AIBU to ask what you’ve had to do to get a doctor to take your pain or symptoms seriously?

Took my wheezing, feverish 1 year old to A&E. Told them he could never keep down Calpol or any other oral liquid medicine, it ALWAYS made him projectile vomit immediately. He needed paracetamol to bring the fever down. They absolutely refused to believe me that it would make him sick, and insisted on giving him Calpol style paracetamol as a liquid. He immediately projectile vomited over the nurse who administered it. She had to go and get changed. I did tell them, but who believes a young mum?

Just to add, and I wonder if any other doctors here will recall the same, but at medical school whenever a question started off as “24 year old female patient…” you could bet your arse the answer would be either obstetrics/gynae or mental health. ALWAYS. This was at my London uni but also on National questionbase PASSTEST in 2011-2016.

I had to almost die.

I went to A&E twice with incredible pain. Twice they sent me away dismissing it as period pain, even though I knew it wasn’t.

My friend dragged me back for a third time and it was during that visit that my ectopic pregnancy ruptured. I had to have emergency surgery, and lost a fallopian tube and ovary, all because the doctor wouldn’t take my pain seriously.

I would add that female GPs are no better, often worse, as they presume they know how another woman is feeling.

I started symptoms of menopause in my late 30s. GP didn't think it was possible. Eventually had a blood test which confirmed it, and I was done and dusted by 45.

I went with hair loss around my face and general thinning. Same GP said it was my age. After my hairdresser commented, a couple of years later, I had a referral and have lichen planus. If my GP had reacted initially I would have rather more hair.

I started having symptoms of perimenopause when I was about 40, including irregular periods/bleeding and flooding. I had my last periods when I was 58! I saw I don't know how many GPs who all assured me that my symptoms were perfectly normal, including bleeding almost every day for a year and ending up very anaemic. I was referred to a haematologist about the anaemia. He said all my symptoms were caused by 'work-based stress' and refused to treat me.

I now have a heart condition that is not uncommon in older women. It has the potential to cause heart attack or cardiac arrest. My GP surgery ignores it and declines to monitor me, because it is allegedly "the wrong kind of heart disease". As my symptoms have not changed, they will not even refer me back to Cardiology.

The last time I had a cardiac episode, it was worse than usual, did not respond to medication, coukd well have been a heart attack. so we called 999. There were no ambulances available at all in our area, but I bet someone would have turned out for a man in the same situation. Since then I have been trying to get monitored, but haven't managed it yet.

Medical misogyny is alive and well and not going anywhere any time soon.

Watching with interest as I have had a couple of occasions when I have not been taken seriously by the medical profession. Once when I had fractured my ankle and was told I wouldn't be able to walk on it if it was broken,which turned out to be nonsense. On another occasion I had an incarcerated umbilical hernia. Despite having been in severe pain for 12 hours and vomiting repeatedly,I was told I had constipation. It was only when I fainted from the pain in A and E that I was taken seriously, and given a CT scan. Good thing I was as I was told after the operation to repair it that another 12 hours would have probably meant that some of my intestine would have died,meaning a much more complex operation would have been required. Another 24 hours could have been fatal.

My son was vomiting daily for seven (7!) weeks and took him to the GP so many times, often with me in tears. GP said I was the ill person in the room. Said I needed mental health support. Said my son just has IBS. In the end he was admitted to hospital with bowel obstruction. Now I always get my husband to take our kids to the GP.
Note that I myself am a doctor and yet still bloody ignored and thought of as hysterical.

Had to pay to go private. 8 appointments with my NHS GP over the space of 12 weeks with them repeatedly telling me the symptoms were in my head.
Paid for a private gynaecologist and was diagnosed and treated.

What infuriates me the most is the first doctor wrote on my notes that I was very anxious about the condition- and so after that, they just wouldn’t listen to a word I said.
The other infuriating thing is 7 of those appointments could have been used for someone else 🙄🙄

I told them about my pain. Have always been taken seriously by doctors.

The midwife didn't take me seriously though (was 6-7 cm dilated).

It took me years for my perimenopause to be taken seriously. I was at absolute breaking point, trying to hold things together for too long and the effect on my career has been really bad. Within hours of starting my first estrogen patch I felt truly amazing. I was exercising, tidying my house, chatty with everyone, my constant headaches and migraines disappeared.

I could cry at everything me (and my family) have endured. So many lost years.
What finally worked was being 44 years old when asking for HRT, and it being my fifth visit.

I learnt similarly, years ago, to introduce my professional status and possession of several degrees early in the consultation. It usually resulted in my getting a proper conversation about my symptoms, etc.

Twice I’ve led with “this is ruining my sex life” after I’ve initially not be taken seriously. It’s so frustrating that my DH’s sex life being limited is what they seem to care about, and not how life limiting my problems were.

Slightly different but my husband spent 15 minutes begging the 999 call handler to send an ambulance because I was having a heart attack. They had obviously decided I was a silly woman having a panic attack (I was having text book symptoms following initial acute back pain which radiated to jaw, crushing chest pain and down left arm). They insisted that somebody would call me back within 2 hours and meanwhile I should self administer sips of water. Eventually they grudgingly agreed to send a first responder who thankfully was in the area. I was blue lighted to hospital, straight into resus, then straight to angiogram and stent. That call handler could have cost me my life. The nurse on the CCU told me that if I had been a man with those symptoms they would have sent help straight away. We have known for decades that men with cardiac pain are taken more seriously than women.

