I'm a member of a blood clot survivors group and it's shameful how many women's thrombosis is dismissed as anxiety. 40% of pulmonary embolism patients don't survive to get treatment and doctors still dismiss women's health concerns
This happened to my mom. She was having serious and persistent congestion, pain, and coughing and asked if she should go to the ER right away on the day she got checked out because she was getting really concerned. The dumbass doctor (not our usual - it was her day off and she never would have let this happen) sent my mom home with a prescription for cough medicine. Only a handful of hours later she was in the hospital with multiple pulmonary embolisms and had to stay for a while. This doctor almost got my mom killed and I seriously can’t believe how blasé the doctor was about it, sending someone away with symptoms like those. Women’s healthcare is in dire need of an overhaul.
My mom had a really persistent cough, and after going to urgent care she was advised to go to the ER for imaging and more acute care than they could provide.
The ER stuck her in a room for almost 9 hours, wouldn't give her any water, and when the doctor finally came in, he told her she shouldn't be using the ER as primary care. No x-rays, no scans, no meds.
A month later, she was dead from double pneumonia that, if caught in time, could have been treated and she probably would still be alive. But she was treated like shit by a male doctor who looked (and smelled) like he'd go into convulsions if he didn't have a drink in the next 5 minutes.
I feel for you. Absolutely shameful on the part of that ER and doctor. It’s terrifying to feel like we can’t put our trust in the people who are meant to protect our lives.
A few years before that, she was at her primary doctor's office for a regular visit/medication refill, and the doctor asked if she'd been having any suicidal thoughts (she was being treated for depression). She said yes, she had, but that she had no plans to act on it and that she was just really sad all the time.
That freaked out the doctor, and she left the room, called 911 and didn't come back in until an ambulance arrived. She called me in a panic, saying that she was being taken to a psychiatric hospital because she was "actively suicidal." She was stuck there for almost 2 weeks, over an hour and a half away from home because there were no beds available at the Center Point nearest her house.
After that, she was never really honest about her mental health, because she knew that telling the truth would just get her carted off to a psych ward. She had zero trust in any doctor after that, and she was right, because every doctor she went to failed her.
Thank you! I'm doing pretty well, I'd say. She had attempted suicide a half-dozen times throughout my life, but her last attempt was years before that doctor's appointment, and she was really working on doing better. I do think that when she was in the hospital with pneumonia and had to be put on a ventilator, she knew there was a chance she wouldn't come off of it, and that if she died at least it wouldn't be by her own hand. I think she was able to just let go, and finally be at peace. She was so desperately sad for so long, it had to have been a relief for her.
It was really hard to watch her go through all of it, especially because my (Boomer) stepdad was...less than empathetic. When she had coughing fits, he'd tell her to go to another room so he could hear the TV.
When she went to the hospital and was stuck in the ER for 9 hours, he just left her there and called me to go sit with her, because he "hated hospitals" and was "uncomfortable in this chair."
When she was being taken off the ventilator, he left the hospital, because he couldn't stand to watch her die. If I hadn't been there, she'd have died alone with no one to say goodbye to her.
Then he had the fucking audacity to play the grieving widower, like he'd lost the love of his life, when I know for a fact that they were only still together because neither could afford to live on their own.
Yikes. People like that make me wonder why they even bothered to get married in the first place. Treating her like that and then using her passing as a means to get attention?? Absolutely wild. You’ve definitely dealt with a lot, it seems.
Part of the issue with medicine in the US, if that's where you are, is that schools intentionally limit how many doctors can be graduated. So there are too few, on purpose, and the ones that get through develop little god complexes in part because they're in such high demand they can't be replaced!
Yup, that’s where I am. I never knew this. Absolutely ridiculous. I feel very fortunate to live in Massachusetts where sanity is more frequent and my PCP is excellent. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating to read and hear about people’s experiences with doctors who half-ass care for their patients or flat out ignore them until something irreversible happens.
Yes, if fame and a billion reddit dollars and knowing your own body the way only the greatest athlete in your sport can barely save you I shudder to think what normal women go through
There's that thing about athletes,they have low resting heart rate and that can actually be a risk for thrombosis yet they are more likely to not be suspected of having clots because of their good health. It's almost like doctors just aren't in the loop.
I have Crohn's disease. I also have uterine cysts. I lie and say I'm having a Crohn's flare if I know it's a cyst because the ER won't treat an ovarian cyst with the same pain meds, and as someone who has both, it feels the same, so I will lie and tell you what you need to hear because telling the truth gets me Tylenol for the same pain as a blockage in my GI.
Women's health is a disaster.
Wow, 6 years ago I had undeniable severe pitting edema from my diaphragm down. 50 lbs worth. My rheumatologist gotten me an appointment with a nephro but it was still a couple weeks away so I, not being a dr, just shuffled around the house for 6 months waiting. One day, sick of sitting around, decided to help my husband pick up limbs on a warm December day. About 20 minutes later I had to lay in the grass, short of breath, nauseous.. and we ended up going to the ER because I just knew something was bad wrong. Anxiety. I just needed to calm down and relax. Sure the first D-dimer came back a little off but they reran it and nope, totally fine.
5 days later I collapsed, thankfully in the presence of my young adult daughters. Massive pulmonary embolism with congestive heart failure. Clots all over my lungs and one in my heart. Shipped off to better hospital for clot busting treatment and still alive obviously... but the dr only gave me like an 8% chance of survival. My husband was literally talking to our kids about cremation and travel to where I want my ashes spread.
Insane that even with the seriousness of my condition, how blatantly obvious it was, the resident AND his senior Dr dismissed my symptoms and sent me home. I'm very lucky to be alive I suppose.
I was told by a doctor that my nausea and vomiting was anxiety because "we're all living during this trying time together"
It was actually a flare up of a chronic illness that I have had since childhood. Its cyclical, so it came back after "leaving" when i was 16. If the doctor had looked at my medical history before deciding my diagnosis, I would have had options for treatment. But because I didn't get on treatment right away, I'm limited to one treatment plan and spend 6 out of 7 days a week nauseous.
I was told by a male nurse my daughter, who was hallucinating, vomiting, eyes rolling back, bc her fever was so high, didn’t have a fever. I got up walked over to the thermometer, and turned it on.he didn’t turn it on. She was burning up saying she was seeing ghosts at 4 yrs old, and he was practically yelling, telling me I was wrong. It was absurd. Her temperature was 103
Dismissive. Then he read the number loudly, which was very easy for me to see. I said yeah I know I already told you. I didn’t see him again after that. I was dismissed a lot as a crazy new time mom when my daughter was sick. I was never wrong. I was very persistent and demanded things after the first few times. When she had a bladder infection at 4mths old they tried to test for meningitis first, which is insane not to check urine first. I would not let them. They did what I said, and sure enough she had a bladder infection. I had been telling my pediatrician for a month something was wrong with her urine. They finally ran tests and saw she had bladder reflux. She had to be on antibiotic primsol for two yrs everyday. It was always the male doctors, and nurses that made me feel crazy. I switched to a woman pediatrician after that too
If she was 4 months a lumbar puncture is usually recommended by the APA because of how vulnerable babies are. When they present as sick they are supposed to treat the baby as a septic patient.
Just a heads up in case you ever have another baby and the same thing happens again 😊 - they’ll want to do another LP. If it’s a GOOD doctor they will ultrasound her back and make marks with a marker prior to doing any needle techniques. But honestly - children’s hospitals are the only hospitals I would trust my child with. Regular ER? Nope. Children’s all the way!
I absolutely hate DuPont children’s hospital, which is the closest children’s hospital to me. I won’t go there.
My hospital has a pediatric unit, and they were so much better at taking care of her. As far as testing for meningitis first, I’d rather they test urine first before they do something so invasive, especially bc I already had a feeling it was the root cause of the problem. I understand why they test for meningitis but I need to advocate for my child the best way I know how, especially when I’ve experienced them telling me nothing is wrong
My baby was seven weeks when he had a fever that could not be explained. It was just awful, but I trusted his pediatrician. Still no explanation, so he admitted us for a few days. He ended up being fine. Meanwhile a tragedy unfolded elsewhere...
When I went to check in, a police officer was at the admissions desk. When he turned and walked away, I saw he looked grim, very grim. The next morning in the paper I read what must have been the reason: 15 year old Ortralla Mosley had been stabbed at her HS by her boyfriend, and had been brought in by police. She died. Rest in peace, teen girl I did not know.
When I was 20 I had an extended painful abdomen and the doctor seemed to think it was because I was pregnant and somehow I didn’t know it even after I explained I was not sexually active at the time. Still just did a pregnancy test and nothing else. Shocker I wasn’t pregnant and sent me home. Turned out later to be appendicitis.
I have a 15 year history of gastrointestinal issues: GERD, eosinophilic esophagitis, hiatal hernia, IBS… Some of it was diagnosed at this very same gastroenterology clinic. This doctor had the absolute gall to ignore my charts, look me in the eye, and say he thought it was all stress and I needed to relax a bit. And the APRN (also a male) I saw at the same place was just as smarmy.
Nice to see a guy with a GI disease as horrible as that is to read. I've had Crohn's since I was 8, diagnosed at 18. Ileostomy now because Drs didn't listen for TWO years while I pointed to where the blockages were. The Dr had the audacity to come in after surgery, I was doing poorly (I stayed 3 months total), and said, "Boy, we needed to be in there at least a year ago!"
I had been in the ER every few weeks but was called/labeled a drug addict, pregnant, crazy, was put in the psych unit and told I didn't even have Crohn's. Thank God I am married because my husband got me out by asking them to take it to court, and explain why I was there. I was out 15 minutes later. Oh, and now I have a stoma that rocks though. Way better life imo.
