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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWomen's pain is often dismissed by doctors
Last edited Tue Dec 13, 2022, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)
Edit to fix stupid typo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2022/women-pain-gender-bias-doctors/
No paywall
https://archive.vn/Rygxu
One woman was told she was being “dramatic” when she pleaded for a brain scan after suffering months of headaches and pounding in her ears. It turned out she had a brain tumor.
Another was ignored as she cried out in pain during a 33-hour labor. She was supposed to be getting pain medication through her epidural, but it had fallen out.
Dozens of women complained of torturous pain as their vaginal walls were punctured during an egg retrieval process. They were told their pain was normal, but, in actuality, they were getting saline instead of anesthesia.
These are just some of the stories of women who say their pain and suffering has been dismissed or misdiagnosed by doctors. Although these are anecdotal reports, a number of studies support the claim that women in pain often are not taken as seriously as men.
*snip*
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hlthe2b
(113,973 posts)makes light of the entire issue which is nothing short of torture.
blm
(114,658 posts)
oregonjen
(3,643 posts)
Nevilledog
(55,082 posts)Usually I just copy and paste the title, but because this was an interactive article it didn't show the title on the archive. I typed it out and didn't notice the typo.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)TY for catching it.
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)The article says nothing about "passion". I am assuming that auto correct happened... Women patients' pain is dismissed not passion based on the gender bias of women being seen as overly emotional or sensitive.
Solly Mack
(96,943 posts)I think one thing and type another all the time. The mind races.
orleans
(36,924 posts)hlthe2b
(113,973 posts)It happens.
Nevilledog
(55,082 posts)Hekate
(100,133 posts)We apparently have still not reached critical mass in employing women with an MD after their names in all levels of care and research.
wnylib
(26,019 posts)not necessarily related to the gender of the patient. I used to have a doctor who had no empathy at all for patients.
I first saw her in a huge practice where she was a physician assistant. I had chronic muscle pain and was losing range of motion in.my arms. Going up a single step was excruciating. The PA dismissed it as "mild arthritis" because that showed up in an x-ray of my hips, which had nothing to do with my arm mobility. She advised me to stop thinking about the pain and have a more positive attitude and I would feel better.
Fortunately for me, she left the practice in order to go to med school to become an MD. Within 5 minutes of seeing a new PA, my problem was diagnosed from my description of limited arm mobility. It is a classic symptom of polymyalgia rheumatica, which is a crippling muscle inflammation that follows viral infections in people over 60, women more than men, and an ethnic demographic that I fit.
The new PA had taken the time to look at my record (age, ethnicity, recent severe bout of viral bronchitis) and to LISTEN to my symptoms.
The ONLY medicine that works for this inflammation is Prednisone. Within minutes of my first dose, the pain was gone and I had complete mobility. But. It took two years of Prednisone (gradually decreasing it) and muscle exercises from a rheumatologist for me to get completely over it.
Then the first PA came back to the practice after finishing med school and I got assigned to her again. (Her father founded and runs the practice.) I take vitamin D supplements because an inherited disorder interferes with having enough D without them. I discovered that when I developed a very severe D deficiency and had a series of TIAs diagnosed by a neurologist. When the PA/MD returned, she dismissed the specialist's diagnosis and treatment as insignificant and unecessary.
So I found a new med office.
niyad
(132,446 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 14, 2022, 09:51 AM - Edit history (1)
Heck, one of the soaps that I watched in the early to mid 70's had a lengthy story arc about one of the second-tier characters being misdiagnosed and ignored when she had a heart attack. This was FIFTY years ago. And today heart attacks still kill more women than breast cancer, because doctors refuse to take women seriously, and because even many doctors do not seem to know that heart attack symptoms are different for women. (And the framingham study did not include a single woman, as even many drug trials do not, to this day.) And that is just one small area. We won't even start on reproductive and sexual health. I thought for decades thst most ob-gyns hated women, Ioved to control and torture them.
wnylib
(26,019 posts)a woman who was a nurse. When the kids were asleep, I saw one of her nursing textbooks on her bookshelf and read parts of it. The section on reproduction said that the only disorder that a woman can have in her reproductive system would be one that interfered with her ability to have children. If she could conceive and give birth, she was healthy.
