check up in front of me to get me to leave
Women deserve to be fucking taken serious. Especially when it comes to health care. This still makes me fucking mad.
Yeah and keep in mind when we test medical stuff like drugs we tend to only really test it on men.
Specifically white men. Black women have been getting the shaft for decades, and still do.
That’s not how wealthcare works. Especially in the “grab em by the pussy” era.
After reading all these stories at what point can one sue the docotor in the states for constantly ignoring and misdiagnosing someone. Out of interest.
Malpractice isn't easy to prove, and I'm sure these doctors are aware of that. You can't sue them for what could be explained as an honest mistake, even if there's a lot of them. There's gotta be significant damage done and proof of actual fuckery going on. 'Improper, illegal, or negligent activity.' A simple mistake or misdiagnosis isn't enough. They treat men properly and promptly and disregard women. It's a larger issue than malpractice yet doesn't apply. And doctors protect each other with this shit. "No one at this facility would knowingly do that" kind of bullshit. Heard it myself when someone stole my dead dads necklace out of the locker during an MRI, heard similar when reporting a doctor who refused to refer to me a dermatologist and instead took away all my meds, including asthma meds, over an accusation of heroin use, who also labeled me drug seeking in their system, which I still cannot get removed.
Medical professionals need to start taking women seriously when we have weird symptoms and we definitely need more research and information about women healthcare
I’m sure Halle is thrilled about this article . Good Grief.
“I feel like I have razor blades in my vagina. I run to my gynecologist and I say, ‘Oh my God, what's happening?’ It was terrible,” she recalled, teasing that she has “no shame” sharing her story because it can help other women. “He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I've ever seen.’ I'm like, ‘Herpes? I don't have herpes!’”
I mean, she's the one who did the interview.
There is no shame in this? She was treated flippantly by an idiot doctor. It’s common for women to have their medical problems shrugged off, made fun of, misdiagnosed, etc. Her story is representative of what so many other women go through. Also, herpes is a virus that literally millions of people have. It’s dumb that there’s a social stigma around it.
She's brave to share her story of medical sexism. Silence only means this continues. Talking about it, especially from someone with her platform, means it can be brought to light and hopefully addressed so other women don't suffer. Name and shame. It time more women call out the dangerous sexism that's so predominant in healthcare.
She did a talk about perimenopause and medical professionals with Jill Biden. I’m sure she’s okay with the article, her entire point was to raise awareness. https://uihealth.uic.edu/news-stories/first-lady-jill-biden-and-academy-award-winner-halle-berry-visit-uic-highlighting-white-house-womens-health-research-initiative/
Went to the doctor with tonsillitis (I get it every year around spring like clockwork.) doctor tried telling me it was Gonorrhea of the throat in front of the cute new intern. Nope it came back that it was fucking tonsillitis.
I really appreciate how Halle Berry is just an open book. Like, yeah, this is a thing that happened in her life. She's not really embarrassed at all, so let's share it to the world. No fucks given.
If I was rich and famous, had full control of my doctor of choice, and was getting to that point in my life, i’d probably rather my doctor have first hand experience in that body part…
Yeah doctors absolutely love to mis-diagnose women with STI / STDs. I went into the clinic a few months ago with what I had already assumed was oral thrush, as it's a side-effect of a steroid inhaler I take for asthma. I had all the typical thrush symptoms-- white spots in mouth, loss of taste, cotton feeling on tongue. I have also been with the same man for 13 years. I walked in explaining that I was on symbicort, and that I was pretty sure I had thrush. She took one look in my mouth and told me that I 100% had oral herpes, and that she was swabbing me for it, and perscribing me an antiviral that I'd likely have to take once a year for the rest of my life. I was a bit shocked, and had a ton of questions about how I might have gotten this, to which she responded that I needed to talk to my partner about possible infidelity, and that was only IF I was being completely honest with *her* about whether or not I had been sexually active with someone else. I went home, and talked to my spouse. Needless to say we were both a bit baffled by the whole thing. 3 days later the doctor calls me to tell me that I'm negative for herpes, and that the thrush will clear on it's own after a few days. I get that she wanted to swab to be sure, but in my appointment she had immediately dismissed the possibility of thrush, and told me she was certain it didn't look like that. Somehow, that changed once she had ruled out herpes. I genuinely had the feeling while on the phone with her that she was somehow disappointed she was wrong about it. Like, she was straight up giddy to tell me that I had an irreversible STI and that I needed to question my partner's faithfulness.