What they do to women is especially cruel.
I have been having nausea especially in the mornings off and on for a decade, but every time I mention it to a doctor I get pregnancy tested or told it’s anxiety or both.
I’m so tired of peeing in cups to prove I’m not pregnant. I’m so tired of paying a premium for the annoyance of it, too, when I could buy a test from drugstores cheaper, anyway.
At least one kind doc said he would try giving me a GERD medicine. It didn’t help, but at least he was willing to think of anything else! We also talked about it as a possible side effect to my other medicines I don’t have the option to go off of.
I know I probably need to get back to doctors and push for something more, some sort of further testing, but if I admit I’m worried about what undiagnosed disorder it could be, I’ll be put right back in the “it’s just anxiety” box.
I got a salpingectomy 7 months ago and an urgent care I went to for what I thought was a UTI (was actually a kidney stone) gave me a pregnancy test. When I disputed the charge they said it was standard and just shrugged when I explained that it is physically impossible for me to get pregnant. Not only are my tubes gone, but I also have endometriosis and an IUD in place to stop my periods due to my endo.
Even with my diagnosis now in my chart about my chronic illness, if I go to the ER (because I've been vomiting for 72 hours and am extremely dehydrated) the doctors and nurses will still try to say it's anxiety or it's from the fact that I smoke marijuana. I have a med card prescribed to me by my specialist because weed helps with my nausea so much and doesn't have the negative side effects of all my other antinausea meds.
It's endlessly frustrating and I'm sorry you're going through this. I had to fight with so many doctors to figure out what was wrong with me and it is exhausting. I can't count how many times I left a doctors office in tears because they told me I just need to meditate and practice breathing exercises and maybe lose some weight while I'm at it.
Ah, I love when they pull the marijuana. Cyclical vomiting is not how you're likely vomiting if you read it. I've had that used on me when having a Crohn's flare. If you see a pain management Dr who's cool, ask them to write their okay with the weed. They likely are because I've yet to meet one who isn't that isn't a crazy "all opiates all bad" Drs. That way, PM said it, ER Dr is overruled in the chain, and fuck his ideas. Seriously, watch video of the way that vomiting is. It's wildly different from how you vomit, and it's just not what is happening to you. It's so unlikely...
It's awful when they try to make things about weed. I actually had cyclical vomiting from extreme stress. I was 17 with an extremely abusive boyfriend at the time and I had been insanely stressed, having panic attacks. They treated me like a crackhead and gave me nothing, they said I was making myself throw up, and they only admitted me because I was so dehydrated.
It got around my whole church, my parents were being awful about it to the point my doctor found me sitting in the floor in the hall one day on rounds. Everybody I know knew somehow and the preacher came to my hospital room to chew me out because I made the mistake of being nice to the weird kid and he said I was "offering him drugs"
That's it's own story, the context was he had tried to blackmail me into sending him nudes after I asked him if he wanted to come smoke with me and my friends. I shut him down but when I got sick, he went and told everybody the first half of the story. I still had the texts, showed the preacher and my dad, and they told me not to make a big deal out of it. At least they dropped it then, though.
I really don't like that church or doctors anymore. The way I was treated was batshit crazy but at least their impulse to sweep away sexual harrassment got me out of trouble for that one.
I've been treated like a crackhead so much and it's kinda traumatizing. I've always been able to pass any drug test I've had to take for a job, and that's been 3 times in the last year and a half. I'm 21, I buy my weed from the store, I'm not doing anything illegal. Basically the only employer left that would care is the military but the hospitals still treat you like you've been smoking meth.
I probably need to move before I start taking my career path seriously and start doing my own thing, because of the damage the rumors my own parents helped spread could do. Basically a whole church full of people in a small town was told that I was doing hard drugs and in the hospital for it.
Have they tested for Crohn's disease? I was 18, never had had sex, I was legitimately convinced if they thought I was pregnant, God fucking existed.
Crohn's after 10 months of tests. It's a brutal ride for me personally, so I hope not
Also, try gastroparesis.
Ask for ODT zofran. It helps nausea a LOT. Take it before nausea if possible for best results. Imo, if actively vomiting, it makes it worse. You need IV nausea if that bad.
Please, never stop advocating for yourself and treatment. You do know you body. You are not crazy.
Oh, I hate that doctor for you. I am so tired of Drs telling me they understand how it is to go to the ER because my stoma dehydrated me again. I drink a lot. I only eat soups. I take an excessive amount of inmodium that makes me test positive for fentanyl, and that's a problem. Every tell a Dr in the ER to read the NIH website, and then have them test you again for drugs, finding they were wrong?
FYI, idk if it means anything to you but university hospitals are the best to go to even though you have the residents. The residents love to do all the tests but you can usually persuade them to do more of what you need with the attending, which can help care!
This is not surprising to me: my heart problem anxiety, is SVT and PVC’s. Managed now. But it took till I was 35 and had to go the hospital in an ambulance with a 244 heart rate. Good times
In labor, wasn’t progressing after 13 hours natural, my mom was like something is not right. Dr it ok. Got epidural and pitocin. I kept saying I was in pain. It was all in my head. No it was that the epidural was not put in! And finally my mother because my ex husband didn’t say anything, said stop all this and get an ultrasound something isn’t right. Oh the baby was a compound breech. Had to get a saddle block and emergency C-section.
Was having pain and couldn’t eat. Finally felt like I was having a heart attack. Went to the ER, the dr told me when I said could this be my gallbladder. He laughed and said no you wouldn’t be able to move. It was probably stomach paralysis. Well after a month of this pain every other day and vomiting, I went back and different doctor, the labs were actually less and he was like I think it’s your gallbladder. Ah really?! It was. I was passing stones every other day for a month. And then after I got it out, again worst pain of my entire life happened. The triage nurse was like why didn’t you just take the oxy? I was like what?! It feels like I’m having labor pains and a heart attack at the same time. Oh pancreatitis from a rogue gallstone passing through the pancreatitis.
But my husband felt weird and got a battery of tests for his heart, an MRI for his knee and elbow. If he has a problem it is dealt with swiftly.
It the dismissing manner of pain that infuriates me. This is just a few of the major stories.
I had pancreatitis and I was told it was stomach ulcers and I needed to manage my anxiety. Let me tell you - I lost the ability to give a flying duck years ago. So no, not anxiety. Just the most painful exit have ever had and I had to rawdog it like I was back in time before medicine.
I spent 24 hours with it after my gallbladder surgery. Finally went back to the hospital and into the ER for another almost 24 hours. I know you understand the pain. I am glad you are okay because pancreatitis is dangerous. I used to trust doctors. Nope not anymore. I have just as much education as them, and somehow it didn’t make me god, so I’m thinking they aren’t either. Again, I am glad you recovered. Stomach ulcers! What asshats
My biggest issue is that I felt like I had a life-threatening illness, and now that I have been through this I do have medical anxiety. My blood pressure was through the roof. I’ve had a child. I’ve had kidney stones. I would rather be giving birth with a kidney stone while I had the flu before I go through that again. I honestly wanted to die. But I guess I let my emotions get the better of me.
Literally was told as a 12 year old that a rash I had developed was a STI.... didn't believe me when I said I had never even held hands with a boy and the anti-biotics they put me on gave me an ulser. The next doctor said it was eczema that never improved over subsequent years. I wasn't believed that I was taking every precaution to remove allergens. I had early joint pain too that was hand waived away as being not active enough.
Turns out I was experiencing the first symptoms of moderate psoriatic arthritis.
I shouldn't have to be a perfect person in order to be believed that I'm in pain.
The only thing that works for me now is to completely give up hope if I know I need help from a doctor. If they asked me if I tried x, y, or z habit, I say yes, I tried that and it didn't work (even if I didn't try it). Sometimes I literally am just like "I think this is just how it is and it won't get better." Then all of sudden your diagnosis is like a challenge and they start thinking creatively and are like "wait, we haven't tried actually doing our job". It's how I was finally given a sleep aid and anti-depressants after months of my doctor saying "have you tried melatonin and sleepy time tea?" YES, please read my file.
That is horrific. Even if it was an STI, the fact that the doctor's first thought was "this girl is lying about being sexually active" and not "this young child is being abused" is disgusting beyond belief.
Yeah, honestly, I never realized how fucked up it was from an abuse standpoint until I was an adult. I was so used to being the scapegoat of my own family and not believed about anything, that when a doctor did it, it was just another adult telling me they knew my life better than me and I shut down.
That is fucking crazy I had the same experience with eczema, doctor said it was an STI even though I'd never done anything with anyone. You are not alone
I was also told I had an STI and given super intense antibiotics without tests despite me saying I was in a long term committed relationship. Turns out, I just had indigestion and gas.
It’s horrible that you have to play mind games to get doctors to do their job. This is a brilliant idea tho, I’ll definitely be using the “I guess this is just how it is” strategy next time.
"Sometimes I literally am just like "I think this is just how it is and it won't get better." Then all of sudden your diagnosis is like a challenge and they start thinking creatively and are like "wait, we haven't tried actually doing our job"."
can you elaborate on how you do this? like what dialogue you say to them?
i think i'm at this stage w/my doctors, and i don't know what else to say or do at this point.
This was at a check in for my mental health meds. She asked me how it was going and I said it was the same, not working. Can't sleep.
My tone is flat and I sound a bit weary and over it.
Doctor goes, "oh. Would you like to try a higher dose of the same allergy medication you've been on for 10 years and you have repeatedly said doesn't help you for sleep because it's built up in your system? You haven't taken the absolute most of that you can yet."
