Medical misogyny leaves women in pain for years, say MPs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23v42jdle7o
by ClassicFlavour
Medical misogyny leaves women in pain for years, say MPs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23v42jdle7o
by ClassicFlavour
27 comments
missus is 8 years into trying to find out whats causing her stomach pains, there bad enough to leave her stuck in bed and on reduced hours. theres a long list of bullshit they have pulled –
its growing pains
its normal period pains
is your diet
its smoking
its ibs
its stress/ anxiety
it took about 5 years of shit like that before her gp actually bothered to even feel her stomach. nhs wouldnt do more than blood test and ultrascan, said they was clear so wasnt investigating further just leaving her in pain. any attempt to get this looked at again by her doctor leads to more of the above or “what do you want us to do”. there needs to be more done to investigate the root cause of these issues for women. most are left until its too late becasue doctors dont want to do laproscopic surgery to check for endo/ other conditions. they would rather do a ultrasound, which doesnt really show endo then tell you that your fine and deal with it.
my mum whent through the same, 10 years of fucking around to get a diagnosis for endo, to be told at 38 with 2 kids out the house that she shouldnt have a historectomy as she might still want kids. she whent around that doctor and finally got the surgery and is much better now. it shouldnt take 10 years and skirting around peoples personal/ religious beliefs to get taken care off.
I know there will be a lot of comments saying ‘this isn’t just an issue for women’.
It is possible to recognise that the health system is currently failing many people of both sexes and to recognise that there is significant unmet need for men (when it comes to mental health services in particular) whilst at the same time acknowledging that women are significantly worse served by healthcare in the UK.
It’s not just the female only conditions that contribute to this.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/womens-health-outcomes-is-there-a-gender-gap/
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/closing-the-gender-health-gap-the-importance-of-a-women-s-health-strategy
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/womens-health-history-and-the-uk-gender-gap/
Sadly, this is true in my experience. I was told by a gynecologist that the pain I had was in my head, and actually tried to refer me to a psychiatrist. I argued back, calmly and was told I was being difficult.
It was not in my head. I collapsed 2 months later. Diagnosis was endometriosis, ovarian cysts and fibroids.
Also, I’m a nurse. I knew what was wrong with me and I could not get two male doctors to listen to me. This was fifteen years ago, and one of the gynecologists I saw was later struck off.
I am blessed as a man to have been adopted into a social group that is all women, they have become my very best friends in the entire world and the horror stories they tell about how difficult it is for them to get the right care they need.
I could talk all day about their horror stories but I’m going to talk about one that stings the most. My friend who has a chronic illness (ME) and a Brain Tumour, she was fobbed off by the NHS for many years and told her symptoms were other things. She is in pain every single day and lives as a shell of her formerself.
She couldn’t get the tests or help she needed until her husband had to take over her care. She is one of the nicest & kindest women I have ever met and it hurts me to know that the system has failed her and as a result she is in pain every day and her life is forever changed.
She did all the right things and the system failed her.
(so many mistakes in this text, i have the flu and lots of brain fog my apologies)
The worst part of this is that the new diagnosis AIs will have this bias built in. There are studies that show successful diagnosis drops for females when using AI as the doctors will assume the AI is correct when it gives an all clear.
16 year trek for me to get diagnosed with MS and epilepsy. Every alternate suggestion was like i could treat it at home and it would go away. Its beyond difficult and almost impossible, to find someone in healthcare to help you
The “but what about *men*” brigade have really been vocal on this sub lately, huh
Good to finally acknowledge it i guess. I’ve been ignored, disregarded, condescended to, to the point I’ve just given up. Refused therapy, refused medication changes, refused treatment plans… When I asked if there was anything I could do to better my condition after my ME diagnosis (which took 8 years… And has claimed the entirety of my 20s, irreversibly destroying my life) they had the gall to say it was on me to figure it out and it might get better. When i spoke to a doctor about my chronic muscle pains and asked about a TENS machine as a possibility, they first accused me of overreacting, then of seeking opiates, and when I told them i never want to go on addictive pain medication because it destroyed two family members, they told me to my fucking face if the pain was so consistent and affecting my mental health so badly I should have killed myself by now.
I just don’t bother anymore. It’s a story that gets repeated in essence with every woman i talk to
All the ‘this is not a gender issue’ comments really demonstrate that this well reported issue still isn’t taken seriously.
I was told outright they had no obligation to do anything for women’s issues after having a period for 6 months nonstop. I was denied the pill after a lecture about why being overweight and approaching 25 was risky for them.
My GP recently told me that my mental health issues are probably down to perimenopause.
I have not been tested to confirm I am in perimenopause.
🤷♀️
2 women in my family were told to swim to get rid of what turned out to be tumours!
Yeah,it took my sister 3 trips to A&E for the docs to start taking her seriously. She has endometriosis and required surgery, could have been saved a lot of pain if they had taken her seriously in the first place.
There’s issue throughout our health care system but to be told ‘everything is fine’ when it clearly isn’t, is just ridiculous, like the doc can feel what you’re feeling.
Took me 13 years to get any doctor to recognise my issues. It was pure luck that the next doctor I tried at my local GP was just hired after moving from the local hospital as a Gynecologist.
She was amazing and got me the right tests for PCOS and Endometriosis in that first appointment with her. It still took a few months for the appointment and then after that to confirm what we both knew but that’s nothing to the 13 years of pain and agony I had.