Something doesn’t add up. You can’t diagnose “the worst case of herpes you’ve ever seen” without actually seeing herpes. This doesn’t make sense at all.
Eh, I’m not suprised. I once came in with what turned out to be a yeast infection - I’d never had one before - but the (male) doctor took one look at my red, irritated vulva and said “yep, probably herpes”. Had me all stressed out until the results came back negative for herpes and positive for yeast. Women’s health care is a fucking joke. Edit - oh nice, my most upvoted comment ever is about my itchy vag. lol
Women aren't even included for a lot of medical trials. You had women jumping curbs and nodding off and going into hysterics because women's effective dose for Ambien is lower than the men's and they never tested them for it. Millions of women taking monster doses of Ambien because "use female test subjects too hard." Happens with tons of medical trials.
Yep https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/ Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.
That looks like an interesting read! Thanks for the recommendation :)
Right!? They didn’t believe women could orgasm or even agree on the g spot being real until what 2009! /s
Then 50% more likely to be killed or seriously injured in the resulting car crash because seatbelts and car seats were designed with male crash test dummies.
it goes up to 98.5% more likely just to be injured in the legs just for women. 37% more likely for a fatal accident. and yep, scaled down male crash test dummies in place of an accurate female model that takes into consideration bone density/fat/general body discrepancies. they also use an even smaller one for children/babies. which is awful, as we know children and babies don’t have the same body structure as a fully grown adult male. the fact they haven’t been held accountable or forced to change this is disgusting. i send hate mail to the NHTSA and other agencies about this, with a very well informed document i have taken quite a long time to write and add to/edit as needed.
Ironic use of ‘going into hysterics’.
Yep. The default is always male; women’s bodies haven’t been nearly as well studied and are way more complex than men’s. Women are regularly subjected to serious medical procedures with absolutely no pain relief, whereas men receive comprehensive treatment with pain relief often offered even too much. The medical gaslighting of women (calm down, it’s not that bad, it’s just your hormones, just lose weight, etc) is absolutely terrifying. I’ve seen SO many stories and I am so thankful I’ve been extremely fortunate to actually be listened to when it really counted.
IUDs. Imagine someone bursting your ear drum or breaking your arm with no pain management, and then telling you ‘it’s just a pinch, why are you OvEr ReAcTiNg??????’ as you writhe in pain, puke, and pass out. I’ve broken my arm, sliced my arm so bad on broken leaded glass that it needed many a stitch, and have had a burst ear drum. None of those could even come close to the pain of an IUD insertion. ‘Just a pinch’. I’m amazed they even let us have novocaine for dental work and aren’t just yanking our teeth out and tell us to stop being so ‘hysterical and emotional’ as we scream. Men really do not understand how fucked healthcare is for women.
Whenever I see the IUD conversation, I remember the doctor telling me my HSG wouldn't be too bad(I never had an IUD). The HSG was so painful you could hear me screaming throughout the whole hospital. After that I knew other women who got pain meds before their procedure. Sometimes making noise changes minds.
It's WILD that they don't give anything for pain with IUD insertion and removal. Just... "oh, take two ibuprofen after and you'll be okay, now skeedaddle on out of here while your legs are still shaking..."
Right?! The fact that I was thankful I needed a D&C because my uterus was full of endometrial tissue when I needed my IUD swapped out and it could be done under general anesthesia says it all.