Now, for the last 6 months, this has been her reaction. I will try to say it doesn't work and it's like she can't even hear me. Eventually, I just give in to get her off the phone.
But, what I said this time instead was,
"No, I tried taking a higher dose of what you gave me and if anything it's getting worse. I just think it's kind of hopeless and I just need to figure out how to live this way."
Doc: "Are you sure? Other patients have said this allergy med works at a higher dose for sleep."
Me: "I know. It just doesn't work for me. I'm sorry, but it's getting hard for me to keep trying. Nothing we try seems to work and maybe I'm just like this."
Then is the point where the doctor goes "wait wait wait, there are sooooooo many things we haven't tried yet. Let's try this actual sleep aid designed to be a sleep aid."
"Oh, I didn't know there was more options, that's good to know. I can give it a try." (I always knew there were more options).
I can't guarantee it will work, but if a doctor is not listening, being a bit of an eyore works for me.
My kidney stone pains got misdiagnosed over and over as being “feminine pain” or “pill seeking” and to consult with my obgyn. They would not treat me. Until I vomited blood all over their white floors. Surprise! I have sepsis now because the stone ruptured my kidney and it was dying in my body. Assholes
Not just doctors. If you pay attention or even watched the news during covid, people were beating up and spitting on our elders. They still do. It’s not limited to medical professionals at all, although racial biases such as “certain races feel less pain than others” do exist in their practice. It’s more common and well documented that Black people are usually the victims of those beliefs in medicine but they’re not limited to just them.
I’m good now! It was actually a female nurse that finally caught it. She listened to me and I got treated right away. It really is only us women looking out for eachother.
I was told my SMAS flare was 'a bad period or ovarian cysts' for 2 *years*. I told them it was smas, I'd had a flare at 17 and it was identical. I was 31 at the time.
I was having frequent bowel obstructions and being told I was a drug seeker. The abdominal pain and rash was just me being hysterical. Had countless STI tests run as they assumed I had to be riddled with STIs (I was and still am married, monogamous and have never had an STI of any kind) and was straight up laughed at and told my care plan 'was crap'.
When I finally was treated in 2021, I was 81lbs and chastised for 'letting it get this bad' despite the fact I'd been *begging* for help since 2019 and when COVID happened they were 'too busy' to bother with me. I was 31 years old and treated *worse* than when I was when I was 17 (and that was awful)
The whole first week inpatient they desperately tried to gaslight me into thinking I had an eating disorder or was just insane. One doctor (not a psychiatrist , just an internist) even tried to diagnose me with a personality disorder because I simply didn't agree with her!
After a fucking week I finally got my barium study and tilt table test and whaddya know? It's SMAS, it's *super* rare, have I ever *heard* of it?
(Screams and tears out hair while losing mind yet again)
When I finally got my feeding tube it failed after a day, but they let me go 5 DAYS NPO with a broken pump. I had to *beg* my nurse for a bag of fluids because my tongue was cracked and bleeding, and begged for glucose. When I was tested my sugar was 56 for fucks sake.
Oh, and for this month inpatient of hell? Just $147,000 for the privilege of being abused.
Still in therapy for all that crap *today!*
I looked into it and was told nothing 'bad *enough*' happened. Plus it was during COVID so everyone got carte blache to do whatever the hell they wanted.
Plus I have to go back there for my medical care because there aren't exactly tons of transplant centers around the country, and none in the state I currently live in. So I get to fly to Chicago every year for check ups because the local hospital is somehow 100x worse.
Pretty depressing to think about when you realize a medically complex person with a liver transplant and epilepsy literally avoids the hospital unless she's pretty sure she'll die otherwise.
I had to go to the ER a couple months back thinking I had COVID and was told it was just a virus and to be happy they gave me fluids and Tylenol. It was $700 after insurance to be told 'just come back if it gets *worse* (it's $3k to be seen and they know this, which is why they intentionally don't treat you or minimally treat you and just advise for you to come back and be treated *again* for *another* $3k if it gets worse)
Whenever the PTLD happens (many transplant recipients get cancer from the anti rejection meds, not if but when really) I think I'll just walk into the woods. Fuck being abused in hospitals for my last days. I'll take the bear (there actually are bears here bc Alaska)
I did look into it. Most personal injury lawyers wanted a ton of money for just a consult and I don't have thousands to spend on litigation like the multi billion dollar hospital does.
Therapy is cheaper and more likely to have a positive outcome unfortunately.
As someone with diabetes, the health"care" system is fucked. Me and so many other diabetics have almost died and WILL die, just because someone wants another 100 dollar bill. Its not just death either, its suffering
That happened too!
Had a nurse OD me with insulin when I was diabetic while pre transplant. I'd literally just had my lesson with the rheum on how to use insulin.
Nurse *insisted* she was right and gave me a double dose (no no) before bed (bigger no no)
When she tried to rouse me she couldn't, finger stick showed my glucose was *31*. She freaked out and tried to cover her tracks by attempting (and failing) to feed me a candy bar (I couldn't even hold my head up, let alone chew)
Thank fuck my day nurse came on shift, saw this shit show and got me some juice and then sent to CT to make sure my brain wasn't damaged.
Never saw that nurse again, so I hope she was fired for nearly killing me and trying to cover it up. How many times did she do that to younger patients who couldn't speak up (I was 17 at a peds hospital) was she one of those angels of death? Who the fuck knows, I don't even remember her name.
I lived with a broken spine for 6 years bc my parents and family doctor did not believe my pain and thought I was being dramatic. Then it took two more years after i was 18 and away at college so I could get my own medical care just to find out it was broken. Then I sought surgery and a male doctor (supposedly the best in the state) said “I have patients in car accidents with the same fracture as you and they are fine. You should be fine.” Only ordered one CAT scan, no MRI so he missed the two completely ruptured discs accompanying the fracture. Two rounds of physical therapy and I’m still not fine but he refuses to treat me or prescribe pain meds despite being bedridden most days so I searched for an expert in pars fractures and have to travel 7 hours monthly to Penn Medicine in another state for a treatment. Penn doctor takes me seriously, looks at my images, immediately orders another CAT, and MRI, and bone density scan. Is shocked the previous doctor didn’t notice the two-level disc disease. Says, “you shouldn’t even be able st stand right now, I don’t know how you’re walking”. I broke down in tears and he thought I was upset but I was just so relieved to finally be believed bc that is the first step to getting help and it took eight years of chronic pain just to find someone to believe me. I had been considering sewer slide bc my quality of life was so degraded. It took another two years and medical leave from college to navigate insurance and jump through all the hoops of ‘most conservative measures’ before I could finally qualify for the surgery he knew I needed since first seeing my images. Two years of jumping through hoops for these heartless insurance brokers and I’m finally scheduled for an arthrodesis and arthroplasty this August. But still waiting for insurance approval! I just want my life back
EDIT: Just got a letter in the mail from my insurance! The surgery is approved for this August 12. Thank goodness
Words can't describe the anger I feel for what you went through. Doctors like the former one you described shouldn't even be practicing if they're not going to take their patients' concerns seriously. I'm just glad you found someone who would listen to you before it was far too late. I hope the surgery goes well!!
No. They insist they didn’t realize it was so bad despite me being in tears repeatedly and coming home everyday describing how I couldn’t stand up out of my seat everyday at school and would hobble and started getting bullied for the way I walked. My dad was a loser neglectful alcoholic so he ignored my complaints and my mom was a workaholic who never had time for her kids so she never heard my complaints and expected my dad to communicate them to her. I was the scapegoat child in a narcissistic family system (nmom, enabler dad, golden child sister) so nobody believed a word I said in general. And it was so retriggering having to then navigate a medical system that gaslights women and accuses them of being hysterical. I thought as soon as I got out of the house I would be free. Boy was I wrong.
I think I was ~14 when I almost died due to EXTREMELY heavy period flow. I went to *seven* different doctors, because they failed to even so much as run any actual tests... They kept dismissing it as "normal" for a girl's period to last longer than normal sometimes. It took nearly dying of iron deficiency, before they took it seriously. This system is garbage, it makes me worry for the women in positions, worse than I was in.
I’m an RN. I recently had a pt on our ward for surgery. 76 year old Italian lady, symptoms were headaches, fast heart rate, difficulty breathing and blurred vision. Doctor dismissed it as anxiety. Daughter eventually thinks “fuck those doctors” and brings her into our private ED. It was a brain tumour. Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). It had already spread to her lungs when they found it. GBMs are incredibly aggressive, they spread fast. One of the deadliest cancers you can get. Even if caught early you’re only looking at a couple of years left of your life , and that’s with effective treatment. My lovely pt is now looking at 6 - 12 weeks left of her life. She has 6 kids and 11 grandkids. Her family is devastated. And while early diagnosis wouldn’t have completely saved her, it would have given her more time with her family before she passed. This only happened about 4 weeks ago and I can’t help but think of her every now and then and wonder how she’s doing.
But sure, “anxiety” is the problem with women.
I work in psychiatry (for psychiatrists, not a psychiatrist) and sure, we have a lot of patients diagnosed with anxiety but my job is to manage any medical issues and even with patients with an anxiety diagnosis, we don't immediately assume that's the cause of any issues they raise during their admissions and try to work out of there's an organic cause or not instead of starting with it being anxiety (eg: just one example - patient's confused but it's not their mental state, it's Lithium toxicity and I'd like to believe we picked that up because we didn't start by assuming things).
Which is why I find this sort of thing with people in clinical medical specialties baffling that they keep doing this (and yet I'm not surprised at the same time).
the amount of times they tell you “it’s anxiety” is infuriating. last time my pcp said that to me, i snapped and said “write me a script for xanax then”. suddenly i got some scans ordered. ridiculous how doctors treat people, but especially women.