That was in the mid 1960s.
niyad
(132,446 posts)world is appalling.
raging moderate
(4,624 posts)Why?
MurrayDelph
(5,752 posts)involves Doctor Watson announcing his constipation to his detective friend.
LittleGirl
(8,999 posts)It took 35 years before I was diagnosed with thyroid disease. I struggled more because I moved frequently and didn’t have a consistent doctor to see. This was before the internet. I diagnosed myself and got the blood work to prove it once I did my own research online.
Genki Hikari
(1,766 posts)I had Graves Disease for nearly a decade before I got a diagnosis.
It took a cardiologist to find it. A very thorough one.
Thyroid disease affects way more women than men, but it usually gets missed because the "basic" thyroid test panel doesn't cover all of the factors indicating thyroid problems. It's a truncated version, and it misses anything other than generic hypo- or hyper-thyroidism.
When a lab runs the full one, though, bam! There's that nasty bugger. And it's not an expensive or difficult test at all.
My cardio said he and other docs had (by then) spent over a decade trying to convince insurers to make that fuller thyroid panel routine, to save a bunch of women a bunch of frustration and anxiety, and to get them back on the road to full health faster. But the insurers WILL NOT DO IT.
And so women wind up wasting lots of money trying to find what's wrong, suffering, being sick, missing work, reporting to emergency rooms over puzzling symptoms and more. I went to an ER once because I thought I was dying. My heart was racing, I was struggling to breathe, was intermittently blacking out, could NOT cool off, dizziness, intense nausea--
By the time I got seen, things seemed to be settling down. So the idiot ER staff called it anxiety, and sent me home.
After the cardiologist told me what to watch out for with my thyroid as a Graves patient, I recognized every single thing he mentioned with the "go to the ER immediately" symptoms, and mentioned that previous bout that got dismissed as an anxiety attack. He went pale as a ghost and said it sounded like I had been in a thyroid storm in the making. Thyroid storm is a condition where your thyroid goes insane, and causes a cascade effect in every system in your body, so everything else starts going crazy, too.
It's almost always fatal. I'm lucky to be alive, apparently. 
And it was dismissed as anxiety. Because I'm nothing more than a silly female (gag puke retch). 
niyad
(132,446 posts)experienced it. Thankfully, it was recognized, and she survived. . with a 50k ER bill as she has no insurance. She is doing okay at the moment, but I worry for her.
LittleGirl
(8,999 posts)I had no idea that my grandmother, her mother had thyroid cancer either until I was diagnosed.
I couldn't understand why I was infertile and my mother thought it was a blessing I couldn't have kids because she had 5 but didn't want that many.
I too went to the ER with heart palps because my father died young, 42 from heart failure. It freaked me out. They still missed it in that ER visit. I was diagnosed at least a decade later.
You are lucky to be alive.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)So you look at this woman with an obvious weight problem and deep shame about it, and the big boobs add to the “fat lady” visual, and somehow miss taking a good look at her neck.
She also had a really prickly attitude towards doctors, probably because of all the unacknowledged suffering she went through.
Finally got a new doc at the clinic who tilted her head back and said, “Just how long have you had this goiter, Mrs C?”
LittleGirl
(8,999 posts)large chest and a little chubby but I was thin my whole life until menopause.
The doctors need to realize that some of us present without a goiter. I've never had one because my thyroid is a tiny shriveled up little peanut in my neck. I scream that doctors don't realize that about some of us. My niece had a huge goiter and had her thyroid removed when she was 18. She had a severe case of Graves. Every woman on my mother's side of the family has thyroid disease and every male on my Mom's family has some sort of colon disease, crohn's, celiac, etc.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)Yet others here are testifying that they’ve encountered doc after doc that won’t listen when they actually tell them — out loud, in words, with increasing volume. You would think, with a family history like yours…. smh
I feel fortunate with my doc, on the whole. Contrary to some other people’s experiences, he does do a heckuva blood panel, and I make sure to have the blood draw done before the exam so we have something to talk about. I don’t know what we’ll do when he finally retires. Or when my husband finally retires and we have to negotiate Medicare. 
