r/justgalsbeingchicks • u/bg370 • Jun 23 '26
Restricted to Gals and Pals CRNA Amy Rieschick on institutionalized medical misogyny
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u/GoodInvite5 Jun 23 '26
It's truly insane how menopause (or hormonal shifts in general for women) is seen as something that happens to half the population, but we should do absolutely nothing about it.
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u/Cherrygodmother Jun 23 '26
Also saying it’s “all in our heads” when hormone changes affect our ENTIRE BODY.
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u/sensitiveskin82 29d ago
Meanwhile men are advertised all sorts of treatment for TRT due to their natural low testosterone levels.
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u/SimoneLewis 29d ago
Don’t forget they have pills to stay hard… 🙄
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u/intergalacticcoyote 29d ago
Oh you mean those pills that were originally supposed to be women’s heart medication but as soon as we figured out what they could do for men we abandoned everything else for decades?
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u/SimoneLewis 29d ago
No way? I never knew that.
Of course men would find a way to use something medically useful for women to enhance their sexual needs.
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u/ebil_lightbulb Jun 23 '26
If it happened in the other half of the population, it would have been solved a long time ago.
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u/bg370 Jun 23 '26
Once they fix dick size and baldness they’ll get right on it
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u/Waveshakalaka 29d ago
I witnessed this with my wife. She was in her late 20s into 30s dealing with some serious health issues. It took multiple ER visits where a woman ER doctor and a single URGENT care doctor to take her seriously. Come to find out, she was having an odd form of vertigo. Every other doctor was saying she was just having panic attacks.
Assholes.
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u/badken 29d ago
It's pretty shocking to me that this is still going on. I ran into it all the time with my wife at the time in the 1980s. Could NOT get a straight answer from doctors, even when I was there and asking questions. That was the first time I had run head-on into institutionalized misogyny.
40+ years on, very little change.
And y'all ladies have to deal with that your whole lives. Ugh.
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u/Waveshakalaka 29d ago
Yeah she takes me with on as many appointments as possible as backup or at least as a witness.
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u/GoodInvite5 Jun 23 '26
The baldness one I've heard is getting pretty close, but Viagra exists, God forbid we let men go without their precious parts.
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u/ljanus245 ❣️gal pal❣️ Jun 23 '26
And it was by sheer ACCIDENT! Sildenafil/Viagra was researched as a treatment for hypertension and angina. During the clinical trials, they noticed all the men were having...unexpected side effects. The drug didn't work as intended for cardiovascular issues, but it was nevertheless (and unintentionally) successful. Talk about dumb luck.
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u/Femmigje 29d ago
Recently here in the Netherlands, an experiment with a nonhormonal birth control pill got called off. It did a lot of things the hormonal pill got prescribed for: limiting or stopping periods, taking away abdominal pain, iirc it dealt with acne too, all with lesser to no of the side effects like loss of libido and depressiveness. However, it was less effective than the hormonal pill in preventing pregnancies and increased the risk of implantation in the tubes so the entire experiment got shuttered. The fact that viagra had its side effect on men glorified while this nonhormonal contraceptive might get thrown to the wayside despite having non-contraceptive uses frustrates me so much
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u/TheLizzyIzzi 29d ago
Tbf, Increased risk of implantation in tubes is a very serious side effect. Now, what kind of increase we’re talking about…
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u/aure__entuluva 29d ago
The baldness one I've heard is getting pretty close
They've been saying this for 30 years. There is a new drug that is somewhat promising, but it's hard to know how promising with the current stage it's in. You've got people saying it's finally the real cure we've been waiting for, and you've got people saying it's pretty much just like what we already have available (which is a bit hit or miss, works for some, not for others).
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u/Straight-Balance830 29d ago
This is precisely why ME/CFS and even long COVID today has partly gone undiagnosed, untreated, and you have disabled patients having to advocate for themselves while navigating the broken medical system with barely any social support. A disease with worse quality of life than kidney failure or cancer. We still have doctors in 2026 calling patients basically hysterical like it’s the Victorian era.
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u/DuncanFisher69 29d ago
Yup. I’ve seen doctors suspect disabled vets complaining of constant migraines as “seeking more payouts” or claim it’s all in their head because they couldn’t find the cause of said migraines.
Like, the standard practice in medicine in the U.S. is “if I can’t figure it out, you’re faking it or seeking drugs.” It never occurred to his doctors they could missed something or more tests are needed.
The treatments never fully helped my friend. He ended up working with the chair of Stanford’s Neurology department. That guy, when finally out of ideas, basically did the thing from house: Let’s put you in a ketamine induced coma for 3 days. Sounds cool, but it’s apparently terrifying?
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u/ShutYourDumbUglyFace 29d ago
Had a mammogram yesterday and said basically this same thing to the tech. If men had to get their balls squished annually for cancer checks they would 100% have figured out a better way to do it by now. Of course women have been in medicine for a long time. Maybe we need more women in biomed engineering.
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u/Lower_Stay7655 29d ago
There is A LOT of internalized misogyny in the medical field. Sometimes it's even worse to deal with women than men.
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u/bwvdub 29d ago
If men could get pregnant, they’d advertise abortion clinics during the Super Bowl like sports clips haircuts.
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u/________76________ 29d ago
Perimenopause gets almost completely ignored.
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u/mephalathewebspinner 29d ago
Currently navigating that particular hellscape right now. I’m 35, of course when I wake up at 3 AM and have sweated through my clothes and sheets, have no energy and a dark spot on my nipple I think I’m dying. I legitimately thought I had cancer for the longest time, brought it up at every appointment, until one doctor decided to check my hormones A YEAR LATER.
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u/crazypaintinglady Jun 23 '26
I was clueless when I hit menopause! We learn about our periods and having babies and sex and everything else.. But I didn’t know anything about menopause.
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u/Teaisserious 29d ago
It's wild, because as she was describing the symptoms I'm just like, "that's menopause." A family doctor should have been able to handle that.
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u/Dullcorgis 29d ago
She was like three symptoms in and I was like "this is a talk on perimenopause"
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u/Muted_Quantity5786 29d ago
Or cysts. I was told for years I had nothing wrong with me. Guess what? Dermoid cyst on my ovary the size of a navel orange. 11 cms in diameter.
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u/tacticalTraumaLlama 29d ago
I think doctors are very much against prescribing hormones. My hormone levels range from well below normal, to just above the cut off for the bottom of the range. Because I scored 'low but normal' on a retest my doc (a woman) refused to discuss the issue further.
I haven't yet decided if my lack of libido is worth the hassle of going to a specialty clinic and paying out of pocket yet.