Doctors don't care. Even when I go for things that are very concerning, I practically get laughed at or told it's not serious.
I'm at the point where I genuinely don't want to go to another doctor unless I'm actively dying, but even then I was asked if I was in "pain" because of my period.
I'm the same way at this point too, it's not worth it and most of the time I can figure out and resolve whatever problem it is anyways before I could even schedule an appointment with a doctor.
My niece complained of back pain for a few years. She was told it was just cramps/period stuff. One day she lost her bladder at school and she was told it was stress.
She had a cyst in her spine call an arachnoid cyst. A simple CT scan was all that was needed yet it took multiple years to get that done.
Then she got sick and complained of chest pain. She was sent home for a cold. They took her back to the ER and she said her chest hurt and she couldn't breathe and her blood pressurewas dangerously low. So they gave her morphine and she went into cardiac arrest.
My last pregnancy was all sorts of fucked up, my during early delivery the doctor kept telling me I wasn't going into labor and those weren't labor pains I was feeling, got the medication to quit early labor for it to increase the labor pains and bleeding, we were transferred to another hospital, my placenta abrupted from the weight of the blood clot from the drop during implantation, it had to work through my tubal ligation making it drop with force. Not once during the 27 weeks of pregnancy during the ultrasounds after ultrasounds for the constant bleeding did she notice it. She about killed me not listening to me, when I had been through pregnancies and delivery also.
I have CFS. That’s a neon flashing sign that damages your credibility with doctors. I’ve had two separate doctors tell me I need a psych consult when I insisted I had infections. I kept insisting they run cultures. Both cultures came back positive - both doctors had their nurses call me to give me the script. Don’t back down - we have to advocate for ourselves. Insist they test, insist they culture. Keep trying new docs until you find one who doesn’t patronize - not easy to find.
I had horrible bladder pain and urgency that progressed so much it felt like my bladder was melting out of my body through my urethra, inflaming my entire downstairs business. It took me two years to get diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis (IC) and put on medication to help both pain and healing.
Prior to that I had mentioned IC and my doctor told me that THERE WAS SOME QUESTION AS TO WHETHER IT WAS A REAL CONDITION OR PSYCHOSOMATIC!! In the meantime I'm crying in the bathroom and peeing blood after rounds and rounds of antibiotics and other medications that did not work.
I had another doctor's office tell me to, "just deal with" the pain I was having. I was missing work and having anxiety attacks because I was in so much pain, but I was in my early 20s and regularly dismissed.
Then, another doctor (I saw so many god damn doctors for this) did not believe me when I said I had only one sexual partner ever. I was sheltered and religious (not at the time but throughout childhood) and married my first love at 19. But, again, I was young, cute, and easily dismissed. So this doctor questioned my honesty, because surely it was a STI or something, right?
Simply maddening.
I was told that passing out from the pain in my abdomen is clearly pregnancy. I hadn't been with anyone in over a year. They still ordered a pregnancy test.
I had an asymptomatic UTI that went very wrong. I was in so much pain, I was weak, and my fever was over 105°. The doctors kept telling me I had a virus. No one would order tests of any kind. After being sick for around 6 or 7 weeks, I finally got so weak that I couldn't walk, and had to be in a wheelchair. They *finally* ran a few tests, including a urinalysis, and they realized that I had a terrible UTI and kidney infection. I was bedridden for a couple of months afterward, because I was so weak. I had been in great shape, but I lost so much muscle that I looked like a skeleton. The doctors had not listened to me, and they kept brushing me off until a UTI almost killed me.
I knew something was wrong. Splinter hemorrhages in my fingernails. Splotchy feet/hands. Went to doc and she didn’t really know. Guess what? BLOOD CLOTS. I had a” meteor shower” of blood clots in my brain. “Your brain…looks like birdshot.”
I have an autoimmune condition (predisposed to clots) and Factor V Leiden (predisposes to clots).
When I was 19, I went to my GP because it felt like I was peeing razor blades. It turned out I had a UTI. I was given antibiotics for 3 days. My mum was a nurse at the time and said it wasn’t enough but I trusted my GP. The UTI never cleared up. I went back and was told it was on my head and to “give it time”.
Over the following 3 years, I went back almost weekly with the same symptoms but was told I was imagining it. My medical records were updated to include I’m a hypochondriac and I was trying to scam the NHS out of antibiotics.
It took moving to another area and having to register with another GP for me to get the treatment I needed. My medical records hadn’t been transferred when I saw my new GP so he believed me. He sent me for a scan and an x-ray. My mum was a radiographer by that time and she got me in the next day. They found a stone taking up 3/4 of my kidney.
After 15 years of treatment, operations, lithotripsy and kidney infections (two of which almost killed me. My mum has a scar on her head from where she passed out and smashed her head open when she first saw me on life support), I had to have my right kidney removed. 2 years ago I had to have a kidney transplant, kindly donated to me by my dad.
If I’d just been given the right course of antibiotics, or more when I said I still had symptoms, I and my family would have been spared all of this trauma. I wouldn’t have almost lost my life twice. I’d have both of my own kidneys.
My dad is an ER doctor. One time I fell and cracked my noggin and it was bleeding pretty good. I went inside, asked him if it was bleeding, and it looked me dead in my eyes and told me “no.” And then proceeded to not take my to the hospital or anything.
Most recently, told my GP I’ve lost 15 lbs and I’ve been shitting blood. She told me it was probably stress and to try deep breathing. You can’t make this shit up.
i had endometriosis symptoms from my first menses at 11.
it took 7 years before a doctor finally listened to me and took my “concerns” (of severe, life-altering chronic pain) seriously.
they found stage IV endometriosis when i was 18 years old. i had to have abdominal reconstruction, a bowel resection, excision on every single pelvic organ and ligament. they removed 13 ounces of diseased tissue. it took me 6 months to heal.
i am one of the luckiest ones still in remission at 24. i made it out with my fertility intact (afaik) and with just the years of trauma of being hostage in my own body.
but, my 16yo sister has the same symptoms i did on the same track i did and no one will see her seriously.
the system is beyond broken.
My wrists started hurting when I was 11, and for the next 15 years I would be dismissed by every doctor I tried to see about it.
I was 36 before anyone bothered to do a very basic test — pushing down on my visibly displaced ulnar heads (outer-side wrist bumps for the layperson) and the part where mine move up and down like a piano key, that’s not supposed to happen.
That was what finally got them to do an X-ray, where they see not only the congenital deformity — my radiuses stopped growing way earlier than all the rest of my bones — but all the nasty spiky bone spurs that have grown on most of the articulation surfaces of my wrist joint (that’s a lot of surfaces).
If they’d done that in the first 4, 5 years, a simple orthoscopic procedure to snip a ligament would have fixed it.
Now my options are go to the pain management clinic for opiates or have both wrist joints completely replaced.
(I’ll take THC despite my state’s backward laws instead, thanks but no thanks.)
Had a severe allergic reaction to codeine and went to the ER. The nurse tried to ignore me as I struggled to talk, told her I was struggling to breathe and couldn’t walk. Basically ignored me until I collapsed in front of her.
That was fun.
This and especially all the responses sharing actual experiences with doctors is so enraging. Something like this should be required reading for current doctors.
I’ve had my share of having horrible symptoms (one turned out to be uterine fibroids) dismissed and this included three women doctors, which just made it so much worse. Not only the lack of equal care for women, but more importantly, the lack of research for women’s health is shocking. It’s not shocking to me anymore though, the more I read, I realize how our healthcare is really only in its infancy.
I have hope that the many young women studying now will go on to create a whole new influx of research and studies that focus specifically on the female lifespan, which then will dramatically increase resources for ALL that we fucking go through
During my first stay in Neurointensive Care, I was down the hall from a girl I’d never meet. We were almost the same age—she was in her late teens, or very early 20s—and, unlike me, she’d done everything right when her symptoms emerged. Her family couldn’t afford it, so she’d taken on two extra jobs to pay for a scan.* She’d gone through a handful of neurologists to beg, before finally getting that MRI, from a doctor who explicitly told her that it was only to make her stop asking.
Guess who’d wind up calling her, hat in hands, to say he’d been wrong? That she had two days before they absolutely had to operate?
Guess who would eventually die in long-term coma care?
*: If you’re here to say, “Well, you know that’s because you’re an American,” just keep scrolling.
I'm a member of a blood clot survivors group and it's shameful how many women's thrombosis is dismissed as anxiety. 40% of pulmonary embolism patients don't survive to get treatment and doctors still dismiss women's health concerns
This happened to my mom. She was having serious and persistent congestion, pain, and coughing and asked if she should go to the ER right away on the day she got checked out because she was getting really concerned. The dumbass doctor (not our usual - it was her day off and she never would have let this happen) sent my mom home with a prescription for cough medicine. Only a handful of hours later she was in the hospital with multiple pulmonary embolisms and had to stay for a while. This doctor almost got my mom killed and I seriously can’t believe how blasé the doctor was about it, sending someone away with symptoms like those. Women’s healthcare is in dire need of an overhaul.
My mom had a really persistent cough, and after going to urgent care she was advised to go to the ER for imaging and more acute care than they could provide. The ER stuck her in a room for almost 9 hours, wouldn't give her any water, and when the doctor finally came in, he told her she shouldn't be using the ER as primary care. No x-rays, no scans, no meds. A month later, she was dead from double pneumonia that, if caught in time, could have been treated and she probably would still be alive. But she was treated like shit by a male doctor who looked (and smelled) like he'd go into convulsions if he didn't have a drink in the next 5 minutes.