LittleGirl
(8,999 posts)medical field to get proper treatment as I didn't know I had massive vitamin deficiencies like Vit D, B and iron. I found a Naturopathic MD in Tucson that also had Hashimoto's and she was the best doctor I ever had. I hated to leave her when I left the country because when I left her practice after 3 years, I was thin and healthy and life was good. The stress of moving abroad was too much along with finding new medications that I had to struggle with taking because of my severe allergies.
Find a woman doctor if you can that also has Hashimoto's.
Ms. Toad
(38,643 posts)I didn't even have symptoms - but my doctor is very thorough in the tests he runs (Vit D, thyroid, and blood glucose are not routine tests for an annual physical, but he runs them and caught Hashimoto's, diabetes, and a vitamin D deficiency).
Which is interesting - given my experience with other (largely male) doctors. This particular doctor is a wingnut - and might be expected to be one of the worst for taking women seriously. But he always listens to us as to medical issues/questions, talks to us respectfully and without patronizing us, and is more proactive than any other PCP I've ever had. We keep him because he accepts our family as it is (lesbian couple with a daughter), and is a good doctor. We figure the regular exposure to our family is probably a helpful experience for him.
Lonestarblue
(13,480 posts)He learned his medical treatments by operating on slave women without anesthesia.
“Credited as the “father of modern gynecology,” Sims developed pioneering tools and surgical techniques related to women’s reproductive health. In 1876, he was named president of the American Medical Association, and in 1880, he became president of the American Gynecological Society, an organization he helped found. The 19th-century physician has been lionized with a half-dozen statues around the country.
But because Sims’ research was conducted on enslaved Black women without anesthesia, medical ethicists, historians and others say his use of enslaved Black bodies as medical test subjects falls into a long, ethically bereft history that includes the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and Henrietta Lacks. Critics say Sims cared more about the experiments than in providing therapeutic treatment, and that he caused untold suffering by operating under the racist notion that Black people did not feel pain.“
To this day, much of the medical profession takes the pain experienced by all women less seriously, especially when black women are the patients. Many drug trials have been conducted only on men because women’s drug reactions were not considered important, as in men have heart attacks, not women—an obviously false conclusion.
https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves
usaf-vet
(7,811 posts)
littlemissmartypants
(33,615 posts)
Monument to ‘Mothers of Gynecology’ unveiled in Montgomery
A new monument unveiled Friday in Montgomery aims to tell the other side of the Sims story by honoring the “Mothers of Gynecology,” -- Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey, three of eleven enslaved women who were the unwilling subjects of Sims’ experiments in the 1840s unveiled in Montgomery by Montgomery artist and activist, Michelle L. Browder.
Follow the link to see the close up construction where she used medical instruments in her sculptures. There's also more about the process and story. They're truly beautiful.
https://mbbaglobal.com/a-monument-to-the-enslaved-women-of-gynecology-isup/
❤️
Lonestarblue
(13,480 posts)I cannot imagine the pain those women experienced as Sims performed multiple surgeries on them. A part of our history that is not taught in schools but should be.
littlemissmartypants
(33,615 posts)
niyad
(132,446 posts)consider cross-posting this in Women's Rights and Issues, and in GD? Thanks in advance.
ETA: Dear Goddess, I just read the whole article.THANK YOU THANK YOU. Will be looking up the Move Up movement and campus.
littlemissmartypants
(33,615 posts) 
RobinA
(10,478 posts)I've never really experienced this. And I have mostly male doctors. I haven't given birth, but I have had my share of medical procedures, including one major surgery.
Faux pas
(16,357 posts)
Snackshack
(2,587 posts)I’ve been involved in healthcare for decades and I’ve never seen a Dr. or PA dismiss a woman as the article states.
If we had a social healthcare system that limited a person option to change Drs. that would be an issue but we don’t and one of the reasons we are always given for not having an NHS type system is that one aspect of the “greatest healthcare system in the world” that we are always told we have by GOP is being able to choose your doctor…according to them is it’s super easy to switch doctors.
Genki Hikari
(1,766 posts)My Graves Disease was missed so badly that I nearly died from a bad episode it gave me--and that was written off as an "anxiety attack."
I was ignored when I asked hospital staff to do their blood pressure tests on my lower arm. Not only was that request ignored, it was ignored to the point that I had massive bruises all over my upper arm (why I asked for lower arm testing), and an aide not only ignored me when I cried out in pain when she ignored my request after the bruises were now impossibly painful, but she wrenched my arm so hard to force me to take the blood pressure test that it pulled muscles in my shoulder and neck.