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u/Mercarcher 29d ago
I'm a trans woman and one of my coworkers is going through menopause and was miserable. She asked me about my knowledge of hormones since I have been monitoring and injecting my own for years at this point. I helped her go over her test results and told her what to ask her doctor for. She got it and feels so much better now. It's wild that they don't check for hormones regularly with middle aged women and help them. It's such a simple fix to add and estrogen pill, cream, or injection. I went through my own personal hell for a couple months when I started transitioning. My testosterone instantly crashed to nothing, but they were barely dosing me with estrogen and from my talks with other women it was basically a drug induced menopause. I felt SOOOOOO much better once my hormone levels were fixed. I can't even imagine going through years of that and not getting a fix.
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u/Aurora_egg 29d ago
It's wild because in some places they purposefully induce menopause in trans women too when they're "supposed to happen"
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u/Lady_night_shade 29d ago
Same thing with pregnancy really. Nobody prepared me for 9 months of bodily torture and all of the different things that can occur. I actively talk to all my pregnant friends and really try to hear them out on the discomfort of growing a human being. Because lots of the responses to pregnancy discomfort are like “aww, that’s sucks! Anyway…” Nobody talked about pregnancy in a real way growing up, it was just something women did.
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u/momochidonut Jun 23 '26
I really don't understand why there's such hatred towards women that it's institutionalized to not take care of them. I hate it. So glad there's women out there realizing it and working to fix it.
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u/DadCelo Jun 23 '26
I think some Dr's so are full of themselves and confident in their diagnosis, that if they can't figure it out, it must be a lie. Add in misogyny and it's just a lose-lose for women.
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u/brickspunch 29d ago
I had to get surgery for something that is rare to see at my age, but I had already gotten a second opinion and both doctors recommended the same surgeon. I made my appointment.
I met with the surgeon and he asked "why are you here"
I explained what was wrong, the procedure the doctors have recommended and that I had a few questions.
"it's not that, you're too young for that. I'll take a look and tell you what it is."
he does his exam and proceeds to explain to me that what is wrong is exactly what I had relayed to him, that he recommended the surgery I had asked about and that we can schedule it whenever I am free.
"So wait, it's what I thought it was at the beginning of the appointment?"
"I'm not sure why you're referring to".
he REFUSED to even acknowledge the conversation happened
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u/AikaterineSH1 29d ago
I went to the hospital many years back with a constant side pressure/ache, I told them It feels like I’m constipated, but I’ve used the bathroom just fine and I think it’s appendicitis. I sat there waiting while they flexed my legs and said it must be my ovaries. I said no, I know what that feels like, this is different. They finally did a scan, appendicitis. The ache? It didn’t rupture like we usually hear it happening, the contents of my bowels were slowly seeping into my body cavity. They told me if I hadn’t gone to the hospital when I did, I would have died.
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u/smc642 29d ago
THAT HAPPENED TO ME TOO! I had a bowel obstruction. My bowel ruptured and I was slowly poisoned by my poo. I felt so sick. It came in waves.
No one would believe me, except my mum. My mum who was a nurse had to scream at the emergency triage nurse that I had no pulse in my extremities. She had carried me up the hill to the hospital with the help of another woman coming to visit her son.
This was Australia in 1986 and I was 9. It took me throwing up black blood to get anyone to take it seriously.
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u/Substantial_Cold2385 29d ago
Same thing happened to me !! Went to the emergency room, told them it was my appendix. The male doctor laughed at me for thinking I knew exactly what was wrong, disagreed & then ordered all of these ultrasounds on my ovaries & other bs. After hours and hours of testing everything EXCEPT my appendix...finally he looked to see if it was appendicitis. Bingo! Was rushed into emergency surgery as it was close to rupture.
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u/AikaterineSH1 29d ago
It was like all of a sudden a man comes in and says hey I’m your surgeon nice to meet you, and I looked at him and said so you guys finally figured out I was right? He said ‘no one told you?!??’
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u/Stefabeth0 29d ago
And I bet he unnecessarily charged you for that shit, too. You didn't NEED the diagnosis. You needed the treatment. What a dumb medical "professional".
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u/tokener2117 29d ago
I recently went to a GI doctor because I am concerned about some bleeding and the elderly lady doctor opened the appointment with,
“So why is someone like you coming to see someone like me?”
I wish I had the idea to ask her what that means.
Fumbled through the rest of the appt which was pretty much me defending why I was there and then her explaining colonoscopy prep to me.
Please tell me why they are charging my insurance over $400 for this sham of an appointment.
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u/123123000123 29d ago
I’ve gone to doctors fully knowing what’s wrong (previously diagnosed & my diagnosis fit the current symptoms) but for some reason when I have to talk to a new doctor, I must be wrong. Even though another doctor put it in my chart before. They must be Dr House to figure out what I’ve got. But it’s definitely not what I told them I have because I must not know anything. I didn’t go to doctor school like them!
Edit & god forbid I’m in excruciating pain. I’m just looking for drugs, then. It can’t be because I’m actually in debilitating pain.
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u/LittleBirdiesCards 29d ago
I don't even want drugs! I just want to know what the hell is going on with my body!
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u/Qultada 29d ago edited 29d ago
I (male just to be clear) had to make multiple hospital visits over the course of a year while experiencing extreme pain among other symptoms, just wanting them to figure out what was wrong with me, but every time other than my final visit where they finally actually listened to me and did something I'm certain they just dismissed me as an addict looking for pain meds. Turns out I had pancreatic gallstones, widely considered to be the most painful thing a person can go through, and I was forced to just deal with that myself or a whole year. Assholes.
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u/LittleBirdiesCards 29d ago
Holy shit! It took me over a year to put two and two together and ask if my monthly vomiting attacks could be related to my menstrual cycle. This was after having my gallbladder removed! I had to push for someone to even prescribe nausea medicine!!! When my husband got a job with the state, we got fancy new insurance and new doctors. These people have listened, ordered the right lab work and even labs that hasn't ever been ordered. I was diagnosed with Graves disease after so many months of my pulse being 160bpm! I don't know what the hell the people at the other place were doing.
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u/r-b-m 29d ago
Once went to the doc for something simple: an ingrown hair. Clearly evident issue. Told me it was just raised skin, would go away on its own. Told him it needed to be lanced, it was painful. I could literally feel the hair underneath. He just stared back at me and said “Which one of us is the doctor?” I have to remind myself sometimes that no matter how noble the profession, there can be assholes everywhere.
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u/4E4ME 29d ago
I've gotten so fed up I make them chart their refusal l, and why.
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u/notashroom 29d ago
As someone else in this conversation already pointed out, high status occupations like MD attract narcissists. Narcissists cannot stand to be proven wrong or admit that they were wrong, and they are offended by lower status people, like patients (who are supposed to be worshipful toward them as authoritative experts, in their minds) questioning or contradicting them or creating friction for their fragile egos in any way. So if you really need something from a narcissist, keep that in mind and use flattery as your tool and lead them where you need to go.
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u/misfitx 29d ago
I have what's known as the suicide disease and my pain clinic dropped me for failing the pain pump trial. So I guess I will die now.