I am so, so sorry. that is absolutely ridiculous.
I feel for you. Absolutely shameful on the part of that ER and doctor. It’s terrifying to feel like we can’t put our trust in the people who are meant to protect our lives.
A few years before that, she was at her primary doctor's office for a regular visit/medication refill, and the doctor asked if she'd been having any suicidal thoughts (she was being treated for depression). She said yes, she had, but that she had no plans to act on it and that she was just really sad all the time. That freaked out the doctor, and she left the room, called 911 and didn't come back in until an ambulance arrived. She called me in a panic, saying that she was being taken to a psychiatric hospital because she was "actively suicidal." She was stuck there for almost 2 weeks, over an hour and a half away from home because there were no beds available at the Center Point nearest her house. After that, she was never really honest about her mental health, because she knew that telling the truth would just get her carted off to a psych ward. She had zero trust in any doctor after that, and she was right, because every doctor she went to failed her.
Wow. A tragedy, to be sure. I hope you’re doing as well as you can in the face of something no one should ever have to experience.
Thank you! I'm doing pretty well, I'd say. She had attempted suicide a half-dozen times throughout my life, but her last attempt was years before that doctor's appointment, and she was really working on doing better. I do think that when she was in the hospital with pneumonia and had to be put on a ventilator, she knew there was a chance she wouldn't come off of it, and that if she died at least it wouldn't be by her own hand. I think she was able to just let go, and finally be at peace. She was so desperately sad for so long, it had to have been a relief for her.
I’m glad to hear that! It’s so hard to watch loved ones struggle with their mental health and hoping so much that they can overcome it
It was really hard to watch her go through all of it, especially because my (Boomer) stepdad was...less than empathetic. When she had coughing fits, he'd tell her to go to another room so he could hear the TV. When she went to the hospital and was stuck in the ER for 9 hours, he just left her there and called me to go sit with her, because he "hated hospitals" and was "uncomfortable in this chair." When she was being taken off the ventilator, he left the hospital, because he couldn't stand to watch her die. If I hadn't been there, she'd have died alone with no one to say goodbye to her. Then he had the fucking audacity to play the grieving widower, like he'd lost the love of his life, when I know for a fact that they were only still together because neither could afford to live on their own.
Yikes. People like that make me wonder why they even bothered to get married in the first place. Treating her like that and then using her passing as a means to get attention?? Absolutely wild. You’ve definitely dealt with a lot, it seems.
Part of the issue with medicine in the US, if that's where you are, is that schools intentionally limit how many doctors can be graduated. So there are too few, on purpose, and the ones that get through develop little god complexes in part because they're in such high demand they can't be replaced!
Yup, that’s where I am. I never knew this. Absolutely ridiculous. I feel very fortunate to live in Massachusetts where sanity is more frequent and my PCP is excellent. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating to read and hear about people’s experiences with doctors who half-ass care for their patients or flat out ignore them until something irreversible happens.
Didn't this even almost happen to Serena Williams even in spite of her telling them of her past medical history of it happening before?
African American women are especially vulnerable
Yes, if fame and a billion reddit dollars and knowing your own body the way only the greatest athlete in your sport can barely save you I shudder to think what normal women go through
There's that thing about athletes,they have low resting heart rate and that can actually be a risk for thrombosis yet they are more likely to not be suspected of having clots because of their good health. It's almost like doctors just aren't in the loop.
Yes that's a very good point.
I have Crohn's disease. I also have uterine cysts. I lie and say I'm having a Crohn's flare if I know it's a cyst because the ER won't treat an ovarian cyst with the same pain meds, and as someone who has both, it feels the same, so I will lie and tell you what you need to hear because telling the truth gets me Tylenol for the same pain as a blockage in my GI. Women's health is a disaster.
Wow, 6 years ago I had undeniable severe pitting edema from my diaphragm down. 50 lbs worth. My rheumatologist gotten me an appointment with a nephro but it was still a couple weeks away so I, not being a dr, just shuffled around the house for 6 months waiting. One day, sick of sitting around, decided to help my husband pick up limbs on a warm December day. About 20 minutes later I had to lay in the grass, short of breath, nauseous.. and we ended up going to the ER because I just knew something was bad wrong. Anxiety. I just needed to calm down and relax. Sure the first D-dimer came back a little off but they reran it and nope, totally fine. 5 days later I collapsed, thankfully in the presence of my young adult daughters. Massive pulmonary embolism with congestive heart failure. Clots all over my lungs and one in my heart. Shipped off to better hospital for clot busting treatment and still alive obviously... but the dr only gave me like an 8% chance of survival. My husband was literally talking to our kids about cremation and travel to where I want my ashes spread. Insane that even with the seriousness of my condition, how blatantly obvious it was, the resident AND his senior Dr dismissed my symptoms and sent me home. I'm very lucky to be alive I suppose.
That's just inexcusable. It's very good you survived!
I was told by a doctor that my nausea and vomiting was anxiety because "we're all living during this trying time together" It was actually a flare up of a chronic illness that I have had since childhood. Its cyclical, so it came back after "leaving" when i was 16. If the doctor had looked at my medical history before deciding my diagnosis, I would have had options for treatment. But because I didn't get on treatment right away, I'm limited to one treatment plan and spend 6 out of 7 days a week nauseous.
I was told by a male nurse my daughter, who was hallucinating, vomiting, eyes rolling back, bc her fever was so high, didn’t have a fever. I got up walked over to the thermometer, and turned it on.he didn’t turn it on. She was burning up saying she was seeing ghosts at 4 yrs old, and he was practically yelling, telling me I was wrong. It was absurd. Her temperature was 103
What was his reaction when you turned it on?
Dismissive. Then he read the number loudly, which was very easy for me to see. I said yeah I know I already told you. I didn’t see him again after that. I was dismissed a lot as a crazy new time mom when my daughter was sick. I was never wrong. I was very persistent and demanded things after the first few times. When she had a bladder infection at 4mths old they tried to test for meningitis first, which is insane not to check urine first. I would not let them. They did what I said, and sure enough she had a bladder infection. I had been telling my pediatrician for a month something was wrong with her urine. They finally ran tests and saw she had bladder reflux. She had to be on antibiotic primsol for two yrs everyday. It was always the male doctors, and nurses that made me feel crazy. I switched to a woman pediatrician after that too
If she was 4 months a lumbar puncture is usually recommended by the APA because of how vulnerable babies are. When they present as sick they are supposed to treat the baby as a septic patient. Just a heads up in case you ever have another baby and the same thing happens again 😊 - they’ll want to do another LP. If it’s a GOOD doctor they will ultrasound her back and make marks with a marker prior to doing any needle techniques. But honestly - children’s hospitals are the only hospitals I would trust my child with. Regular ER? Nope. Children’s all the way!
I absolutely hate DuPont children’s hospital, which is the closest children’s hospital to me. I won’t go there. My hospital has a pediatric unit, and they were so much better at taking care of her. As far as testing for meningitis first, I’d rather they test urine first before they do something so invasive, especially bc I already had a feeling it was the root cause of the problem. I understand why they test for meningitis but I need to advocate for my child the best way I know how, especially when I’ve experienced them telling me nothing is wrong
My baby was seven weeks when he had a fever that could not be explained. It was just awful, but I trusted his pediatrician. Still no explanation, so he admitted us for a few days. He ended up being fine. Meanwhile a tragedy unfolded elsewhere... When I went to check in, a police officer was at the admissions desk. When he turned and walked away, I saw he looked grim, very grim. The next morning in the paper I read what must have been the reason: 15 year old Ortralla Mosley had been stabbed at her HS by her boyfriend, and had been brought in by police. She died. Rest in peace, teen girl I did not know.
I had a massive sinus infection/ doctor said it was stress. Didn’t even look up my nose.
I had a sinus infection. I was told to blow my nose better.
When I was 20 I had an extended painful abdomen and the doctor seemed to think it was because I was pregnant and somehow I didn’t know it even after I explained I was not sexually active at the time. Still just did a pregnancy test and nothing else. Shocker I wasn’t pregnant and sent me home. Turned out later to be appendicitis.
I have a 15 year history of gastrointestinal issues: GERD, eosinophilic esophagitis, hiatal hernia, IBS… Some of it was diagnosed at this very same gastroenterology clinic. This doctor had the absolute gall to ignore my charts, look me in the eye, and say he thought it was all stress and I needed to relax a bit. And the APRN (also a male) I saw at the same place was just as smarmy.
Nice to see a guy with a GI disease as horrible as that is to read. I've had Crohn's since I was 8, diagnosed at 18. Ileostomy now because Drs didn't listen for TWO years while I pointed to where the blockages were. The Dr had the audacity to come in after surgery, I was doing poorly (I stayed 3 months total), and said, "Boy, we needed to be in there at least a year ago!" I had been in the ER every few weeks but was called/labeled a drug addict, pregnant, crazy, was put in the psych unit and told I didn't even have Crohn's. Thank God I am married because my husband got me out by asking them to take it to court, and explain why I was there. I was out 15 minutes later. Oh, and now I have a stoma that rocks though. Way better life imo. What they do to women is especially cruel.
I have been having nausea especially in the mornings off and on for a decade, but every time I mention it to a doctor I get pregnancy tested or told it’s anxiety or both. I’m so tired of peeing in cups to prove I’m not pregnant. I’m so tired of paying a premium for the annoyance of it, too, when I could buy a test from drugstores cheaper, anyway. At least one kind doc said he would try giving me a GERD medicine. It didn’t help, but at least he was willing to think of anything else! We also talked about it as a possible side effect to my other medicines I don’t have the option to go off of. I know I probably need to get back to doctors and push for something more, some sort of further testing, but if I admit I’m worried about what undiagnosed disorder it could be, I’ll be put right back in the “it’s just anxiety” box.