I was told my labor didn't hurt, so quit whining, because I certainly wasn't whining 9 months before. There was no epidural for me, and, even when my son was showing signs of distress, they refused to do a Caesarean...because they'd already done one that day.
I only wish I were joking.
I threw out my back so badly once that I couldn't stand up straight. An ER left me waiting to be seen for over 12 hours, but saw fit to minister care to a bunch of male patients whose conditions were far more minor.
When I had a heavy object hit my head hard enough to knock me out at work, another ER kept me waiting 6 hours to be seen. I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WAITING ROOM for 5 of those hours, and there were multiple empty exam rooms empty during that time. The last person I'd seen leave the ER was a young guy with a broken arm that had been set. So why could no one see me in one of those empty rooms that I could clearly see? Funny, they could see the guy who came in before I did, but not me. Wonder why?
It took at least 10 years for a doctor to be competent enough to diagnose my Graves Disease. Whenever I'd mention the health problems I was having in the long years before that, I was treated like an annoyance--and some of them even rolled their eyes at what I described. They might as well have said what they were thinking out loud, because their attitude clearly conveyed it, anyway: "Oh great, another ridiculous woman with imaginary complaints!"
Don't even get me started on the horror stories my mother shared over shop talk with her coworkers during her long career in medicine, especially that stint she did in obstetrics back in the 70s and 80s, when doctors routinely cursed out women and even slapped them when they were less than submissive patients during childbirth. Maybe they don't do those things now, but I promise you that crap used to go on
ALL
THE
TIME.
So maybe YOU didn't see anyone dismiss or even hate on women with health care concerns, but I damned sure have.
niyad
(132,446 posts)Last edited Tue Dec 13, 2022, 11:49 PM - Edit history (1)
with the male medical profession, I encountered several in different areas around the country.
I hear endless horror stories. You might try reading, "Nurses, Midwives and Witches" by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English to understand the beginnings of the male takeover of medicine. A real eye-opener.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)I know the outlines of the history of how respected competent midwives were turned into so-called granny-women from the hills, dirty handed creatures with no education — as men built colleges for men to study medical practice and then of course refused entry to all women.
I’d like to fill in those outlines.
niyad
(132,446 posts)horrified when I read it, and yet validated for having, from about age seven, an incredibly deep mistrust for the entire system, helped by that system nearly killing me several times before I was 21.
I was managing a B. Dalton's when it came out. Shortly after its release, a woman came in asking about it. I showed her where it was, and we talked about it for a bit. Then she told me, proudly, that she was Deirdre's mother, and we talked at length. It was a truly interesting encounter.
catbyte
(39,154 posts)was doubled over or on the couch in the fetal position, sobbing, for a couple of days a month and in constant, dull pain the other days until I finally found a doctor who took me seriously. I had severe endometriosis.
cate94
(3,102 posts)They only discovered the endometriosis by accident. I had a cystic dermoid tumor on my ovary. When they went in they were surprised by the amount. Argh. They ablated it, but when it came back, it was rinse and repeat. Not believed until another surgery was needed for another reason.
catbyte
(39,154 posts)nobody will take you seriously. I suppose it didn't help that my symptoms started when I was young, about 17, but still. I put up with it for over a decade. I had 5 cauterizations via endoscopy over the years then said enough is enough and had everything taken out when I was 40. Best decision ever. It reduced my migraines by about 80% too. Freedom, lol!
I'm so sorry you went through that, too. It happens much too often.
Luciferous
(6,586 posts)Genki Hikari
(1,766 posts)Ignore me when I told him I, a post-menopausal woman, was having both severe menstrual-type pain and was hemorrhaging. I had a history of endometriosis and menorrhagia (severe bleeding during menstruation), but why would anything like the latter come back, post-menopause?
One time, I had a pool of blood gush out of me during a class, soaking through a chair and onto the floor below me. It was not only embarrassing but also downright scary. I passed out once after leaving a class. Scared the crap out of a bunch of kids and professors, but there were some pre-med types among them who knew what to do. Or so I heard later. I had no idea what was going on while I was passed out. I only remember waking up in an ambulance with my clothes drenched in blood.