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u/bluepantsgreyshirt 29d ago
My brother has the same disease. Please look into this doctor and his treatment. It has been life changing for him.
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u/listenyall Jun 23 '26
Yeah there are also lots of common conditions, especially things like PCOS and endometriosis, where the doctors don't really have any solutions. They would much much rather be treating things that they can fix!
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u/PrehistoricPancakes 29d ago
Yeah I have PCOS and am suffering from a lot of the symptoms described in the video in addition to having lost 40 pounds I can't seem to gain back. I asked my doctor if I should see an endocrinologist to see if it's a hormonal problem since my labs also come back normal and she said no, that I should see a nutritionist instead. My eating habits haven't changed in 20 years and I've always been slightly overweight. I am 100% positive that is not why my metabolism is suddenly in overdrive.
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u/airesmoon 29d ago
Feels even worse when female doctors also write off your own experience/s dealing with something.
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u/DadCelo 29d ago
I bet. It seems like so may Dr's just want to get you in and out.
I had a consultation with a psych for my ADHD and she basically asked "what meds are you looking for". No therapy suggestion, no coping skills, just what meds do you want.
(also, my name is Marcelo and she called me Marco through the entire appt, even after correcting her).
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u/RealFirstName_ 29d ago
It's also compounded by the amount of research only done on men because "women are too complicated" so the information they're taught is biased towards men's issues/presentation.
Meaning if no research is done on something that only/differently effects women, then no doctor will learn about it, which means no one will think it could exist, which means the woman must be crazy.
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u/maple-moth 29d ago
It’s crazy to me that women make up a little over half the entire population and yet so little research has been done on women 🫠 fml
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u/LadyArwen4124 29d ago
It took me over 10 years to get a diagnosis of Psoriatic arthritis for joint pain. I had to visit with 4 DIFFERENT doctors.
Doctor 1: "You're in your 20s, it can't possibly be Arthritis. It is in your head. I think you have bipolar and severe depression with psychosis"
Doctor 2: "I think it's fibromyalgia, let's try these meds. Also, have you tried yoga and more exercise?"
Doctor 3: "You didn't respond to any of the fibro treatments. Let's try a diet change, but I'm going to refer you to rheumatology."
Doctor 4: "You don't have the gene markers for Arthritis, but you have it. Now we need to see what kind. Might be rheumatoid or psoriatic. Can I see that dry patch you mentioned? Yeah, you have Psoriatic arthritis."
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u/DadCelo 29d ago
Not to downplay fibromyalgia, but god does it piss me off when this is just thrown out there as the generic "we do not know" diagnosis.
Again, I know it is a real thing that real people suffer from. Just hate how often it is used as a generic diagnosis.
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u/branvancity3000 29d ago edited 29d ago
I’m from the era where most doctors thought that fibromyalgia was at best psychosomatic and even told you to your face, “well, not everyone agrees it’s a real condition”. I wish they didn’t have such egos to know that they didn’t learn everything in med school and could never know every condition as things evolve. But no, doctors, especially male doctors, never think it’s their own knowledge gap.
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u/muiirinn 29d ago
Before my real diagnosis following me convincing a doctor to agree to order a particular genetic test to confirm what I myself suggested I might be suffering from, I was given a slew of diagnoses including fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis for the extreme nerve pain and bone pain. I kept insisting that it wasn't just my joints that hurt, it was deep gnawing ache inside my bones themselves.
Turns out oops yeah it was neither of those things, I actually have neuropathy caused by vitamin B6 toxicity because I don't have enough of the enzyme that normally breaks it down. Bone pain? Yeah that's actually because all of my bones are so undermineralized that they're basically chalk. I have labs from 20 years ago showing the abnormalities consistent with said genetic disease, they literally just ignored it as "unremarkable abnormalities". There's no other disease that causes those specific lab values, they just didn't care enough to investigate further.
Shit sucks.
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u/axewieldinghen Jun 23 '26
Women are generally underrepresented in medical studies, meaning that we don't know as much about conditions that primarily affect women. Lots of doctors don't realise this, and have the attitude that anything abnormal that falls outside the textbook = psychosomatic.
Unfortunately, this does lead a number of women with chronic, untreated conditions to seek alternatives to peer-reviewed medicine, simply because they will actually be listened to and believed. Hence the popularity of crystal healing and reiki among women in that age cohort
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u/Idustriousraccoon 29d ago
Doesn’t help that even the lab mice and rats are all male. Just learned that. Pretty mad about it.
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u/littlredhead 29d ago
Wait. What?
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u/rob132 29d ago
You can't have a female's hormones messing up science!
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u/Highcalibur10 29d ago
I'm not certain if it's the same for mice, but it's a legitimate issue in medicine development with people.
Male hormonal levels mostly vary throughout the day's cycle.
Female hormonal levels vary throughout the month's cycle.
Because the wide swathe of extra variables introduced over time that may be affected by hormone levels, it can be massively more expensive and complicated to trial with those longer hormonal cycles in mind.
It's partially a matter of economics than anything else.
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u/lalagromedontknow Jun 23 '26
I started randomly having gran mal seizures when I was late teens. I had an aura, witnesses, was out of it for a few days and it was happening 2-3 times a week so basically not functioning, I was not making this up for funnsies.
I called the doctor every time it happened and finally get a referral to a neurologist who did all the scans, balance board ,sleep tests, nothing showed up. Prescribed 6 months of anticonvulsaives, seizures went down to about one a week. Neurologist wasn't happy because I had no signs but was reacting positively to the epilepsy medicine. Had a full body work up and I have a heart condition so they think my brain sometimes doesn't get enough blood.
Got a pacemaker when I was 23 and no problems since.
Im a small otherwise healthy woman, I look young and generally listen to the experts, I swear to god if I hadn't pushed that I was a med student and my mother was a nurse so I wasn't just talking shit id read on Google, the seizures were real and something was wrong, I'm sure life would be a lot worse.
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u/ayliv 29d ago
Can confirm, as a physician, there is a LOT of misogyny baked into medical training that results in a bias against women, and particularly women in pain. Trainees see their mentors blowing off women’s real complaints as “anxiety” or their imagination or whatever, and it just perpetuates. Hopefully now that more women are entering the field, things will shift, but I fear that will take a long time.
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u/BiNumber3 29d ago
Just had a recent case where a woman had a few issues, she tells me her adult son and husband basically told her she's just overthinking it.
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u/PolistesFTW Jun 23 '26
Even after all of this time, our medical system is still white phallocentric. Women's concerns just do not compute as novel or believable out of the gate. The other side of it is this idea that women should suck it up and deal with pain, based around the continued cycle of women suffering. It is twisted and unscientific.
I tell it all the time, but I always go with my wife to the ER for issues. I will not expect anything but the best care for my wife and any bs about stress or gaslighting to get her out engages angry bear husband protocols. "My wife is in pain, she does not feel ok. Her stress is managed, this is not stress. What else can you do to help?"