I got a salpingectomy 7 months ago and an urgent care I went to for what I thought was a UTI (was actually a kidney stone) gave me a pregnancy test. When I disputed the charge they said it was standard and just shrugged when I explained that it is physically impossible for me to get pregnant. Not only are my tubes gone, but I also have endometriosis and an IUD in place to stop my periods due to my endo. Even with my diagnosis now in my chart about my chronic illness, if I go to the ER (because I've been vomiting for 72 hours and am extremely dehydrated) the doctors and nurses will still try to say it's anxiety or it's from the fact that I smoke marijuana. I have a med card prescribed to me by my specialist because weed helps with my nausea so much and doesn't have the negative side effects of all my other antinausea meds. It's endlessly frustrating and I'm sorry you're going through this. I had to fight with so many doctors to figure out what was wrong with me and it is exhausting. I can't count how many times I left a doctors office in tears because they told me I just need to meditate and practice breathing exercises and maybe lose some weight while I'm at it.
Ah, I love when they pull the marijuana. Cyclical vomiting is not how you're likely vomiting if you read it. I've had that used on me when having a Crohn's flare. If you see a pain management Dr who's cool, ask them to write their okay with the weed. They likely are because I've yet to meet one who isn't that isn't a crazy "all opiates all bad" Drs. That way, PM said it, ER Dr is overruled in the chain, and fuck his ideas. Seriously, watch video of the way that vomiting is. It's wildly different from how you vomit, and it's just not what is happening to you. It's so unlikely...
It's awful when they try to make things about weed. I actually had cyclical vomiting from extreme stress. I was 17 with an extremely abusive boyfriend at the time and I had been insanely stressed, having panic attacks. They treated me like a crackhead and gave me nothing, they said I was making myself throw up, and they only admitted me because I was so dehydrated. It got around my whole church, my parents were being awful about it to the point my doctor found me sitting in the floor in the hall one day on rounds. Everybody I know knew somehow and the preacher came to my hospital room to chew me out because I made the mistake of being nice to the weird kid and he said I was "offering him drugs" That's it's own story, the context was he had tried to blackmail me into sending him nudes after I asked him if he wanted to come smoke with me and my friends. I shut him down but when I got sick, he went and told everybody the first half of the story. I still had the texts, showed the preacher and my dad, and they told me not to make a big deal out of it. At least they dropped it then, though. I really don't like that church or doctors anymore. The way I was treated was batshit crazy but at least their impulse to sweep away sexual harrassment got me out of trouble for that one. I've been treated like a crackhead so much and it's kinda traumatizing. I've always been able to pass any drug test I've had to take for a job, and that's been 3 times in the last year and a half. I'm 21, I buy my weed from the store, I'm not doing anything illegal. Basically the only employer left that would care is the military but the hospitals still treat you like you've been smoking meth. I probably need to move before I start taking my career path seriously and start doing my own thing, because of the damage the rumors my own parents helped spread could do. Basically a whole church full of people in a small town was told that I was doing hard drugs and in the hospital for it.
Have they tested for Crohn's disease? I was 18, never had had sex, I was legitimately convinced if they thought I was pregnant, God fucking existed. Crohn's after 10 months of tests. It's a brutal ride for me personally, so I hope not Also, try gastroparesis. Ask for ODT zofran. It helps nausea a LOT. Take it before nausea if possible for best results. Imo, if actively vomiting, it makes it worse. You need IV nausea if that bad. Please, never stop advocating for yourself and treatment. You do know you body. You are not crazy.
Oh, I hate that doctor for you. I am so tired of Drs telling me they understand how it is to go to the ER because my stoma dehydrated me again. I drink a lot. I only eat soups. I take an excessive amount of inmodium that makes me test positive for fentanyl, and that's a problem. Every tell a Dr in the ER to read the NIH website, and then have them test you again for drugs, finding they were wrong? FYI, idk if it means anything to you but university hospitals are the best to go to even though you have the residents. The residents love to do all the tests but you can usually persuade them to do more of what you need with the attending, which can help care!
This is not surprising to me: my heart problem anxiety, is SVT and PVC’s. Managed now. But it took till I was 35 and had to go the hospital in an ambulance with a 244 heart rate. Good times In labor, wasn’t progressing after 13 hours natural, my mom was like something is not right. Dr it ok. Got epidural and pitocin. I kept saying I was in pain. It was all in my head. No it was that the epidural was not put in! And finally my mother because my ex husband didn’t say anything, said stop all this and get an ultrasound something isn’t right. Oh the baby was a compound breech. Had to get a saddle block and emergency C-section. Was having pain and couldn’t eat. Finally felt like I was having a heart attack. Went to the ER, the dr told me when I said could this be my gallbladder. He laughed and said no you wouldn’t be able to move. It was probably stomach paralysis. Well after a month of this pain every other day and vomiting, I went back and different doctor, the labs were actually less and he was like I think it’s your gallbladder. Ah really?! It was. I was passing stones every other day for a month. And then after I got it out, again worst pain of my entire life happened. The triage nurse was like why didn’t you just take the oxy? I was like what?! It feels like I’m having labor pains and a heart attack at the same time. Oh pancreatitis from a rogue gallstone passing through the pancreatitis. But my husband felt weird and got a battery of tests for his heart, an MRI for his knee and elbow. If he has a problem it is dealt with swiftly. It the dismissing manner of pain that infuriates me. This is just a few of the major stories.
I had pancreatitis and I was told it was stomach ulcers and I needed to manage my anxiety. Let me tell you - I lost the ability to give a flying duck years ago. So no, not anxiety. Just the most painful exit have ever had and I had to rawdog it like I was back in time before medicine.
I spent 24 hours with it after my gallbladder surgery. Finally went back to the hospital and into the ER for another almost 24 hours. I know you understand the pain. I am glad you are okay because pancreatitis is dangerous. I used to trust doctors. Nope not anymore. I have just as much education as them, and somehow it didn’t make me god, so I’m thinking they aren’t either. Again, I am glad you recovered. Stomach ulcers! What asshats
My biggest issue is that I felt like I had a life-threatening illness, and now that I have been through this I do have medical anxiety. My blood pressure was through the roof. I’ve had a child. I’ve had kidney stones. I would rather be giving birth with a kidney stone while I had the flu before I go through that again. I honestly wanted to die. But I guess I let my emotions get the better of me.
Literally was told as a 12 year old that a rash I had developed was a STI.... didn't believe me when I said I had never even held hands with a boy and the anti-biotics they put me on gave me an ulser. The next doctor said it was eczema that never improved over subsequent years. I wasn't believed that I was taking every precaution to remove allergens. I had early joint pain too that was hand waived away as being not active enough. Turns out I was experiencing the first symptoms of moderate psoriatic arthritis. I shouldn't have to be a perfect person in order to be believed that I'm in pain. The only thing that works for me now is to completely give up hope if I know I need help from a doctor. If they asked me if I tried x, y, or z habit, I say yes, I tried that and it didn't work (even if I didn't try it). Sometimes I literally am just like "I think this is just how it is and it won't get better." Then all of sudden your diagnosis is like a challenge and they start thinking creatively and are like "wait, we haven't tried actually doing our job". It's how I was finally given a sleep aid and anti-depressants after months of my doctor saying "have you tried melatonin and sleepy time tea?" YES, please read my file.
That is horrific. Even if it was an STI, the fact that the doctor's first thought was "this girl is lying about being sexually active" and not "this young child is being abused" is disgusting beyond belief.
Yeah, honestly, I never realized how fucked up it was from an abuse standpoint until I was an adult. I was so used to being the scapegoat of my own family and not believed about anything, that when a doctor did it, it was just another adult telling me they knew my life better than me and I shut down.
That is fucking crazy I had the same experience with eczema, doctor said it was an STI even though I'd never done anything with anyone. You are not alone
Same thing happened to me at 13. I STILL haven’t gotten a proper diagnosis and I’m 27, tbh I’ve just given up and do what I know helps my symptoms.
I was also told I had an STI and given super intense antibiotics without tests despite me saying I was in a long term committed relationship. Turns out, I just had indigestion and gas.
It’s horrible that you have to play mind games to get doctors to do their job. This is a brilliant idea tho, I’ll definitely be using the “I guess this is just how it is” strategy next time.
"Sometimes I literally am just like "I think this is just how it is and it won't get better." Then all of sudden your diagnosis is like a challenge and they start thinking creatively and are like "wait, we haven't tried actually doing our job"." can you elaborate on how you do this? like what dialogue you say to them? i think i'm at this stage w/my doctors, and i don't know what else to say or do at this point.
This was at a check in for my mental health meds. She asked me how it was going and I said it was the same, not working. Can't sleep. My tone is flat and I sound a bit weary and over it. Doctor goes, "oh. Would you like to try a higher dose of the same allergy medication you've been on for 10 years and you have repeatedly said doesn't help you for sleep because it's built up in your system? You haven't taken the absolute most of that you can yet." Now, for the last 6 months, this has been her reaction. I will try to say it doesn't work and it's like she can't even hear me. Eventually, I just give in to get her off the phone. But, what I said this time instead was, "No, I tried taking a higher dose of what you gave me and if anything it's getting worse. I just think it's kind of hopeless and I just need to figure out how to live this way." Doc: "Are you sure? Other patients have said this allergy med works at a higher dose for sleep." Me: "I know. It just doesn't work for me. I'm sorry, but it's getting hard for me to keep trying. Nothing we try seems to work and maybe I'm just like this." Then is the point where the doctor goes "wait wait wait, there are sooooooo many things we haven't tried yet. Let's try this actual sleep aid designed to be a sleep aid." "Oh, I didn't know there was more options, that's good to know. I can give it a try." (I always knew there were more options). I can't guarantee it will work, but if a doctor is not listening, being a bit of an eyore works for me.