The ER couldn't figure out what was wrong, but they did refer me to an excellent gynecologist at a woman-run clinic. They did a biopsy, and of course it was cancer. Uterine cancer, no less. My oncologist wanted to do a hysterectomy, but I was only stage one. That meant we could take some time to eliminate a risk factor like anemia before operating, rather than putting me through surgery when my red blood count was scary low.
I was lucky, I suppose, but I might have avoided a great deal of embarrassment and pain and misery if that sexist pig had listened to me. Any competent endocrinologist would know to be alert to anything that reeks of cancer of a reproductive organ, given how hormones tie into the reproductive system so much. Not that scumbag. I was just a dumb woman, so anything I had to say didn't matter.
The year all this happened was not 1970 or 1980. Nope. It was 2016.
And still, women are treated like we're exaggerating or lying or whining to be whining when we go to doctors about our health concerns.
littlemissmartypants
(33,615 posts)Hekate
(100,133 posts)I was 16 and had been hounded by this doubling-over pain that would come and go ever since I was 12, so after that misdiagnosis I calendared it for years to see if it did indeed synch with probable times of ovulation, and it never ever did.
I had been raised to not complain….
Finally in my 40s it blew up for real, and I almost died. When they got the appendix out it was full of stones — which told me it was “chronic” all those years. But all I got from the surgeons was a terse lecture on, essentially, not getting sick enough to almost die.
Thank you all so very much. 
betsuni
(29,078 posts)of 13 and her severe endometriosis wasn't diagnosed for decades -- she'd even had an operation but the doctor hadn't bothered to tell her she had the condition. And when she was married to Salman Rushdie he didn't believe her severe pain was real and was very mean about it.
niyad
(132,446 posts)would stop having such pain once she gave birth. I guess she spent too much time around me, because she blasted that idiot. I never knew how it worked out.
Warpy
(114,616 posts)I wish I had a dime for every lady who had been given Valium for paroxysmal tachycardia (intermittent rapid heart rate) because she was being hysterical, typical female anxiety neurotic. Then it worsened, she'd present with a sustained rate above 180 and I'd get her. By that time, she'd been popping a Valium every time her heart rate shot up so she'd have a dependency problem that needed treatment.
It's getting a little better with female doctors entering the profession in large numbers, but they're all still being affected by male centered medicine being taught in the schools.
I know I prefer dealing with women, especially nurse practitioners.
IcyPeas
(25,475 posts)the cure for that used to be having a hysterectomy.
Deep State Witch
(12,717 posts)Talk to any woman. They will tell you at least one story about being told that stuff was all in their head. Or to lose weight.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 14, 2022, 01:35 AM - Edit history (2)
The intent being to reduce my pain level. And it did! I was told there was little known about the condition but that this med was the gold standard.
And there it stayed in my regimen for some 20 years. At some point I went from a slender 40 year old who despite a sweet tooth had never had difficulty knowing when to stop eating, to a very overweight 60 year old who seriously couldn’t figure out how I’d lost all control. Every doc I ever saw for any reason (minus my dentist) lectured me about my weight. Shame was my middle name.
I got a prescription for an antidepressant — for my depression — and doc said well, you might as well give up the tricyclic. And guess what? he said. Fibromyalgia generally improves as one ages anyway. I just stared at him and thought, “I don’t think so, but what the hell.”
So I weaned myself off those capsules and a very weird thing happened. Within 24 hours of it clearing my system, I felt a switch in my brain click. I instinctively knew it was the control switch for appetite — and I was furious. Every single doc had a list of my meds and not one had bothered to check for side-effects like weight gain. No, they just shamed me, including my woman gynecologist who hinted heavily that she didn’t want to take care of people who didn’t take care of themselves.
In that mood I went to a lecture about fibromyalgia by a neurologist and discovered they know a whole lot more than they used to. Hooray. Afterward I asked about my old med and he said, “Those things are notorious for weight gain.” So I felt very vindicated on that score. But still fat.