The worst GP I have ever seen was a woman. I needed a surgical abortion and she was a real bitch about the referral.

The best I've seen was a young male trainee GP - he got me the neurology referral I'd been begging for for years.

Went privately, had to see 5 different private doctors before I got help. Cost me thousands.

Thanks for doing this. It is such a serious issue with potentially deadly consequences for women. I'm really glad you're highlighting it. I've had all the depressingly common experience of awful maternity and post natal care that we are somehow conditioned to just accept (if I was crowning in the carpark of Watford General I'd crawl to the next hospital rather than give birth there again) but it's my experience with chronic illness that sticks in my mind the most.

I have a neurological disease called Chiari Malformation and syringomyelia and a VP shunt in my brain due to a blockage of CSF that caused high brain pressure. When I was in hospital the last time, a male orderly taking my blood pressure said 'women have too many rights'. I told him to leave my room and he refused to go. I complained and didn't hear anything further.

The same hospital never sent MRI results etc to my GP.

One of the (many) symptoms I have is really severe headaches due to increased pressure. I asked my male GP for help as it was at one stage impacting my life to such an extent that I was going mad. The GP told me to download a mindfulness app and was so dismissive that I cried for hours, mostly with frustration and rage.

I now see female doctors where possible and it's a big improvement when it comes to being listened to and not treated like a nuisance. But overall it's my belief that misogyny is deeply embedded into the medical profession, especially in surgery.

I had a history of blood clots in my leg and it felt like I had another one. Doctor measured both legs, 1 was only 1cm bigger than the other so he decided the difference wasn't enough for it to be a clot so sent me home with the diagnosis of a probable invisible varicose vein . Further pain had another doctor sending me straight to A&E 2 days later, 2 clots found.

Also had a doctor tell me the strange taste at the back of my throat (that was happening a few seconds before one half of my face went tingly) was probably just a cold, as she couldn't see what else it could be. I had to get a private neuro referral - it turned out I was having seizures, caused by a bleeding brain. (Was in surgery hours later).

The gp who prescribed me an inappropriate birth control pill (I found out subsequently that she had put me on one as my first pill that you should never give anyone as their first pill) refused to concede there was anything wrong with me when it started to poison me. I was off school, exhausted, hadn't picked up after a bad cold weeks before and was listless. She implied to my mum - in front of me- I was probably just making it up to be sent home and get out of doing any work for my A-levels. Luckily I was a weekly boarder so we called the school and their GP took it seriously and found my liver was seriously out of whack.

I have GAD and dread going in for anything now because it's a golden ticket excuse to explain away anything bar visibly hanging off limbs. Need to book an apt soon to discuss possible endo and I'm taking my husband so that he can describe the flooding, the monster clots, the exhaustion and how much pain he is able to see I am in - and prove it's not just all in my head.

Same

I was basically told my symptoms were in my head. I had blood in my stools but was told it was just haemorrhoids. The blood was dark and actually in them. My husband had recently died of cancer which the consultant mentioned and he thought I was imagining my symptoms. Sent me for a colonoscopy "to put my mind at rest but there's nothing wrong with you". I had a polyp which a different consultant told me was one stage away from turning cancerous.

I have chronic migraine. I was sent away by a GP with a recommendation to take mini aspirin daily and stick to 6 triptans a month - which meant I could only treat 6 attacks out of over 20 a month. He wasn't listening.

I printed out an A4 diary for size month and colour coded in highlighter pen the good days (no attack), medium days (attack, but I can function ie work) and bad days (attack where I can't function or work) and took it to my next appointment a month later.

He looked through it, was visibly shocked and said "but that's more days of attacks than not". Yes says I, I've been telling you this for months and asking for help.

Finally got some preventative meds!

I have severe endometriosis, it took years to be taken seriously about the pain. It was a real battle. I finally ended up under a specialist centre who found it quite hard to manage as it was so aggressive. Was under pain team and waiting to see them again as pain unmanageable. Specialist centre well aware what pain killers I was taking (codeine and tramadol etc). Asked for appointment at GP to also discuss pain management. GP suddenly decided not to prescribe painkillers for me as I was ‘taking too much’ so just stopped it dead. I wasn’t taking more than was prescribed and they were well aware that I was under the pain team and the specialists. Sorry I know it isn’t quite what the question was but it makes me so cross. It really was an absolute battle to be taken seriously (another story). I ended up infertile. Makes me sad and angry. I also weaned myself off those painkillers and amitryptiline when pain was better, I didn’t want to take painkillers I was just trying to carry on working and cope with the pain as best as I could

A friend has very veeeeeery bad migraines.

Many neurology referrals etc, nobody took her seriously for years and one doctor remarked that as she replied 10/10 when asked how bad the pain score was out of ten it can’t be that bad becaue most people reply 12/10 if it’s really bad!

She is a maths teacher. She is fundamentally unable to utter the phrase ‘12/10’ :-)

I had to go private.