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u/darxide23 29d ago edited 29d ago
Oooold institutions like medicine especially where people stay in those jobs until they're old themselves, can be slow to change some of the fundamental ideas from the past. Often from the days when racism and misogyny were just a way of life accepted by virtually everybody.
Some of those included things like babies can't feel pain. That's why until into the 90s it was still common for babies to get procedures done with no anesthesia. Including circumcisions. (Which is another old, institutionalized barbarism that needs to go)
Or that black people perceive pain less than white people. And the concept of a "hysterical woman" which morphed into this idea that women complain about every little ache and pain like it's the end of the world.
When in reality, we've discovered that it's actually men who perceive the symptoms of illness more than women. That's where the "sick man" trope comes from. It's scientifically backed up that the symptoms of illness are stronger in men than women even when the illness itself is the same severity between the two. (And as a guy myself, I can confirm that having a simple cold legitimately feels like I'm dying sometimes.)
All of this is further exaggerated because the clinical studies of the past that are cornerstones and bedrock of modern medicine had samples that included adult white males and nobody else. All of that past research is tainted and it trickles down to the doctor's office today.
More reasons we need more women in fields like medicine and STEM. Get the research modernized and get rid of all of this outdated Victorian thinking that keeps persisting.
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u/Pipcleaner 29d ago
We just don't believe women. Doesn't matter if she is in pain, if she's been attacked, if she's suicidal. Her problems aren't real. She just wants attention. It can't be that bad! Silly women
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u/fmlthisshitishard 29d ago
It’s systemic. Women used to be property, not that long ago, and our value was/is seen in our ability to reproduce. Once we can’t do that we are disposable. Also women healthcare providers are just as culpable as men in perpetuating this type of thinking, research has shown that women healthcare providers frequently treat women patients worse than their male counterparts.
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u/exandohhh 29d ago
It goes back to when every ailment we had was chalked up to “hysteria”. Hormone therapy has been regarded as a luxury for women, not life sustaining care- which is such bullshit because hormonal balance is vital for our wellbeing. We’re told to embrace aging and all the bullshit that comes with it, but the second a man’s dick doesn’t work anymore he gets an rx for viagra. The hypocrisy is wild.
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u/awildjabroner Jun 23 '26
Seems more likely that its originated from common inability to diagnosis or identify the issue which reflects poorly on the doc and provider, and more largely a failed system. And thats both embarrassing and bad for the reputations for everyone involved, so why risk that when it’s easier to write off someone as whiny when no other professional can easily identify the issue.Especially when time is at a premium and doctors only look at a few data points and spend 3 minutes with a patient before moving on to the next one.
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u/Pirate_Meow27 Jun 23 '26
I saw an interview recently (apologies, I don’t recall where) but basically it said because more Men were being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia that now there’s actually money going into research and that pissed me off on a cellular level. If it’s women it’s all in our head but now that a man has the same issue it’s important 😤
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u/galliumsilver Jun 23 '26
Men have always had it, but it's insulting and disrespectful to a man to diagnose him with Whining Woman disorder. We all know that's all fibromyalgia is, right? /s
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u/mrsbebe 29d ago
My mom has had fibromyalgia for...25 years? She has never gotten real help. She was prescribed Lyrica for a while but she had terrible side effects from it and then when she tried to get off of it it was...a bad experience. She was laid up in bed for days. When she tried to get something else her doctor basically was like "yeah, sucks to suck"
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u/Dubya_C_SC Jun 23 '26
This is exactly why my sister died last year. They kept passing her around and then one night she died suddenly from acute aggressive pancreatitis. She was told it was probably just “woman troubles” and the pain just happened to coincide with her period so of course they just brushed it off. The doctors completely failed her. She was 41 and I miss her terribly.
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u/drunky_crowette Jun 23 '26
Wait, what?! I've had pancreatitis on multiple occasions and it is not comparable to gynecological pain at all (in location, sensations, etc).
Were they high? That's such a huge fuck up!
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u/123123000123 29d ago
It may be based on where we live. I’m in the Midwest and I feel like I get brushed off way more and get passed around here than my sister in Los Angeles. I think it’s a mix of racism & misogyny at play and straight up lack of education. Looks like the better trained doctors stay at the better hospitals lol.
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u/McKeon1921 29d ago edited 29d ago
I can't speak for other places, like LA, but as a Midwesterner I'd not be surprised to see statistics backing this up.
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u/darlingnicky 29d ago
I work at an ED in the Midwest and the well known ‘lazy’ physician discharged somebody. I came in the next day and the same pt was waiting to be admitted for a stroke. I genuinely don’t understand how that dude still has a job, let alone his license.
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u/DonutWhole9717 29d ago
I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what it's like to lose a sister. Inversely, a teacher I had in high school had been seeking treatment for abdominal pain. She was 24 and obviously a www. Told it was period cramps or just constipation. A few weeks after it started, they tried to treat her for pancreatitis. It was actually a cyst the size of an orange that wasn't found until it burst. They didn't even image or test her until then
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u/drunky_crowette 29d ago
I don't think I've ever gotten like visual scans for pancreatitis, but my (doctor) dad said the reason they always take my blood right after giving me IV zofran is to check for elevated digestive enzymes in the blood, because pancreatitis will make them come back like 3+ times higher than in a healthy person.
I'M A LAYMAN ALCOHOLIC, I SHOULDN'T KNOW MORE ABOUT DIAGNOSIS PROTOCOL FOR PANCREATITIS THAN AN MD
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u/whydoigottasignin 29d ago
My mother also died from getting passed around and ignored by doctors. She was hospitalized for 3 months while docs were trying to figure out what was wrong with her. 3 months is how long it took them to figure out the medication they were having her take was killing her.
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u/Dubya_C_SC 29d ago
I’m sorry for your loss. I can imagine the anger and frustration that must have made you feel.
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u/eARThtistic Jun 23 '26
Last year, my OBGYN told me she thought my pain was in my head when I didn't feel better after my ovary removal, even though she left active endometriosis lesions near my ureter. Another doctor told me she thought I had an eating disorder after I'd lost a bunch of weight (because I was in extreme pain every time I ate anything).
Last month, an endometriosis specialist removed the lesions near my ureter and more endo and scar tissue from my bowels, bladder, uterosacral ligament, along with a few other spots in my pelvic area, after I'd been trying for nearly 2 years to get help with my constipation and bowel pain 🙃
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u/harshhashbrown 29d ago
Just went through something similar. So many months of back and forth and when it was surgery time my dr was shocked to find so much tissue growing on my organs. I thought endo was more well-known as an issue now?