And oh yeah, my fibromyalgia still with me, as I suspected it would be. But nowadays I’m retired (I’m 75) and if I have a night of insomnia or twilight zone faux-sleep I really don’t have to drag myself out of the house. I don’t do early mornings. We are well off enough that I changed out our 20 year old inner spring mattress for a Tempur-pedic about 20 years ago and then got another on warranty. When I sleep away from home, I am acutely aware of whatever mattress I sleep on. I haven’t “outgrown” it, but it hardly seems worthwhile to bring it up to my doc, when I have worked out my own adaptations.
RobinA
(10,478 posts)that the weight gain from psychotropics is particularly tough for doctors to "get." They don't believe the weight gain is caused by the med. I work in a psychiatric hospital on a womens unit. When patients come in you can immediately tell who started taking meds because they gain weight pretty quickly. No weight gain? Refusing meds. The official reaction is to cut down their calories. Does this work? No. So they cut them down more. Does this work? No. The dietician explains that weight gain only happens on womens units, so they must be swapping food. I am 65. I have mentioned several times that possibly, just possibly, women react more than men to the meds, particularly in the weight department. No, no, no, can't be. I am mostly arguing with younger people, who I THOUGHT were more in tune with the different group-different drug reaction way of thinking. No such luck. Number one reason people stop psych meds? Weight gain.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)….start for a few years, and oh crap I wonder if that was when doc said, “I see you have dry mouth, try this other one.” crap crap crap
Thank you for your input. It’s helpful.
After that I made up my mind that if I ever thought someone could personally benefit from my experience that I’d overcome shame and share it. Bottom line: female weight gain can be far more complicated than we know, and shame just cripples. One on one I think I’ve had a good effect, or at least left a friend feeling heard.
Here at DU it’s been a mixed bag. We used to have a couple of women who were adamant that their own good health was due solely to their very own willpower and were really judgmental and smug. When they entered a thread the whole tone would shift: airline seats — all the fault of individual Americans choosing an unhealthy lifestyle (and suddenly everyone would agree) — whereas I distinctly recall the shrinkage in personal space starting before I expanded. They went on to greener pastures, but we can still get a rousing battle going over someone calling Trump a tub of lard and whether that’s justified because we hate him or evidence of toxic bigotry toward all differently sized persons.
But again: thanks for your helpful and knowledgeable input. I’ll remember that.
Deep State Witch
(12,717 posts)I've always struggled with my weight. However, once I got on Effexor, it shot up like crazy! I switched to Cymbalta, and my weight stayed pretty steady. I lost almost 100 pounds in 2020-21 through keto. I was stuck at about 95-99 pounds off. Then I had COVID this past May. I gained 25 pounds back without changing my diet. The main thing that I did was stopped exercising because of the fatigue.
I literally just got a lecture today about "cutting back on portions" etc. It's not the issue. I eat low-carb. I do so because I'm so adapted that I get sick if I don't.
HeartachesNhangovers
(851 posts)in Vancouver WA, plus all three of my current OHSU (Portland OR) specialists are women. I think that at least half of the MDs at the large medical practice I use are women. Surgeons and anesthesiologists, from my limited personal experience, still tend to be male.
What I am saying is: if you think that a male MD doesn't take you seriously, hopefully you can switch to a female MD.
Does anyone know what the national ratio of male to female MDs is in the US? Because, based on my experience, it seems to have gone from 100/0 to about 50/50 during my lifetime (I'm 61).
Tom Yossarian Joad
(19,275 posts)due to the fears of suits from actionable addiction claims. Not only women.
Genki Hikari
(1,766 posts)Really, what would we do if someone wasn't there to invalidate our experiences by pointing out how bad someone else has it.
You're like the psychologist who tried to make me "feel better" about being raped by telling me--TWO DAYS after the attack, that, well, at least I hadn't been stabbed or killed or beaten badly.
Gee, that makes everything about being gang-raped all better, doncha know?
Hekate
(100,133 posts)yardwork
(69,364 posts) niyad
(132,446 posts)RobinA
(10,478 posts)doctor told me, upon my telling her that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, that at least it wasn't the worst kind of cancer I could have. Now, normally "somebody else has it worse" is something that can help me with perspectice, but when I've been told I have a disease that could kill me, not so much.
