To be annoyed at GP attributing physical health problems to mental/emotional state

Well yes, but more often than not, your mental state is not causing your physical symptoms. You feel stressed and miserable BECAUSE you physically feel rotten, and it is even more stressful when your GP doesn't take your physical symptoms seriously.

The mind isn't separate from your body. Mental anguish causes physical symptoms. Both need treating. This is why Western medicine isn't enough for lots of people, they need holistic support too. Yoga, meditation, things that help you focus away from the pain.

It took DP several years to be diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune condition because it was repeatedly dismissed as being all in his head. He saw that one of the GP's had scribbled 'seems very anxious' on the inside cover of his file (before the days of everything being computerised.) Well of course he was anxious. Nobody was taking him seriously. And the stress of worrying made the condition worse. It didn't cause it. And, what's more, the same thing happened to him AGAIN with another autoimmune condition (albeit a rarer, harder to diagnose condition.) One GP said 'Don't worry. Nobody has ever died of these symptoms.' Oh, that's ok then. So patronising. He was told to go to bed earlier at night and to stop focusing on his symptoms!

This is such a great book, well worth reading.

God help women with a history of trauma and/or MH problems who feel physically unwell. It's like it's not possible to have both. Books like The Body Keeps the Score really don't help with this either.

Bloody hell, I bet that was painful. I really hope you’re feeling better now.
The losing weight is also a common cure all. Friend was told for 4 years her weight was causing all her problems. Four years. Then she woke up one morning unable to see. She had a brain tumour on her pituitary gland which was causing all the symptoms but the GP was convinced it was all because she was overweight.

I have had this too. I have a sore hip. Loads of tests but nothing diagnosed. I keep on top of it with visits to the physio. Sometimes it is very sore and i struggle to sleep so my mood is low. If it isn't too sore and I sleep well my mood is good. Last time i went to the GP all she focussed on was my mood and she prescribed anti depressants. I don't want any depressants. I want my hip not to hurt and to sleep well! I am no further forward with the hip pain.

Welcome to chronic illness! Unfortunately, this will be a recurring theme.

There was an excellent article in The Guardian about this a few days ago. Basically medicine is inherently misogynist and women's concerns are routinely dismissed. It's unacceptable.

Totally feel you on this. When i was suffering from a set of symptoms for years, id had a test for something that came back within normal range. I asked the gp what the reference range used was, as i was aware there'd been a recent NICE recommendation to lower the range fairly substantially. He looked at me and announced 'you seem disappointed, its like you want to have something wrong with you'. I was fuming, and couldnt on the spot explain that there already was in fact something wrong with me and i just wanted a name for it!

Later went private with specialist in the area and got the diagnosis for what id suspected all along and the gp had assured me it wasnt.

My mum was fobbed off repeatedly by her male GP when she went with some worrying symptoms. He told her on numerous occasions over several years that she was stressed and anxious and to try practicing mindfulness. Nope, she’s got Parkinson’s as both me and my sister suspected. All the classic signs. Had she been taken seriously in the first place the disease would be nowhere near as advanced as it is.

I wanted to make a formal complaint about the GP but mum won’t let me.

That's exactly how I feel. I was doing just fine before getting sick. Sure, my mood is a bit all over the place and I'm frustrated and angry, but I'm in pain every day, too dizzy or fatigued to do more than the bare minimum each day. My "life" is very restricted by this to the point that it's really little more than existing. I'd be surprised if anyone in this position wasn't a bit depressed quite honestly.

It's not just the NHS. I'm in Ireland and get the same kind of stuff every gp visit.

I was fit and healthy with normal BP, cholesterol, relatively pain free, held down a full time job, 2+ hour daily commute, kids, husband and all that family life entails etc etc until I caught covid.

Now finally being seen in the long covid clinic but it wasn't until I had tried hrt, antidepressants, cbt etc etc that they decided to refer me. 8+ month waitlist for neurological appointment, sleep clinic, cardiology etc, but closer than I was for the last 3 years.

Yanbu

there is a brilliant book called ‘Unwell Women’ by Elinor Cleghorn about the interplay between women’s illness and the male world of medicine. Fascinating and enlightening.

Hope you feel better soon

There is definitely medical misogyny. It makes me very angry. Today I read an article on BBC news about a 23 year old girl called Carla Naoum who has very severe ME/CFS. She's completely bedbound, unable to eat, light sensitive, in extreme pain. She's in hospital currently and the doctors are treating it as psychological, she has a psychiatrist telling her she needs to "calm down" and "stop screaming" and they took away her pain meds and refused to turn the lights off

Her dad in the article says she's screaming because she's in pain and he's scared she's going to die

Now tell me a 50 year old man who went into hospital with the same symptoms would be treated like that...

My daughter (early 20s) begged her GP/NHS 24 to take her symptoms seriously during the first lockdown and was told it was mental health issues because she had been on anti depressants as a teen. She had Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension and very nearly lost her sight permanently. She was eventually diagnosed at an opthalmology appointment she had to beg for over the phone. She was literally going blind due to the pressure on her optical nerves and nobody would believe her. Healthcare provision for women can be abysmal in this country

Oh doctors all seem to be useless condescending buggers these days. One of these days I'm not going to cower under the power imbalance and I'll actually answer back to their ridiculous gaslighting!

Yanbu. Woman are treated so badly in the NHS and it's so deeply embedded in their culture that it will never change.

I recently made a similar post under another name. I've had multiple appointments with my GP since the start of the year for lower back pain.

I keep telling them it's coming from inside where the organs are and they keep telling me it's 'muscular'. After 7 or 8 appointments, they have decided to prescribe me antidepressants and told me to loose weight, instead of listening to me and finding out the cause.

Surprise, surprise. Yesterday I pissed out a 1-2mm kidney stone!!! The pain is now gone and I feel normal again. It turns out the meds I take, make me a higher risk of developing them.

If they had listened to me instead of treating me like a hypochondriac, I might not have suffered for 7 long months! I am livid.

For me it causes difficulty standing or walking. As soon as I stand up I get an adrenaline rush in my chest, and my heart races, I get shortness of breath and tight chest. I also get lightheaded, and have very poor stamina/exercise tolerance. And I get the classic blood pooling - where your legs, feet and hands go blotchy or purple with standing.

The way to test for POTs is to lay down and check your resting heart rate. If when you stand up your heart rate jumps by 30 or more within 10 mins, and stays that way for an extended period, that is a sign of POTs. Easy to track with a smart watch. Mine will sometimes jump 60 or 70. My GP tested me and my heart was going 148 just standing there after like 3-4 mins. It's a horrible condition.

I also have a lot of fatigue and stomach issues, but it's hard to know if that's related to POTs or my Hashimoto's.

I hope you figure it out!

Hi, nurse here. I can understand you being annoyed but there is so much evidence now about how the mind, mental state, stress etc affects the body. In so many previously unrecognised ways. They aren't the separate systems that they were once thought to be. So your GP could well be on to something. I hope you feel better soon 💕

my GP once put down my child’s symptoms to my anxiety !!! I had to keep going back and begging for help. In the end they said ‘ok we will do the tests you are requesting but we aren’t happy as it’s for you benefit to alleviate anxiety’ … we were then at a and e less than an hour later. It was mother’s intuition not anxiety