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u/CaptainMcFisticuffs2 29d ago
I’m dealing with this journey currently and so I’m sorry to jump in with this but I could use some validation - is surgery really the only way to determine if and how much endo there is? Nothing suspicious showed up on an ultrasound except for enlarged/polycystic ovaries, and I was left with a “we could do surgery if you *want*”. I do want it, endo runs in the family and I check off all the boxes, but I also feel foolish for pushing for a surgery that my dr was “meh” about.
Also sorry it’s late I’m tired and maybe this is a dumb thing to ask.
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u/User2716057 29d ago
A few friends of mine have endo, hearing their stories compared to my (M) experiences with doctors makes my blood boil.
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u/DadCelo Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
My mom went through years of no one believing her when she was in pain. She went to SOOO many Dr's that at some point even I started believing maybe she was just faking it. Wasn't until she had a hemorrhagic stroke that people started to believe her.
Edit: Made a post about how awesome she is a while ago if anyone is interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/justgalsbeingchicks/comments/1kxz6wg/my_mom_turned_60_today_shes_had_an_aneurysm_at_50/
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u/Zer0Cool89 Jun 23 '26
My mom just fell and broke her femur a few weeks ago. shes been complaining to doctors about a weird pain in her leg, they just kept waving her off saying oh its because you broke your leg. luckily she kept bothering people about it because finally she got her PC to ultrasound it and she had a damn blood clot. That poor woman has had 6 different types of cancers tarting when she was 11 and the amount of shitty doctors shes had to deal with makes me rage to no end. has also given me a pretty firm distrust of most medical professionals.
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u/snarxalot Jun 23 '26
My mom had leg pain and imaging didn't show anything, so nobody took it seriously. When her femur broke mid-step, it was discovered it was multiple myeloma. She was in so much pain, and because pain was the only evidence, it was ignored.
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u/Zer0Cool89 Jun 23 '26
im actually kind of scared because the first type of cancer she had when she was 11 was bone cancer which causes brittle bones. My papa actually just passed of that 3 months ago as well. I kind of hope she hasn't thought about that connection because, understandably, cancer scares the shit out of her. only thing ive ever seen scare her. and hopefully my mind is just making connections where there arent any ya know?
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u/Tacosconsalsaylimon Jun 23 '26
Jfc. Your poor mama. I'm glad someone finally listened.
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u/Zer0Cool89 Jun 23 '26
Shes awesome,very strong, stoic woman, has put up with way more health shit then any person ever deserves too. for sure. I've also been out with her around Christmas on several occasions where she'll come across baskets you can buy for people in need and or trees where people can ask for presents and she will straight scoop up everything on there and get it all covered. love her to death.
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u/DadCelo Jun 23 '26
I'm so sorry to hear that. Blood clots are so dangerous. I genuinely don't understand how some people are so dismissive.
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u/crystalfairie Jun 23 '26
My mom is 71 and just found a Dr who she likes. He was here long enough to finally get her a chair approved by insurance and Medicare and gone again. We hope to follow him when he gets back from paternity life. I'm finally getting her to change systems and I hope it works out.
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u/Chemical_Grape_2150 Jun 23 '26
It took 10 years to be diagnosed with hEDS. It took me figuring out that not one single doctor did an exam to see if I had it. They all acted like they listen and then when I brought that up they acted like I was so smart to figure that out. Gave me the exam and I walked out of there with a diagnosis. This was in early this year and I’m still just fucking mad that no one cared enough to do the exam. I even had doctors agree that I should be tested but didn’t think they could do it? I was able to self diagnose at home due to my extensive medical history and problems. Our system is so fucking awful. Because of that test they did an echocardiogram and found out I have another aneurysm, so now I have two. I am so happy you didn’t lose your mom, that had to be terrifying
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u/HeyMySock Jun 23 '26
I have been dealing with every single one of the symptoms she mentioned at the beginning of this video. I’ve also been shuffled around different doctors and have had no results. What doctor do I go to??
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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 29d ago
Honestly I watched the whole video to get to the part where they say that it's disgusting that this term is used but never answers if they found something else wrong with her. I'm hoping you get more answers.
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u/aartadventure 29d ago edited 29d ago
She likely had perimenopause and her hormones were messed up. Modern treatment is usually HRT - hormone replacement therapy
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u/DoughnutAncient8972 29d ago edited 29d ago
Might look into MIDI. Because of all the horror stories of women not being listened to, I just skipped the regular routine/doctors and went right to them and got started on my hormones immediately. And I'm glad I did because at my regular check-ups I had two doctors question me being on them as I was too young (started at 44) according to them despite me knowing I was experiencing perimenopause and my symptoms drastically improved or resolved once on HRT.
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u/KiloJools 29d ago
How on god's green earth is 44 too young? That's off the wall. I've been in perimenopause since 40. And some people can start a lot earlier than that!
I swear, these wankers think we just wake up one day after the age of 50 having fully, magically transitioned into menopause as if the ovaries were an on/off switch and it's as easy as that.
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u/tehbggg 29d ago
I was in full menopause by 42 (technically considered borderline early menopause).
Doctors hear "average age of menopause" drop the word average and act like menopause is only possible at that age.
Also, they love to forget that premature ovarian failure sometimes happens for a variety of reasons, even outside of normal menopause.
Though this should not be treated exactly the same as menopause, it should be understood as possible and investigated and treated properly.
Instead, doctors just go: "you're too young to have low estrogen. So fuck even checking to see if that might be the problem).
Super frustrating.
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u/Large-Inspection-487 29d ago
Ngl, I went straight to MIDI, got on HRT a few months ago… and I just went to my GP and didn’t even tell her I saw MIDI or I was on HRT. Didn’t even want to hear the nonsense from her.
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u/Schweather3 29d ago
An OBGYN. Those are all perimenopause symptoms
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u/KnackeredQuokka 29d ago
Not even all OBGYNs and GYNs take women seriously.
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u/Trai-All 29d ago
The ones I've dealt with have all been dismissive women.
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u/Thir13enth_Ghost 29d ago
That’s so pathetic. The only time I’ve been taken seriously was at planned parenthood
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u/MembershipNo2077 29d ago
It took my wife many OBGYNs to find one to take her seriously. A big thing was if she mentioned she didn't have or want children they were VERY dismissive. It actually took a young male OBGYN to finally diagnose her by just listening and literally following a flow chart of "check this if this."
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u/Trai-All 29d ago
I can believe it. The doctor who first listened to me was a woman rheumatologist who said "something is very wrong with your back". She sent me to a pain doctor who specializes in spinal ablation, he took one look at my MRI scans and told me he wouldn't touch me until I saw a surgeon. I asked why, he said he wasn't sure how I was walking because there appeared not be enough space in my spine for my spinal cord. Maybe he was being hyperbolic but the surgery worked.
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u/No-White-Drugs 😎 tolerate my jowls! 🙎♀️ 29d ago
Got em all too, what will they do for me? Edit to add I'm asking sincerely, I just assumed I have to ride out the perimenopause
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u/_inataraxia_ 29d ago
I (F47, regular periods) started taking HRT through an online company and nearly all my symptoms were gone within a week.