Rebl2
(17,743 posts)never had a doctor dismiss my pain. I have RA, kidney stones, very intense headaches. I have been very fortunate with my doctors.
homegirl
(1,965 posts)told me it "couldn't hurt that much" I took his hand and squeezed with all the force of a potter who could throw 10 kilos of clay on a manual kick wheel.
He really gasped and winced. And got the message!
berniesandersmittens
(13,197 posts)FINALLY received a hysterectomy after begging for years.
The excuses were always that I may want more kids, or they asked my (now ex) husband and he said maybe we would, so....
I also had my INT pain med come loose during labor. Medicaid didn't used to cover epidural.
ellie
(6,975 posts)and comments were infuriating.
niyad
(132,446 posts)of women being dismissed by doctors and ER personnel were infuriating.
niyad
(132,446 posts)as there are some odd reactions to discussing this depressing topic.
ellie
(6,975 posts)
Crunchy Frog
(28,280 posts)On the other hand, I was ignored and insulted while screaming from kidney stone pain for hours in the ER a few years ago.
Leaving people of whatever gender in severe, untreated pain, and treating them in such a dismissive fashion is fucking inhuman.
Sympathy for anyone who's been through it.
Ms. Toad
(38,643 posts)I nearly bled to death - and was not taken seriously until the blood loss caused heart issues (Fortunately not permanent). I started bleeding excessively with my periods, and then nearly non-stop. To the point where I could not make it from the office bathroom (30 feet from my office) back to my office without bleeding through. I started wearing adult diapers overnight so I could sleep without waking up terrified I had just ruined the mattress. Big clues the collections of doctors treatimen me missed: (1) The OB/Gym exam suggested I had a slightly enlarged uterus (never a prior finding in 20 years of exams), (2) I was so anemic that I was not producing any new red blood cells - and was referred for evaluation for leukemia or lymphoma. My suggestions that it might be related to the bleeding were dismissed, (3) I was told I must be exaggerating when I estimated my blood loss at about a quart a month, (4) I started to get heart arrhythmia due to how hard my heart had to work to get oxygen where it needed to be (5) no one bothered to check my oxygen saturation.
I finally had to figure out how to measure blood loss before they would take seriously my suggestion that all of the symptoms were connected. (I'll spare you the details - but it was a pretty accurate measurement, and my guesstimate (#3, above) was only about 50% of the actual blood loss.)
Turns out it was a particular kind of fibroid which causes excessive bleeding due to its location, despite being relatively small and almost indetectable with a manual exam. It was finally diagnosed by a woman gynecologist who (in what seems obvious in retrospect) did an ultrasound and an actual visual inspection of the inside of my uterus. The male doctors all just suggested I should just get a hysterectomy - because I don't need my uterus anymore (roughly 6 weeks to normal activity and instant menopause). The female gynecologist did outpatient surgery to remove the fibroid and, but for the ban on driving post anesthesia, I could have returned to work the next day. I still have my uterus 25 years later.
Example 2
I noticed a skin lesion which had all of the ABCDE signs of skin cancer. My normal dermatologist (a woman) didn't have an available appointment for several weeks (pretty standard for dermatologists), so I made a "same day" appointment with another dermatologist. That dermatologist insisted the lesion was completely benign - and he wouldn't even biopsy it (despite knowing my brother had recently developed melanoma). When I wouldn't take no for an answer, he refused to do the biopsy that day (even though the normal practice in that office is same-day biopsies on suspicious lesions - I'd already had two same day biopsies at that point). He required me to come back another day. He probably thought I would be discouraged and give up. Once he did the biopsy, the pathology had a couple of characteristics that my review of the literature suggested should be treated as pre-cancerous. There were 4 characteristics and the pathology only addressed two. The dermatologist refused to ask the pathologist about the remaining two - forcing me to make a third appointment, this time with the pathologist. That conversation confirmed that (1) the borders were not clean and (2) the lesion had a third of the 4 troubling characteristics.
When the lesion returned (since the borders weren't clean) I had my regular dermatologist remove it. And remove it when it regrew two more times. The fourth time it was removed, it was a sarcoma - a very aggressive cancer (and one of the cancers my research suggested was a risk of the 4 troubling pathological findings). Because I was watching it, and had a dermatologist willing to humor me, I caught it early. Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of the surgery that removed it - and so far I'm NED (no evidence of disease).