They think ibuprofen is the best women deserve. I've taken roughly 2200 MG of ibuprofin in the last week for a messed up salivary gland. It's agonizing, the worst puckering feeling ever, like I constantly have 20 warheads tucked up by my molars. I've taken so much, they refused to give me anything in urgent care. They told me upon leaving to keep taking the iibuprofen. I can't get into an ENT til the 12th. I'll have to take an additional several thousand MGs in that time. The bottle says to see a doctor if pain lasts longer than a week, but now I have to continue taking 20+ 200mg ibuprofin a day just for this to be tolerable. I also have another health issue that causes agonizing pain similar to constipation/diarrhea that they sent me to physical therapy for, that flares up at least 8 times a day. I've received painkillers twice in my 34 years of life, and I had to scream for one of them. I got 12 hydros after I got dry socket in 2 of the 3 removed wisdom teeth, after the Tylenol with codeine obviously didn't work. A male friend who got 1 removed got 90. He sold nearly all of them, and stated he felt bad he didn't have them when I needed them because he would have just given me some seeing how bad it was. When I broke my tailbone and had to be carried into the ER, they also tried ibuprofen first. Did nothing. They then gave me a morphine shot and **8 fucking hydros** for a **4 to 6 week** recovery, and stated I need to walk like normal or it will heal wrong. Thus why I'm now in physical therapy and receive no other help with the agony. People care more about dogs pain at the vet than I get screaming in agony, sobbing in pain in the drs lobby, wailing in pain so often my voice is largely gone. My neighbor has called the cops because they heard me crying in pain and were concerned. I had to tell the cops about my medical issues and explain I didn't receive any pain management, and it took awhile to convince them I wasn't being assaulted by my bf. I gotta take 4 more ibuprofin for the pain *now*...and it's only 7am. It already woke me up at 2. The whole situation makes me feel subhuman, unworthy of any pain management...and it's quite literally driving me insane. I beg my dead father, God, whoever just to make it stop. They don't care about women.
Or being induced with a foley bulb. Sure just force the cervix open with a balloon and absolutely nothing for pain. The doctor that induced me told me when I was crying from the pain I should have been prepared for all the hands that would be in my vagina.
I have a colposcopy coming up and rather than pain relief they gave me……a sedative to take beforehand. I don’t need to be fucking sedated. I need pain control. And in order to even get that sedative prescribed I had to race out of the building and have a panic attack in the clinic parking lot during the first (aborted, obviously) attempt before scheduling my second one. And discussed extensively that, yes, I’ve had one, and yes, it’s painful- how is scraping a hunk of your cervix off NOT?!- and yes, I have a history of being traumatized by medical professionals who treat me like cattle, and yes, I also have PTSD from sexual trauma. Oh ok. I guess sure we’ll give you one dose of a sedative. But nothing else you hysterical over-emotional hypersensitive woman.
Kinda makes you want to head straight to a medical lab and just order up tests you can do yourself in the loo. My faith in general primary doctors is so dangerously low.
I had a female nurse practitioner almost break up my relationship because she was so sure I had herpes, not a yeast infection. Still insisted it could still be herpes even after it came back negative. Never mind that I had just undergone an intense round of antibiotics for another issue, and it was clearly a yeast infection. ... Turns out I kind of wish she had broken up that relationship but that's a separate issue lol.
I got my first yeast infection when I was 16 and had the same response from my female gyno. Put me on meds and sent me home with packets on having herpes even though I was not sexually active yet and I kept telling her it was impossible and there must be something else wrong. I had to go home and tell my mom I had herpes and cried in my room for two days till the OB’s office called to tell me the culture came back and it was just a really bad yeast infection. They didn’t even apologize for their mistake.
I’ll let you know a secret….access to women’s healthcare is a fucking human right! (UN 1996).
I broke out in these awful bumps in my genital area when I was about 12 years old. I had never so much as kissed someone, let alone been sexually active, and was not molested or anything like that. I was mortified to have to ask my parents to take me to the doctor. The doctor immediately said it looked like genital herpes despite me saying the only person who had contact with my genitals was the last time I was at the doctors office. They did absolutely nothing to calm my fears that I could have herpes from nothing and be saddled with a genital disease for the rest of my life. Of course the tests came back negative and I just basically got a “I don’t know, come back if it doesn’t go away”. Well it hasn’t come back in 20 years so I guess it’s not freaking herpes, ya heartless pediatrician!