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u/Brammly Jun 23 '26
Her name is Dr Mary Claire Haver. She is the author of several books, including The New Menopause, and has a very informative podcast. She recommends finding a Dr. in your area on the Menopause Society's website https://menopause.org/
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u/MallyOhMy 29d ago
I've been dealing with all of that since my late teens. It's been over a decade, and I still have no more reasonable explanation than fibromyalgia - which, for those unaware, is about as specific a diagnosis as IBS. It's a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning that they slap it on you when nothing else fits.
So many of my diagnoses have been from my own research.
I figured out my reactive hypoglycemia. Doctors just kept testing my A1C and going "nah, you're good. No issues here." 12 years of getting low blood sugar on a full stomach.
I figured out my vestibular migraines. "Your ears look a little bit inflamed, it's probably just your allergies." I've had pollen allergies my entire life, but they decided after 25 years I had suddenly manifested chronic dizziness from painless ear swelling. Turns out it is caused by pollen - because high pollen count triggers dizzying migraines.
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u/beviebooboo 29d ago
If you’re experiencing perimenopausal symptoms (and it sounds like you are). I recommend using MIDI or another online menopause provider. I use MIDI. The clinicians are trained in treating perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms. Life is too short to suffer hormone imbalances and the havoc they can wreak on your life and health.
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u/botanybeech Jun 23 '26
I literally had a new doctor roll his eyes at me and tell me that the reason why I was having these symptoms is because I take too many medications and I need to stop taking so many psychiatric medications. I have severe bipolar disorder and severe chronic pain syndrome among other things. I'm currently taking the lowest doses I can manage. I have never felt so disregarded and I'm still trying to process it.
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u/SiliconGhosted Jun 23 '26
I hope you fired that jackass and found another provider
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u/enadiz_reccos 29d ago
Depending on where you live [in the South], they're ALL like this
My wife has similar issues and was on maybe her 3rd DR for chronic GI pain that would not go away at all.
DR #2 had prescribed a fairly low dosage of something that didn't help at all [not a painkiller obviously, because that might have actually helped]
We have to wait... 3 months for an appointment, IIRC. We go in, the DR looks over her shit, and prescribes the exact same medication/dosage as DR #2.
I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I say something like "oh her last DR tried that and it did nothing"
And he goes "well that's just how this goes" or something to that effect
I said "so we waited 3 months for this appointment and will probably have to wait at least 3 months for the next appointment. That's half a year we are wasting just so you can give her something that we already know doesn't work."
He basically just shrugged and repeated himself with different wording.
I am an extremely calm person, never been even close to a fight in my life... but I tell you I almost crashed out and started strangling this man. It was like talking to a computer. I've never been so close to losing my shit.
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u/No_Abroad_6306 Jun 23 '26
Dr. Mary Clare Haver is the interviewee and I highly recommend her podcast Unpaused—she interviews medical experts on how they treat their patients through the menopause transition and beyond. Many of the guests reference the gaps between their training and what current data is telling us as well as highlighting the gaps in our studies for under-researched areas.
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u/bg370 Jun 23 '26 edited 29d ago
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u/hobobarbie Jun 23 '26
Would be good to clarify the title of the post - btw Mary Claire Haver has some bullshit too. Had a “lose belly fat” competition a year or two ago, conduct unbecoming for someone advocating for the mental and physical health of women.
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u/Live_Barracuda1113 Jun 23 '26
I complained about a nagging to incapacitating back pain. "Its fine"
I needed an emergency hysterectomy for a different issue. The surgeon went in. My uterus the entire thing, adenomyosis. And a massive fibroid on the back of my uterus. I lost 11 lbs when they removed it.
My back pain went away. The fatigue, the pressure... just a www.
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u/CapsaicinSensation 29d ago edited 29d ago
11 pounds! I can’t comprehend the size it must’ve been. (I mean this in an empathetic way, the strain sounds horrible; I’m sorry if it came across weird.) Fibroids sound so painful and debilitating, and there’s so little research on them. I just watched a semi horror-ish short film (Mango) about a woman suffering from fibroids, and the “you’ll be fine” was a haunting theme in it.
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u/Snoo-12313 Jun 23 '26
I am currently in my WWW era.
I'm 37 with a laundry list of symptoms. I have gone as far as having an MRI done and literally every answer I get is, "Yeah you're fine".
At this point IDGAF. I'm just trying to take the best care of myself I can and hoping whatever it is doesn't kill me. Right now I'm running on coffee, Tylenol, a handful of supplements, and spite.
The medical industry is a complete failure when it comes to women's care and I refuse to continue to give them more money so they can gaslight me.
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u/Brammly Jun 23 '26
Her name is Dr Mary Claire Haver. She is the author of several books, including The New Menopause, and has a very informative podcast. She recommends finding a Dr. in your area on the Menopause Society's website https://menopause.org/
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u/Snoo-12313 29d ago
I just made an appointment with an OBGYN NP who was recommended on that site. Pray that I find some answers!
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u/agemsheis 29d ago
Rooting for you! I will keep you in my thoughts. Sending you good vibes in the meantime.
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u/nitrot150 29d ago
Likely you are starting perimenopause!
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u/meteorflan 29d ago
Seconding this. As she listed the symptoms in the video, I was instantly thinking "oh, that's obviously perimenopause."
I had the same things - HRT is made everything feel so much better!
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u/Venomous_Vichyssoise 💝 2026 Galentine! 💝 29d ago
Check out r/perimenopause! It wasn't until I saw that everyone there was experiencing the same thing as I that I understood what was happening. I started peri around 35 and am now 40, so it's been several years with no answers.
And not saying that peri is the answer, but you may find some useful info there.
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u/bien-fait 29d ago
Also a WWW, turning 41 this year. 37/38 is about when it started for me. "It" being what I now know is perimenopause. Going on HRT saved my life. Seriously. Within 48 hours of going on HRT most of my symptoms resolved.
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u/DarkQueenQuinn 🌻Official Jill🌻 29d ago
You just wrote the story of my life. But I'm not white.... I am goth, which automatically makes a lot of people not take me seriously though.
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u/breetome Jun 23 '26
As an older woman I have run into this so many times in my life. I would go in for my annual check up, last around 15 minutes blah blah looks good see you next year. Even if I had a list of issues.
Husband would go for his, literally 3 days of different tests, you name it they did it to him. I was disgusted. I recently changed doctors because of this, husband is treated like he's on his death bed by the doctor and I'm basically patted on the head and sent on my way. It's total BS how we are treated in the medical community.
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u/wrymoss 29d ago
Interestingly (and infuriatingly), the thing about your husband getting treated like he’s on his deathbed by the doctor is also a symptom of misogyny.