My mum was accused of having psychological issues and was referred to a psychiatrist because she said she was in severe chronic pain due to sciatica and a previous spinal operation with complications. Not once did the doctor think to address her pain but instead asked her if she was abused as a child and this is why she is perceiving pain differently (she wasn’t abused..). After changing practice she was eventually referred to neurosurgery and her imaging showed that one of her vertebrae had collapsed and was pressing on her spine. So much for it being all in her head! Her brother had a very similar condition and at no point was it suggested that he was making it all up. Just one incident, and maybe it was an extreme example, but I have heard so many stories of women’s pain being dismissed.
I’ve been an ICU/HDU nurse for decades – only in the last 5 years are we seeing lots of women post op after endometriosis surgery . Many had been fighting for years to get heard about severe pain . The surgery is often very extensive with the endometriosis affecting their bowel & other organs . It is a big deal & shocking ( but not surprising) that so often women ignored for years before getting proper treatment.
For an incredible example of this, I did my back in a while back and went to the GP, got given about two months worth of strong painkillers just in case I needed them.
Wife on the other hand has had back pain for years and whenever she goes to the GP about it they are very reluctant to give her anything and recommend ibuprofen instead.
I’ve been talking about medical misogyny as an example at conferences recently and I was surprised at how widespread the denial of it is.
I think it’s an important issue to discuss but because there’s also huge issues where men don’t feel able to even attend their GPs it makes the issue quite confused and side tracked a lot of the time
I think one of the reasons it’s a misogyny issue is because women are still seen by some men to be hysterical and emotional and therefore, if not necessarily lying about their pain, then at least exaggerating it. Men are seen as people who soldier on so if they do finally go to the doctor complaining of pain it must be serious right! Of course this is all outdated nonsense but it’s definitely an attitude I still see.
yup. you have to battle to have any psi. taken seriously. it took 20 years to diagnose me with endometriosis! and even with the diagnosis it’s a battle for treatment due to never ending waiting lists.
A male nurse once gave me a medication I was intolerant to without checking my history or telling me what he was giving me. My heart shot up to 250bpm and I lost my eyesight for nearly two hours and all the male doctors who came to check, aside of having no clue, could only tell me to “calm down love, your hysteria will only make it worse”
Yeah, everyone gets it bad sometimes but as a woman your odds of staying alive and healthy are so much worse.
Yup. I had to repeat very firmly to the doctor that I could feel something distinct near my uterus and advocated for further tests. He just wanted to send me home with antibiotics without booking me in for ultrasounds and lightly suggested it was ‘probably an STI’. It was only when I became very forceful in my tone that the pain I was feeling wasn’t normal that he referred me onto the hospital for testing (whilst suggesting that he wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t find anything). Only after I was there for some time and requested he examine me properly and he saw the pain and discomfort I was in during the physical examination, did he refer me onwards. It’s just sad that I had to stand my ground and convince the dude of my pain. And surprise surprise! They found exactly what it was (hint: it wasn’t an STI, nor was it something antibiotics would have even began to touch).
Very disappointing as I’ve had a male GP in the past who has been very responsive and actually believed my experiences, and to switch to the one above hurt my soul. And my uterus
when it comes to chronic health problems the health system is still stuck in the 1970s. ( all across the world) . Their is no real innovation in my experience. problem is the doctors do not understand the conditions they are just following a treatment algorithm. we have turned health care into a fast food restaurant.
Having a smear test can be agonising because they use tools designed in the 19th century.
Apparently, frequent collapsing, fainting, trembling, and long bouts of intense palpitations were actually normal for a woman my age. I just needed to drink more water. Went and saw a private consultant, and it turns out, thats not normal and my heart doesn’t work right lol. Ooh or how about going to the doctor repeatedly for really really bad periods for nearly 10 years over and over again being told its hormones its stress its normal. Funny story, my uterus is super deformed. Crazy how I was told something was normal and I was just stressed for years at a time only to later find out something was actually wrong
I was told that my terrible neck, shoulder and back pain after about 8 months of having had my first child, was ‘mothers’ shoulder’ and that my baby was quite a ‘lump’. I remember saying to him, ‘I’ve got friends with babies the same age and they aren’t finding their back completely seized up when they wake at night’? He told me, ‘sometimes things just hurt’. I demanded to be seen by a consultant after about another 8 months. That consultant said to me, ‘what do want me to do? Do you think I have a magic pill to take the pain away?’ So I said ‘no, I just want you to diagnose me with something so I know why I’m in pain’ 😩
Turned out I have Ankylosing Spondylosis rather than the very low pain threshold my GP led me to believe initially.
This was a while ago now but when I was 11 I ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks, requiring cervical surgery to allow my period to escape my uterus.. up until that point I had excruciating pain every single month for up to a week that left me barely able to walk at times as it got progressively worse, (think of a cramp happening when your uterus is already swollen and full and you’re 11). My mum took me to so many doctors and I got told by all (bar the 1 that finally got me admitted and treated) that I was basically being a baby about growth pains or period pain and I needed to suck it up.
I used to cry because I thought I was going to eventually just die and no one wanted to help me. A child shouldn’t have to go through that.
By the time I finally got admitted I couldn’t even pee, my stomach looked like I was pregnant. All those doctors that dismissed me contributed to basically ruining a whole year of my childhood.
Women being dismissed about their medical needs has been happening for decades and I feel I’ve only recently seen any sort of attention to address it. I truly hope it helps start to change things
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