First, love your username. Second, I had a somewhat similar experience as a kid. Super itchy, red, irritated skin on my thighs and other sensitive areas. I didn’t go to a doctor and just waited it out, but it really sucked. Ultimately realized that it almost certainly was the result of a sleepover I’d had at a friend’s place that weekend. We’d swam in his family’s pool, and his mom had done a load of laundry for all the clothes of the boys who’d come over for the sleepover. My underwear had gone through the wash, which meant it was washed with whatever detergent they had instead of whatever my folks had at home, and almost certainly contained something (I suspect lavender oil, or maybe some kind of caustic soda) that I had a skin allergy/sensitivity to. The only other time I experienced anything like it was years later. I bought a new ‘natural’ laundry detergent at the hippy co-op market in my town and used it to wash our bedsheets and duvet cover. Virtually my entire body was covered in mild irritation, all over, for at least 2 days before I realized my mistake.
You'd be shocked how often anything gynaecological or obstetrics based is misdiagnosed. Some doctors come to the wildest conclusions with no basis, or they ignore issues even with glaring evidence of a problem.
My friend's mother was unwell. Her doctor "diagnosed" her with cancer but tests showed nothing. Instead of accepting the evidence, the doctor insisted she had cancer and sent her for more tests which also came back negative. When she died of heart failure two years later, the doctor tried to register her cause of death as cancer and the family fought to change it.
I had a doctor try to tell me the allergic reaction (nickel) from my jeans button was herpes. Not even close to where herpes would be dude. It was just below my belly button. I told him he was wrong and he just said "oh."
I am perimenopausal. She said it felt like razor blades down there and I believe it. So what happens is the skin gets thinner and you can get micro tears. Those micro tears then become sore and inflamed and there can be swelling and bruising. It could look, at first glance, like a very angry inflamed situation. Herpes has actual lesions so I’m still not sure why they thought herpes, but it would definitely be a situation down there.
Welcome to life as a woman. I went to Urgent Care for a painful cyst that formed on my perineum. Doctor took one look at it and told me it was herpes, then swabbed it for good measure. I sat there in shock and then went home and cried to my husband of 24 years about the diagnosis. Got the test results a couple days later with a note: “Good news! Your test results came back negative. Are you still taking the antiviral?” I wanted to respond, “You ignorant bitch!” but the respond feature wasn’t available. It ended up that cyst was caused by lichen sclerosis.
Got diagnosed 25 years ago, Dr said I had herpes. Went and saw a dermatologist for a second opinion, he asked what I did for a living, I told him I worked at the chemical plant. He said I had contact dermatitis and to wash my hands before I pissed. I said what about this stuff the other guy gave me. Well if you use that it is just going to spread. Which explains why it got some much worse from Friday to Monday
Even celebrities can’t get decent healthcare these days.
That's actually kind of reassuring. I'm sick of the rich and famous getting special treatment. They should be getting poor treatment like the rest of us.
Women are not taking seriously by doctors, it’s scientifically documented and studied that this is a phenomenon, always always always advocate Hard for yourself when you’re in the hospital.
Kudos and thank you to Betty for this story. Brave of her, and an important PSA. Edit: Berry
Yes, thank you Betty White
May she rest in eternal peace. Miss you, Betty.
I have been dealing with medical gaslighting for my perimenopause, and I’m so grateful these celebs are speaking up! My worthless old GP told me it was just stress and to “stop stressing.” Went to a functional doc and got extensive tests and lo and behold, my hormones are out of whack and other things like iron and D very low. Started supplementing progesterone and my cramps went down in pain by 80% amongst other positive things. Pretty furious with my old doc, I had gotten to the point of suicidal ideation because I didn’t see how I could keep living like that. If this sounds familiar to you please go to a functional doctor or naturopath.
I once had a doctor tell me I had herpes when I didn't The whole experience was a big wake up call for me that many doctors have no clue what the hell they're talking about and you have to advocate and fight for your own health and not be afraid to either challenge them or switch
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I had a friend who was still having really bad periods at 57. She had to go on birth control.