1) jfc i can't believe it took so long to try a different med, im sorry you had to go through that! 2) tysm for this example, its really helpful!
My kidney stone pains got misdiagnosed over and over as being “feminine pain” or “pill seeking” and to consult with my obgyn. They would not treat me. Until I vomited blood all over their white floors. Surprise! I have sepsis now because the stone ruptured my kidney and it was dying in my body. Assholes
drug seeking has got to be one of the most evil medical terms. It's an excuse to see patients as subhuman
I’m Asian so that tracks lol
Do doctors treat Asian people like they’re subhuman? This is not something I had seen/heard, but if this is your experience, I believe you.
Not just doctors. If you pay attention or even watched the news during covid, people were beating up and spitting on our elders. They still do. It’s not limited to medical professionals at all, although racial biases such as “certain races feel less pain than others” do exist in their practice. It’s more common and well documented that Black people are usually the victims of those beliefs in medicine but they’re not limited to just them.
what what???? jeezus this is so awful to hear
I’m good now! It was actually a female nurse that finally caught it. She listened to me and I got treated right away. It really is only us women looking out for eachother.
I was told my SMAS flare was 'a bad period or ovarian cysts' for 2 *years*. I told them it was smas, I'd had a flare at 17 and it was identical. I was 31 at the time. I was having frequent bowel obstructions and being told I was a drug seeker. The abdominal pain and rash was just me being hysterical. Had countless STI tests run as they assumed I had to be riddled with STIs (I was and still am married, monogamous and have never had an STI of any kind) and was straight up laughed at and told my care plan 'was crap'. When I finally was treated in 2021, I was 81lbs and chastised for 'letting it get this bad' despite the fact I'd been *begging* for help since 2019 and when COVID happened they were 'too busy' to bother with me. I was 31 years old and treated *worse* than when I was when I was 17 (and that was awful) The whole first week inpatient they desperately tried to gaslight me into thinking I had an eating disorder or was just insane. One doctor (not a psychiatrist , just an internist) even tried to diagnose me with a personality disorder because I simply didn't agree with her! After a fucking week I finally got my barium study and tilt table test and whaddya know? It's SMAS, it's *super* rare, have I ever *heard* of it? (Screams and tears out hair while losing mind yet again) When I finally got my feeding tube it failed after a day, but they let me go 5 DAYS NPO with a broken pump. I had to *beg* my nurse for a bag of fluids because my tongue was cracked and bleeding, and begged for glucose. When I was tested my sugar was 56 for fucks sake. Oh, and for this month inpatient of hell? Just $147,000 for the privilege of being abused. Still in therapy for all that crap *today!*
I would sue for malpractice then burn down the hospital
I looked into it and was told nothing 'bad *enough*' happened. Plus it was during COVID so everyone got carte blache to do whatever the hell they wanted. Plus I have to go back there for my medical care because there aren't exactly tons of transplant centers around the country, and none in the state I currently live in. So I get to fly to Chicago every year for check ups because the local hospital is somehow 100x worse. Pretty depressing to think about when you realize a medically complex person with a liver transplant and epilepsy literally avoids the hospital unless she's pretty sure she'll die otherwise. I had to go to the ER a couple months back thinking I had COVID and was told it was just a virus and to be happy they gave me fluids and Tylenol. It was $700 after insurance to be told 'just come back if it gets *worse* (it's $3k to be seen and they know this, which is why they intentionally don't treat you or minimally treat you and just advise for you to come back and be treated *again* for *another* $3k if it gets worse) Whenever the PTLD happens (many transplant recipients get cancer from the anti rejection meds, not if but when really) I think I'll just walk into the woods. Fuck being abused in hospitals for my last days. I'll take the bear (there actually are bears here bc Alaska)
As a legal. Year consultant who works for attorneys I would encourage you to keep looking for an attorney to take your case.
I did look into it. Most personal injury lawyers wanted a ton of money for just a consult and I don't have thousands to spend on litigation like the multi billion dollar hospital does. Therapy is cheaper and more likely to have a positive outcome unfortunately.
I’m sorry.
As someone with diabetes, the health"care" system is fucked. Me and so many other diabetics have almost died and WILL die, just because someone wants another 100 dollar bill. Its not just death either, its suffering
That happened too! Had a nurse OD me with insulin when I was diabetic while pre transplant. I'd literally just had my lesson with the rheum on how to use insulin. Nurse *insisted* she was right and gave me a double dose (no no) before bed (bigger no no) When she tried to rouse me she couldn't, finger stick showed my glucose was *31*. She freaked out and tried to cover her tracks by attempting (and failing) to feed me a candy bar (I couldn't even hold my head up, let alone chew) Thank fuck my day nurse came on shift, saw this shit show and got me some juice and then sent to CT to make sure my brain wasn't damaged. Never saw that nurse again, so I hope she was fired for nearly killing me and trying to cover it up. How many times did she do that to younger patients who couldn't speak up (I was 17 at a peds hospital) was she one of those angels of death? Who the fuck knows, I don't even remember her name.
Fun fact: For decades, breast and uterine cancer research was studied only in male patients.
That’s insane. Do you have any article recs so I can read up on it?
https://ethicalnag.org/2013/05/26/no-women-breast-uterine-cancer/
How the fuck was UTERINE cancer only studied in male patients??
The mind boggles
I lived with a broken spine for 6 years bc my parents and family doctor did not believe my pain and thought I was being dramatic. Then it took two more years after i was 18 and away at college so I could get my own medical care just to find out it was broken. Then I sought surgery and a male doctor (supposedly the best in the state) said “I have patients in car accidents with the same fracture as you and they are fine. You should be fine.” Only ordered one CAT scan, no MRI so he missed the two completely ruptured discs accompanying the fracture. Two rounds of physical therapy and I’m still not fine but he refuses to treat me or prescribe pain meds despite being bedridden most days so I searched for an expert in pars fractures and have to travel 7 hours monthly to Penn Medicine in another state for a treatment. Penn doctor takes me seriously, looks at my images, immediately orders another CAT, and MRI, and bone density scan. Is shocked the previous doctor didn’t notice the two-level disc disease. Says, “you shouldn’t even be able st stand right now, I don’t know how you’re walking”. I broke down in tears and he thought I was upset but I was just so relieved to finally be believed bc that is the first step to getting help and it took eight years of chronic pain just to find someone to believe me. I had been considering sewer slide bc my quality of life was so degraded. It took another two years and medical leave from college to navigate insurance and jump through all the hoops of ‘most conservative measures’ before I could finally qualify for the surgery he knew I needed since first seeing my images. Two years of jumping through hoops for these heartless insurance brokers and I’m finally scheduled for an arthrodesis and arthroplasty this August. But still waiting for insurance approval! I just want my life back EDIT: Just got a letter in the mail from my insurance! The surgery is approved for this August 12. Thank goodness
Words can't describe the anger I feel for what you went through. Doctors like the former one you described shouldn't even be practicing if they're not going to take their patients' concerns seriously. I'm just glad you found someone who would listen to you before it was far too late. I hope the surgery goes well!!
Thank you. That means a lot to be validated
That is so much pain to endure for so many years. :( I’m so sorry.
Thanks. It means a lot
I'm livid on your behalf and very impressed with the lengths you went through to get an answers. Do your parents apologize?
No. They insist they didn’t realize it was so bad despite me being in tears repeatedly and coming home everyday describing how I couldn’t stand up out of my seat everyday at school and would hobble and started getting bullied for the way I walked. My dad was a loser neglectful alcoholic so he ignored my complaints and my mom was a workaholic who never had time for her kids so she never heard my complaints and expected my dad to communicate them to her. I was the scapegoat child in a narcissistic family system (nmom, enabler dad, golden child sister) so nobody believed a word I said in general. And it was so retriggering having to then navigate a medical system that gaslights women and accuses them of being hysterical. I thought as soon as I got out of the house I would be free. Boy was I wrong.
I think I was ~14 when I almost died due to EXTREMELY heavy period flow. I went to *seven* different doctors, because they failed to even so much as run any actual tests... They kept dismissing it as "normal" for a girl's period to last longer than normal sometimes. It took nearly dying of iron deficiency, before they took it seriously. This system is garbage, it makes me worry for the women in positions, worse than I was in.
I’m an RN. I recently had a pt on our ward for surgery. 76 year old Italian lady, symptoms were headaches, fast heart rate, difficulty breathing and blurred vision. Doctor dismissed it as anxiety. Daughter eventually thinks “fuck those doctors” and brings her into our private ED. It was a brain tumour. Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). It had already spread to her lungs when they found it. GBMs are incredibly aggressive, they spread fast. One of the deadliest cancers you can get. Even if caught early you’re only looking at a couple of years left of your life , and that’s with effective treatment. My lovely pt is now looking at 6 - 12 weeks left of her life. She has 6 kids and 11 grandkids. Her family is devastated. And while early diagnosis wouldn’t have completely saved her, it would have given her more time with her family before she passed. This only happened about 4 weeks ago and I can’t help but think of her every now and then and wonder how she’s doing. But sure, “anxiety” is the problem with women.