The kicker: My BIL (classic macho male) recently visited the same dermatologist - and is impressed with how thorough and respectful he is.
Example 3
My daughter, at age 3, started having overnight GI incontinence. Her doctor insisted I was just a hypochondriac mother and refused - for a year - to give me a referral to a gastroenterologist. What I didn't know then (in 1994 it wasn't so easy to do my own medical research) was that overnight GI incontinence is classic IBD. She lived with it a year before I was able to get her to a specialist. I ultimately had to go without a referral - since even after a year he handed me a phone book and wished me luck in finding anyone to see her. She was diagnosed within 2 weeks - about the time it took to make an appointment and prep a 4 year old for a colonsoclpy.
Example 4
My daughter age 13-ish started having horrendous itching (like she was allergic to her blood). At age 18, her first year in college, she underwent a dramatic cognitive change, as well as a lot of other less dramatic non-specific symptoms. (She was valedictorian of her high school class but could barely string a paragraph worth of sentences together. She barely made it through her 1st semester at college - and still has not graduated from college at age 32.)
When she was sick over that first winter break I sent her to the college infirmary where two routine blood tests suggested she might have something going on with her liver. I sent her back and had her tell them she was on meds which were liver toxins - and ask them to run a liver panel. It came back with elevated liver enzymes - not dramatic, but elevated. Research time. I figured out what she had - even though it is - most commonly - a disease 40 year old men get.
Her GI doctor (the one who finally diagnosed her when whe was 4) had been refusing to run liver function tests for years, and when presented with concrete evidence of liver issues, insisted it was nothing serious. I told him I was not going to tolerate a repeat of her diagnosis with IBD, and asked him to run a specific test which generally distinguished her particular liver disease from others. He ran it to humor me (and get me off of her back). My "diagnosis" was correct - and, had he tested her liver function when I had requested it years earlier she would have been diagnosed sometime in middle school, when the bile salts building up in her bloodstream made her feel like she was allergic to her blood (the test I insisted the doctor run was for bile stasis).
ETA - Example 5
I was hospitalized recently with pancreatitis. I gave the doctor a complete history of all relevant experiences including an accurate description of my history with alcohol (which is only about 1/14 the threshhold for causing pancreatitis) and that I had had COVID less than a month earlier. The doctor reviewed all of the initial tests run and couldn't fins an objective cause for the pancreatitis - so started to make repeated comments that I just need to go home and stop drinking. He repeated this as frequently as he could whenever my spouse was present. Apparently he decided that since there was no objective cause I must be lying about how much I was drinking. He initially refused call in a GI consult or run any tests, but ultimately consented. His only advice, on discharge, was stop drinking and consider getting my gall bladder out. While the drinking advice was appropriate, it wasn't appropriate for the reason he was offering it. Anyone who has pancreatitis needs to abstain from alcohol for 6 months to avoid a relapse, even if it was not caused by alcohol. The gall bladder advice was dead wrong - removing a gall bladder when there are no stones present often creates more pancreatic problems than it solves.
I found a pancreatic/gall bladder specialist for a follow-up appointment. The pancreatitis was caused by COVID. While it isn't the most common manifestation of long COVID, it is a known long-term complication. When I told the floor doctor I had COVID less than a month earlier, that should have at least triggered an investigation on his part. But it was easier to just assume I was lying about drinking.
I am one of few people I now who is so insistent that I be taken seriously. I would likely be dead by now if I had accepted the standard treatment dished out by the medical establishment to women.
Cetacea
(7,400 posts)I do not disagree with OP. However, the new opiate laws are making doctors afraid to prescribe them. I doubt the lawmakers have any problems getting them...
Texasgal
(17,240 posts)We also get less funding for common disease such as heart issues which is the #1 killer in women.
Meowmee
(9,212 posts)There is a lot of negligence and malpractice. It happens to everyone but it probably happens more for women. I ended up nearly dead in an icu after going to numerous doctors with obvious and very specific symptoms and test results, especially at the end. It could all have been avoided with proper diagnosis from the start.
betsuni
(29,078 posts)Doctor gave him lots of pain pills. Can't help thinking of his mother who had terrible back pain for years and doctors wouldn't give her pain medication. I know some people think any country with nationalized health care (I live in Japan) is some sort of utopia, but no.