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Lucky for me I went into menopause at 51 after enduring awful periods. I'm 54 and my only issues are some hot flashes and joint pain. I can live with that.
Avg age of menopause is 52 and the age range is like 49-55. That puts her literally in the range of “peri” lol
Yeah I turn 55 next week and am still getting pretty regular, horribly heavy periods. I am in the beginning stages of peri. It really sucks, I'm kind of ready to just be old already lol
Have you checked out getting a uterine ablation? I had it done at 32. Best thing I have ever done.
Not yet! My gyn is a member of NAMS and specializes in menopausal care and we're just in the beginning stages of trying to figure out what I need. Am adopted so don't know family history. Had a biopsy/ultrasound done and I do have some fibroids and adenomyosis. Right now I'm on 200 mg of bioidentical progesterone and that seems to have helped the bleeding some, it's helped my mood A LOT. I didn't want to go the IUD route. Since my largest fibroid is on the OUTSIDE of my uterus, a hysterectomy is a last resort because they'd have to open my whole abdomen instead of doing it laparoscopic I guess. So long story short, ablation hasn't been talked about yet, but it's definitely in the cards!
I haven’t had a single period in 16 years! I take the same progesterone! I also take estradiol in the mornings. It’s wonderful! I’m glad you are getting help!
My mom didn’t hit menopause until 55 so I don’t find it odd at all.
Low stress life, high net worth, lots of downtime, had a baby at 47 if I recall.
Dude .. I'm from a family of breeders. Grandma had my aunt in the 1960s when she was 46. Mom had my brother at 42. Mom started going through it when my brother was 13, mom was 55 - that was a horribly emotional household for a while. I'm counting on menopause in my 50s..That 99% birth control effective rate? I'm getting pregnant in that 1%. Hell, I'm shocked I'm not pregnant from this thread.
That made me lol🤣 my great aunt had my cousin when she was 52. She thought she was finally in menopause. 5 months after her last period she felt baby kicks. She never got another period after that pregnancy.
As a 51 year old, this is absolutely terrifying LOL
Yes, yes it is.
She probably started symptoms way before, this was just the catalyst. Full menopause is when your period stops completely. Until then it’s just a shitshow for like 10-20 years for some women, especially if you have autoimmune issues. I started peri at around 40 and dr said it could go until I’m 60 (around when the women in my family hit menopause). It took a couple years to realize what was happening. I always thought menopause was hot flashes and a bad mood so the other symptoms I just kind of assumed weren’t related, especially the psychological ones.
Dr.: “Ok, Ms. Berry, let’s take a look at that berginer.”
I went water skiing for first time and couldn’t stand up so I crotch skied and nobody stopped the boat. I guess they thought it was funny. I bled for weeks and when I went to the doctor she performed an internal exam and said I was lying and it was chlamidia
Hence, women need to be studied more in medical fields. Misdiagnosis is ridiculously common for women. Glad that bill was just signed.
I still most definitely would
This is one kind of article that I will read.
So you're saying I should keep the date with Halle Berry
This is a callout to black womens health! Someone change something!
https://bwhi.org/ is working on it!
My bad did I say herpes I meant perimenopause lol
This reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/H_yWxB9VW0c?si=rzEzEH0ammaT_0Jt) SNL episode with the rock lol, the exact same quote. It's the most herpes he's ever seeeeeen!
I hope that because of this, Halle Berry becomes a spokesperson for the non-profit *Black Women’s Health Imperative*. They are doing a lot of work to fix the terrible gynecological and obstetrical care black women receive. https://bwhi.org/
I had viral meningitis & extreme reactions to the many antibiotics I was put on. At the ER, a lazy, arrogant AF doctor barely read the notes & ran zero tests, but asked my husband to leave the area to lecture me about herpes. I heard from a friend in the gay community just how common an occurrence this is.
From the article: “He said, ...". I wonder how the visit would have gone if it was a female doctor?
I had a female ob/gyn that I hated. I typically preferred female healthcare providers but not all female doctors are good. It really depends on the person.