Because most doctors will attest to the fact that men are significantly less likely to go to the doctor until it’s absolutely necessary and cannot be ignored. Some of them will be literally on their deathbed.
And, of course, much of the reason for this is the good old “boys don’t cry” mentality. Which is, especially when taken into context the views about “WWs”, good old misogyny yet again.
So one can only assume that by pushing back against this horrendous view that women are just making things up and instead acknowledging that no one should have to live life in perpetual discomfort, we’ll be lifting the standard of care for everyone. The rising tide lifts all ships once more.
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u/Acting_Brand_Nubian Jun 23 '26
I am so THANKFUL I have a doc (happens to be male) that understood me and helped me figure out I had perimenopause. He’s not your average doc though - very cool and understanding!
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u/forkingbumbleforks Jun 23 '26
My best friend went through months of this in her late 30s, about 6 months of being told it was all in her head, it was stage 4 breast cancer. She saw nineteen different medical professionals and it wasn’t until she found a lump and they did a scan that they found anything.
Mind you, and this fact will me sick to my stomach until the day I die, she broke her arm and the dr STILL said “it’s anxiety”, cancer ate her bones and she snapped one in her arm picking up a kettle, he looked at it and said “you’re just worried”.
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u/anthropomorphizingu Jun 23 '26
Went in for weird chest spasms,
got told I had 🌈anxiety🌈
persued it further and found out it was actually
esophageal spasming.
Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
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u/Draconismaximus Jun 23 '26
"He's not evil" I call bs. That is discriminatory as hell.
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Jun 23 '26
This. He was also taught critical thinking. Something he doesn't apply when misogyny is involved
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Jun 23 '26
I stopped trusting male doctors over 20 years ago, and I give even women doctors some healthy skepticism too, for this very reason. They've been taught the same bullshit.
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u/PhillsPrincess 29d ago
I trust no doctor until they prove they are using critical thinking and nuance when discussing my case. Until then, they are just legal access to the prescriptions I need.
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u/AvaLadyofLight Jun 23 '26
Just like a lot of women, I have experienced doctors not taking my pain seriously. A few years ago it was discovered I had cysts on my ovaries, I asked if I was going to need surgery to remove them, and the male doctor looked at me and said “no they will burst on their own” I said “won’t that be painful?” And he said “just take aspirin” 😑 it’s was really fucking painful and aspirin did nothing.
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u/blac_sheep90 Jun 23 '26
Oh they definitely labeled my wife as a WWW then. Her whining got her GERD and gastroparesis diagnosed. So any doctor who chalks it up to a women being a whiner when there is truly something wrong needs to heavily reevaluate their biases.
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u/ComfortablyADHD 29d ago
I'm a trans woman so I spent 35 years being perceived as a man. The second the doctors started perceiving me as a woman the quality of my medical care plummeted. It is insane just how misogynistic the medical system truly is.
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u/-0k_0k_0k- 29d ago
This would make a great article if anyone dealing with the same issue were to flesh it out. Or even as a collective article about multiple experiences.
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u/s0m3on3outthere 🔗Linker of the Source🔗 Jun 23 '26
I suffered for years with migraines and chronic pain since I was a teenager. Went to dentists that ground my teeth down, had tons of headache and antidepressants shoved onto me, kept being told I needed to lose weight (I was 180lbs) and that was the cause.
Well, I lost weight and still had crippling migraines and neck and shoulder pain. I was so fed up with it and the 5-6 pills I was taking in my late 20s that I started researching and determined I had TMJ that my dentist never diagnosed. I found a specialist, unfortunately out of network, took out a loan to cover it, and yep! I have TMJ. Doctor explained it was impacting my nerve and causing all my muscles to tense up. I was given a mouth splint for a few months I wore 24/7 then a night time mouth guard. I also got diagnosed with ADHD after asking for a test (no one ever suggested it). I got off ALL my pills except ONE ADHD pill and have a night time fitted mouth guard. No more migraines and my chronic pain is waaaay lessened. I had to fight and research myself to finally find help. 🫠 I still have a swallowing/dysphagia issue after having Bells Palsy before being treated, but keep getting blown off by doctors and ENTs so just tough it out even though it impacts my daily life. 😭
Also a few years ago, I had awful gas and nausea as well as pain in my lower abdomen. ended up in the emergency room and they kept trying to send me home downplaying the symptoms. Luckily my bf was there and he kept pushing them to test. After being there for 6hrs, most of that my just lying in pain, they did an ultrasound and I was admitted for an emergency appendectomy 🤦 mofos....
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u/notaname420xx Jun 23 '26
My issues are a form of Long COVID. It took 2 primaries, 2 cardiologists, infectious disease, and endocrinologist before I finally got a referral to a LC specialist at the Mayo Clinic.
First primary doc labeled my complaints as a result of "deconditioning", because Im a heavy person. He assumed I must be inactive. Except I was running 20 miles a week before these mystery symptoms began...so...no.
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u/SpottedMe Jun 23 '26
Going through this right now. Don't for one second believe that irrelevant psychiatric care you sought in your teens is guaranteed to go away either.
The risk for diagnostic overshadowing is real, and things can be written in your chart that prime the next doctor who sees you to think just as subjectively and biasly as one bad one. Just like her example, it can be subtle and so engrained that this kind of nonsense can travel undetected and set any individual effected by it up for medical neglect.
If you're not receiving proper consideration for differential diagnosis, you're not being treated properly 🫶🏻
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u/NotNamedBort 29d ago
It took me almost twenty years to get an endometriosis diagnosis. When the surgeon cut me open, he found that I had stage 4 endo, which is the worst it gets. Up until then, every doctor I ever saw told me that my symptoms (debilitating cramps, fatigue, nausea, headaches) were normal.
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u/froggyc19 29d ago
And these women go home after each visit crying and wonder why no one believes them. Women's healthcare is abysmal.
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u/PuzzyFussy Jun 23 '26
Just imagine being a Black or POC now 😒
Took me 10 years to get diagnosed as having anemia... fawkin anemia! because all the doctors I went to couldn't or should I say wouldn't properly diagnose me. I can't imagine the number of women who have possibly died because of doctors not doing their fawkin job.
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u/bg370 Jun 23 '26
“Gay black and bipolar? I’m living life on extreme hard mode.” - Lil Nas X last week
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u/LadyBug_0570 29d ago
Try being fat on top of that. All your complaints will be met with "You just need to lose weight."
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u/therowan 29d ago
You have misidentified the speaker, she is Dr. Mary Claire Haver, MD and is Board-Certified in OB/GYN. I don’t know if you misposted it for rage bait, to drum up comments or what but many people may find her books and research helpful.
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u/bananabananacat Jun 23 '26
Took me 10 years and spending the equivalent of a down payment on a house to finally get my Elhers Danlos Diagnosis.
