‘Gaslit by doctors’: UK women with endometriosis told it is ‘all in their head’
‘Gaslit by doctors’: UK women with endometriosis told it is ‘all in their head’
More than 1.5 million women in the UK are affected by the painful condition - but new study says NHS is failing them
In my experience, this is how a lot of (invariably male) doctors work. If you don't complain enough, they'll tell you to drink more water and take some paracetamol, ie. fuck off. So you end up having to exagerate your symptoms.
Or if you're a man, after going to doctor with a concern like you're told to and basically being mocked one time too often, you only go to the doctor when you're bleeding out of your eyeballs. At which point they mock you for not going to the doctor sooner.
On the other hand, a male doctor underestimating a female patients pain complaints, almost ended up killing my mother.
Mum: Doctor, I'm in excruciating pain. I think I have acute appendicitis.
Doctor: If it was appendicitis, you'd be in more pain.
Mum: few hours of pain Argh.
Doctor: it appears your appendicitis burst. You should have complained more.
In my experience, this is how a lot of (invariably male) doctors work.
Not invariably, you also get female doctors who will withhold care from female patients to punish them for the moral failing of being the wrong kind of woman. Like the one who told my sister "periods don't hurt that much, get over yourself" and refused to test for PCOS that she ended up having, or the one who told my wife when she was 15 "I'm not prescribing you birth control, you're not going to need it till you lose some weight anyway".
This infuriates me so much. I hade the same shit happen with my wife, thankfully just before the appendicitis burst, but the doctors at the hospital said there wasn't much time left.
Also how the fuck can doctors not get to the first conclusion that strong pain on the right side is most likely appendicitis and needs to be checked?
Shit like this happens all the time. My wife had her ovary twist and went to the ER because she was in extreme pain. She sat in the waiting room for 10 hours since they thought she was just overreacting and couldn't be in that much pain. Once she actually got to see the doctor he "jokingly" asked if she possibly could have caught an STD (we've been together for 14 years by that point) and decided to take a blood sample to at least say they did something. When results came back with an EXTREMELY high white blood cell count, they actually started to take her pain seriously. She was in emergency surgery within a few hours after that. Had they ignored her any longer it would have ruptured inside her and potentially died. Coincidentally, when they went in to untwist it, that's when they realized she also has endometriosis. After years and years of being told by her doctor that periods are painful and just deal with it, she finally had proof that it was actually not normal to be in that much pain every month. I really don't understand why a woman in pain is not a concern but if a man has a headache, then they leap into action.
My sister lived in London and had really bad headaches, went to the doctors repeatedly and was given pain killers but no scans or tests. This repeats over the course of a year until her behavior is changing. She isn't answering messages, she left her phone at work which she almost never lets out of her hand, much less her sight. My mom called my sisters friend to go to her and see if she is alright. She was wandering the street towards the supermarket to call an ambulance, got to the hospital and they released her with stronger painkiller and no blood tests or scans. Three days later upon insistence from her social worker (she fostered teens so has a social worker) they finally did a blood test, then a scan and found a giant tumor in her brain. She was dead a few weeks later.
If they hadn't just brushed off her increasing pain levels for a whole year of doctors appointments maybe they could have given her a few months to live and people could have said goodbye.
Doctors don't take 3 years of gaslighting classes for nothing. It's a skill they lernd through hard work, so they have a god given right to use it.
Are doctors disincentivized from ordering tests? I don't fix humans but I sometimes fix machines, and testing components that might be related to the problem is, like, the first thing to do. How does anyone hear "chronic abdominal pain" and not think "hey maybe we should check and make sure all the organs in the abdomen, of which there are many, are in good condition"? Especially the uterus, which is well known for its relationship to painful conditions like endometriosis!
It is a well documented fact that doctors generally dismiss women's pain (and that of members of other marginalised groups), so they don't see anything actually needing fixing, so they don't care enough to investigate. It is only when we become a pain to them that they'll act.
I also fix machines, and I have worked with people who only pretended to fix machines but always ended up leaving the actual fixing to others because they did not (could not?) engage the troubleshooting mindset. I imagine it's similar in medicine, but with more university debt.
my partner seeing this headline
her muttering behind me "The fuck it is"