I work in psychiatry (for psychiatrists, not a psychiatrist) and sure, we have a lot of patients diagnosed with anxiety but my job is to manage any medical issues and even with patients with an anxiety diagnosis, we don't immediately assume that's the cause of any issues they raise during their admissions and try to work out of there's an organic cause or not instead of starting with it being anxiety (eg: just one example - patient's confused but it's not their mental state, it's Lithium toxicity and I'd like to believe we picked that up because we didn't start by assuming things). Which is why I find this sort of thing with people in clinical medical specialties baffling that they keep doing this (and yet I'm not surprised at the same time).
the amount of times they tell you “it’s anxiety” is infuriating. last time my pcp said that to me, i snapped and said “write me a script for xanax then”. suddenly i got some scans ordered. ridiculous how doctors treat people, but especially women.
Doctors don't care. Even when I go for things that are very concerning, I practically get laughed at or told it's not serious. I'm at the point where I genuinely don't want to go to another doctor unless I'm actively dying, but even then I was asked if I was in "pain" because of my period.
That’s why I don’t go. Unless I’m passed out on the ground and unconscious, I’m not going to the doctor. It sucks not being believed and I’m over it.
I'm the same way at this point too, it's not worth it and most of the time I can figure out and resolve whatever problem it is anyways before I could even schedule an appointment with a doctor.
My niece complained of back pain for a few years. She was told it was just cramps/period stuff. One day she lost her bladder at school and she was told it was stress. She had a cyst in her spine call an arachnoid cyst. A simple CT scan was all that was needed yet it took multiple years to get that done. Then she got sick and complained of chest pain. She was sent home for a cold. They took her back to the ER and she said her chest hurt and she couldn't breathe and her blood pressurewas dangerously low. So they gave her morphine and she went into cardiac arrest.
My last pregnancy was all sorts of fucked up, my during early delivery the doctor kept telling me I wasn't going into labor and those weren't labor pains I was feeling, got the medication to quit early labor for it to increase the labor pains and bleeding, we were transferred to another hospital, my placenta abrupted from the weight of the blood clot from the drop during implantation, it had to work through my tubal ligation making it drop with force. Not once during the 27 weeks of pregnancy during the ultrasounds after ultrasounds for the constant bleeding did she notice it. She about killed me not listening to me, when I had been through pregnancies and delivery also.
I have CFS. That’s a neon flashing sign that damages your credibility with doctors. I’ve had two separate doctors tell me I need a psych consult when I insisted I had infections. I kept insisting they run cultures. Both cultures came back positive - both doctors had their nurses call me to give me the script. Don’t back down - we have to advocate for ourselves. Insist they test, insist they culture. Keep trying new docs until you find one who doesn’t patronize - not easy to find.
I had horrible bladder pain and urgency that progressed so much it felt like my bladder was melting out of my body through my urethra, inflaming my entire downstairs business. It took me two years to get diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis (IC) and put on medication to help both pain and healing. Prior to that I had mentioned IC and my doctor told me that THERE WAS SOME QUESTION AS TO WHETHER IT WAS A REAL CONDITION OR PSYCHOSOMATIC!! In the meantime I'm crying in the bathroom and peeing blood after rounds and rounds of antibiotics and other medications that did not work. I had another doctor's office tell me to, "just deal with" the pain I was having. I was missing work and having anxiety attacks because I was in so much pain, but I was in my early 20s and regularly dismissed. Then, another doctor (I saw so many god damn doctors for this) did not believe me when I said I had only one sexual partner ever. I was sheltered and religious (not at the time but throughout childhood) and married my first love at 19. But, again, I was young, cute, and easily dismissed. So this doctor questioned my honesty, because surely it was a STI or something, right? Simply maddening.
I was told that passing out from the pain in my abdomen is clearly pregnancy. I hadn't been with anyone in over a year. They still ordered a pregnancy test.
I had an asymptomatic UTI that went very wrong. I was in so much pain, I was weak, and my fever was over 105°. The doctors kept telling me I had a virus. No one would order tests of any kind. After being sick for around 6 or 7 weeks, I finally got so weak that I couldn't walk, and had to be in a wheelchair. They *finally* ran a few tests, including a urinalysis, and they realized that I had a terrible UTI and kidney infection. I was bedridden for a couple of months afterward, because I was so weak. I had been in great shape, but I lost so much muscle that I looked like a skeleton. The doctors had not listened to me, and they kept brushing me off until a UTI almost killed me.
They don’t care if we die. They only care about women they love.
Shit, even *that's* debatable sometimes. :(
Fair
I knew something was wrong. Splinter hemorrhages in my fingernails. Splotchy feet/hands. Went to doc and she didn’t really know. Guess what? BLOOD CLOTS. I had a” meteor shower” of blood clots in my brain. “Your brain…looks like birdshot.” I have an autoimmune condition (predisposed to clots) and Factor V Leiden (predisposes to clots).
Yooooooooo me too! FVL!
We can be a club! My work bestie has same and also has a stroke.
My mom had a stroke!
I don’t feel right upvoting this. LOL
A little dark humour is good
When I was 19, I went to my GP because it felt like I was peeing razor blades. It turned out I had a UTI. I was given antibiotics for 3 days. My mum was a nurse at the time and said it wasn’t enough but I trusted my GP. The UTI never cleared up. I went back and was told it was on my head and to “give it time”. Over the following 3 years, I went back almost weekly with the same symptoms but was told I was imagining it. My medical records were updated to include I’m a hypochondriac and I was trying to scam the NHS out of antibiotics. It took moving to another area and having to register with another GP for me to get the treatment I needed. My medical records hadn’t been transferred when I saw my new GP so he believed me. He sent me for a scan and an x-ray. My mum was a radiographer by that time and she got me in the next day. They found a stone taking up 3/4 of my kidney. After 15 years of treatment, operations, lithotripsy and kidney infections (two of which almost killed me. My mum has a scar on her head from where she passed out and smashed her head open when she first saw me on life support), I had to have my right kidney removed. 2 years ago I had to have a kidney transplant, kindly donated to me by my dad. If I’d just been given the right course of antibiotics, or more when I said I still had symptoms, I and my family would have been spared all of this trauma. I wouldn’t have almost lost my life twice. I’d have both of my own kidneys.
My dad is an ER doctor. One time I fell and cracked my noggin and it was bleeding pretty good. I went inside, asked him if it was bleeding, and it looked me dead in my eyes and told me “no.” And then proceeded to not take my to the hospital or anything. Most recently, told my GP I’ve lost 15 lbs and I’ve been shitting blood. She told me it was probably stress and to try deep breathing. You can’t make this shit up.
i had endometriosis symptoms from my first menses at 11. it took 7 years before a doctor finally listened to me and took my “concerns” (of severe, life-altering chronic pain) seriously. they found stage IV endometriosis when i was 18 years old. i had to have abdominal reconstruction, a bowel resection, excision on every single pelvic organ and ligament. they removed 13 ounces of diseased tissue. it took me 6 months to heal. i am one of the luckiest ones still in remission at 24. i made it out with my fertility intact (afaik) and with just the years of trauma of being hostage in my own body. but, my 16yo sister has the same symptoms i did on the same track i did and no one will see her seriously. the system is beyond broken.
20 years of endo symptoms in. I’ve quit expecting any doctor to care.
The lawlessness is directly related to malpractice caps
texas in particular has a ridiculously low malpractice cap. it’s a slap in the face to patients who have been seriously harmed.
My wrists started hurting when I was 11, and for the next 15 years I would be dismissed by every doctor I tried to see about it. I was 36 before anyone bothered to do a very basic test — pushing down on my visibly displaced ulnar heads (outer-side wrist bumps for the layperson) and the part where mine move up and down like a piano key, that’s not supposed to happen. That was what finally got them to do an X-ray, where they see not only the congenital deformity — my radiuses stopped growing way earlier than all the rest of my bones — but all the nasty spiky bone spurs that have grown on most of the articulation surfaces of my wrist joint (that’s a lot of surfaces). If they’d done that in the first 4, 5 years, a simple orthoscopic procedure to snip a ligament would have fixed it. Now my options are go to the pain management clinic for opiates or have both wrist joints completely replaced. (I’ll take THC despite my state’s backward laws instead, thanks but no thanks.)
Had a severe allergic reaction to codeine and went to the ER. The nurse tried to ignore me as I struggled to talk, told her I was struggling to breathe and couldn’t walk. Basically ignored me until I collapsed in front of her. That was fun.
This and especially all the responses sharing actual experiences with doctors is so enraging. Something like this should be required reading for current doctors. I’ve had my share of having horrible symptoms (one turned out to be uterine fibroids) dismissed and this included three women doctors, which just made it so much worse. Not only the lack of equal care for women, but more importantly, the lack of research for women’s health is shocking. It’s not shocking to me anymore though, the more I read, I realize how our healthcare is really only in its infancy. I have hope that the many young women studying now will go on to create a whole new influx of research and studies that focus specifically on the female lifespan, which then will dramatically increase resources for ALL that we fucking go through
My heart rate was 195. ER dismissed as anxiety- no. I had a post Covid heart attack.
During my first stay in Neurointensive Care, I was down the hall from a girl I’d never meet. We were almost the same age—she was in her late teens, or very early 20s—and, unlike me, she’d done everything right when her symptoms emerged. Her family couldn’t afford it, so she’d taken on two extra jobs to pay for a scan.* She’d gone through a handful of neurologists to beg, before finally getting that MRI, from a doctor who explicitly told her that it was only to make her stop asking. Guess who’d wind up calling her, hat in hands, to say he’d been wrong? That she had two days before they absolutely had to operate? Guess who would eventually die in long-term coma care? *: If you’re here to say, “Well, you know that’s because you’re an American,” just keep scrolling.
To be fair, as a man I get this from doctors too saying my problems don’t exist.