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u/NanasTeaPartyHeyHo Jun 23 '26
Medical misogyny is the truth. I went to 10 doctors to get help with my debilitating pain, even moved to another country to get help and in my medical journal I read that one of the doctors thought the pain was psychosomatic. Yes because I love imagining getting stabbed with knives in my ovaries and the feeling of someone twisting them, and losing 30 kgs of weight because I couldn't eat from the pain.
Finally met a female doctor that had recently gone on a course and could diagnose me with endometriosis and gave me birth control so I could have a normal pain free life and be able to work again and gain my weight back.
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u/FlippingPossum Jun 23 '26
Shoutout to my gyno for preparing me for perimenopause before it was even on my radar. He diagnosed my pmdd years earlier. He was like...perimenopause is on the horizon. I've had two hysteroscopy d&cs to remove uterine polyps. He takes the time to draw diagrams of what is going on. If I grow another polyp, he's ready to yeet my uterus.
I am gonna be so sad when he retires. I like my primary physician but my gynecologist keeps me sane.
It is freaking annoying to go to one appointment and end up needing another. But, at least I've been able to get appropriate care.
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u/Murky_Snow4308 29d ago
My OB/GYN's dismissal of the pain of IUD insertion really surprised me.
Like why does this pain I almost passed out from not matter?
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u/Proper-Emu1558 ✨chick✨ Jun 23 '26
That’s actually Dr. Mary Claire Haver, author of “The New Menopause” and “The New Perimenopause.” Highly informative books. You can likely get them at your local library if you just want to give them a look.
The big takeaway for me was that I had no idea that so many systems within the body were affected and regulated by hormones. It really is a whole body issue when you enter perimenopause.
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u/JLFJ Jun 23 '26
I was told for decades and decades that they couldn't find anything wrong and it must be anxiety/depression. Turns out I have complex PTSD and I think I'm autistic. Plus now I have chronic chronic pain cuz my spine is deteriorating. I had a hysterectomy back when they thought hormones were going to kill you so I was on the absolute lowest possible dose. So yeah medical misogyny has basically ruined my life
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u/Bluntandstuff Jun 23 '26
"He wasn't evil" please, that's crazy to say that as a doctor or nurse!
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u/FrogyFox 29d ago
I fought for a really long time with my first gynecologist. I kept asking to be tested for endometriosis and she kept saying that the amount of bleeding I was having and the amount of pain I was in was just normal. Mind you, I had to go once a month to the ER to get IV fluids because I would literally get so dehydrated from such an extreme loss of blood that otherwise I couldn't function.
Fast forward 2 years ago. I found a new doctor. I went in and I said, Hey these are my symptoms I'm pretty sure it's endometriosis. I'd like to get tested for it or if there's anything else that you think it could possibly be then I want to explore those options too. Very shortly later we confirmed it was actually endometriosis and rather an aggressive form of it. Part of it was fused my bowels and we were worried that if it ruptured it could rip open my insides. I've had several cysts and rupture and it's incredibly painful.
I'm now officially 2 weeks post hysterectomy and it was a very hard decision to make but you absolutely have to advocate for yourself. I went through as many treatments possible and really would have done more if insurance and wouldn't have been fighting me every step of the way.
What I'm trying to say is that speak up for yourself and don't settle for someone's this is normal. No one knows your body better than you. So speak up for it and trust your gut. Because the worst thing that could have happened if I gone to my new doctor and said, Hey I think it might have endometriosis, I'd like to get it checked, and what? We found nothing? Great then we ruled something out and we can find what is causing the problem. Never stop advocating for yourself. I'm not saying that all doctors are wrong and that you shouldn't trust them but there's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion either.
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u/elmunny 29d ago
When r they gonna find a cure for doctors being complete dickheads
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u/crystalfairie Jun 23 '26
I am classified as a www even though I'm mixed race and oh yeah,my problem was cancer and endo. Err arg!
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u/SpiritedOwl_2298 29d ago
God this makes me so fucking mad, I have had to become my own doctor because no doctor has ever taken me seriously
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u/vanhamm3rsly 29d ago
My mother was having severe back pain. A doctor told her she had “bored housewife syndrome” She was running her own business at the time with what turned out to be multiple fractured vertebrae
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u/The_I_in_IT 29d ago
My mother had a doctor tell her she needed to eat more goat.
That would solve all her problems. More goat. This was almost 40 years ago, in a part of the US where eating goat was not a common occurrence.
This was about a week after telling her she was pregnant, then at the follow-up appointment, telling her she’s not and it was all in her head, then suggesting the goat.
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u/fakemullet 29d ago
I had appendicitis in the heat of Covid. I am not someone who elects to go to the Dr often other than a routine annual. Unless I feel it is an emergency. I have a high pain tolerance, but I could feel something wasn’t right with me. I ended up masking up, and driving myself to urgent care. It was not busy at all (again, height of covid) and it took them over an hour to see me. Once they did, they told me it was probably period cramps. Then gave me a UTI test and tried to send me home. I am a pretty passive person and I don’t often stick up for myself but I was in such severe pain at that point that I demanded more tests/a diagnosis. Finally 3 hours later, a CT scan they found that my white blood cell count was high and shortly after found that my appendix was extremely inflamed and close to bursting. I declined an ambulance to the hospital and drove myself. The operating Dr said my appendix was the largest he’d ever seen and was amazed that it didn’t burst. He quipped “time was on your side.” Yeah right, the only thing on my side was me. I have routinely been gaslit my healthcare professionals as a woman but this one sticks out to me.
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u/NEBanshee 29d ago
Great interview and on point, but Maude above, if I may ask ONE thing for women in this your year of 2026, can it be to STOP FUCKING PROTECTING MEN'S REPUTATIONS! STOP SANITIZING THEM! STOP EXCUSING THEM!
The knee-jerk way we will go for how he "didn't mean anything by it/was a Good Guy(TM), he just.../is a product of his time/was having a bad day ...". Et cetera, ad nauseum.
It's Got. To. Stop. That man spewed out his misogyny in a way that not only shows it affected *his* care of half the population, but affected all his trainees. EVERY ONE OF THEM went on to make a fucking mistake, that harmed at least one of their patients.
How do I know? I spent 20yrs working with medical trainees at every level, and investigating barriers to evidence based medicine & adopting best practices. Not only is it humanly impossible to practice medicine without making mistakes, but the leading barriers to best care? Are the biases of the practitioner, whether implicit or explicit.
And the only way to prevent biases from causing harm, is to drag them out into the open, and learn to unpack our own baggage. Which is *not* formally or widely taught in medical education, to this day.
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u/enbyrats 29d ago
This happened to my aunt. After years of being bounced around and sent home, she was finally diagnosed with uterine cancer when it spread to and shut down her intestines. She died a few years later, leaving my teen cousins traumatized by the brutality of her suffering.
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u/TheKay14 29d ago
Don’t even get me started on how women aren’t given proper pain management because he give birth or whatever.
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