Bigger ladies, do you try to avoid going to the GP?

[sprinkleyumnut]

I'm a bigger lady, and losing weight slowly but surely. I don't go to the doctor unless I need to, because in the past I had a male doctor very bluntly tell me I wouldn't make 50 which greatly upset me. Ever since I don't like going because my weight is brought up. I'm not huge, I'm not morbidly obese, but I am obese. For example if I lost 50lb I would be quite a bit smaller. So I'm not huge but I am self conscious and doing something about it. So my question is bigger ladies do you feel the same about going to the GP?

Thi

They don't fat shame males the same way, from what DD tells me. She's overweight due to depo, it's coming off, but every time she asks for help with an unrelated problem: "you should lose weight". Conversely, my weight directly affects my health (bp and joints), and I get good manners, lifestyle management and exercise advice. This is the the same HA, so it's not a geographical thing.

I need to go about something really but i know I'm very fat and when I've been much much slimmer than i am now i was told i needed to lose weight. So like fuck am i going to go now. I'm fat because of my anti depressants and general comfort eating because of complex ptsd. So until they improve mental health provision and give me some treatment for that I'm going to have to stay fat. But they really don't want to hear that, because it's easier to lecture me on a being a fat cow than it is to give me the treatment i need.

I’m about 10st but at just under 5ft tall that puts me in the overweight category. My GP told me the reason I had palpitations and was breathless all the time was my weight. In fact I was severely anaemic with a ferritin level of 3!

The same practice also told me an ECG and an echocardiogram were the same thing when I asked about a scan to check for a hereditary heart condition so perhaps they are just incompetent rather than sizeist.

@Plonkton

I think you have to remember a doctor is a medical professional qualified to give you advice on how to manage a healthy lifestyle and prolong your life expectancy.. I'm not sure how that can cause you offence.. You've mentioned you're obese, perhaps you just don't want to hear it? Unfortunately a doctor isn't going to lie to you to save your feelings.. I agree some of them can be tactless, but you unfortunately need to suck it up a bit.. It's different if it's a member of the public telling you you're obese etc, but this is a doctor. I wouldn't take offence at being told the truth by my physician if I was obese.

This is all fine, except when you actually ask the doctor for help losing weight (with conditions that cause/affect weight gain) and are just told to join slimming world. Also, I've been to the doctors with symptoms and they then decide because you're fat you must have diabetes/high blood pressure/thyroid issues. When your results come back clear they are shocked and don't actually address the symptoms you came for in the first place, because you can't be fat and ill you know? I've got no problem with them addressing my weight issues but would like to be taken seriously too. My weight isn't the only thing I am, so instead I don't go to the doctors unless I think I am on death's door. No one is saying it's every doctor, of course for every insensitive one there are probably 2 good ones. It's just hard to see them because everyone else wants to see them too!

I'm overweight myself, since the pandemic, and with high BP and raising cholesterol. Do I blame everyone else? No.

Yes I avoid if possible because everything tends to be blamed on my weight, even when it’s not the cause. It’s like doctors can’t help themselves.

It wouldn’t be so irritating if they paused and first asked whether my weight was something that was actually down to personal choice before they embarked on lecturing me on eating less food and doing more exercise, as though I was a halfwit who had just hauled myself off the sofa for the first time in weeks from under a pile of empty McDs packaging and 2L bottles of fat coke.

I was made obese throughout my whole childhood due to my mother’s feeding, when I gained autonomy as a teen I crash dieted and then followed 20 years of yo-yo weight gain due to MH issues and extreme weight loss patterns. There’s very little I don’t know about nutrition and exercise now. I know for a fact that much of the patronising advice today that I am given by doctors will not in fact be effective. I doubt they’ve ever seen it be effective either, but on they parrot.

Even though I have an obese BMI now I don’t eat excessively, eat better than slim peers, and I’m fairly active. My metabolism is just completely fucked from years of abusing it (cf. Why We Eat Too Much book).

As a poster said above, if they offered to help me tackle my issue properly through MH support - I.e. something that addresses the ‘why’ I am fat, not just the ‘how’ I am fat - then they’d be being clinically responsible. Offering anything other than that, they’re just being judgmental, incompetent and lazy.

So fuck them, frankly. I’ll now only go in to the doctor when I’m really, really unwell and will probably cost the NHS loads more than if I had an open, relaxed, and trusting relationship with health practitioners to tackle my illnesses early and proactively.

@BareBelliedSneetch

After a GP told me it was my fault I had tonsillitis because I was fat, I actively avoid them

I'm with you here. I once got told by a consultant that I had conjunctivitis because I was fat, despite telling him I could tell him the exact moment I poked myself in the eye and my eye got irritated...

I’m 3 stone overweight and it’s never been mentioned.

I've list a lot of weight due to a gastric bypass and now medical practitioners take me more seriously, don't talk down to me as much and offer more support. It's like they think my IQ and 'worth' went up when my weight went down.

However they spent 20 years telling me that a chronic and painful skin condition would get much better if I lost weight, it didn't. If anything it got worse.

@Pandoracharm

Yes if I went to my doctors with a broken arm would be because of my weight! Had a doctor tell me before I didn't have high blood pressure, had fat arms (machine was too tight!) Had a nurse say about my weight before which is OK but she was twice my size, had a Mars bar wrapper in her bin! Have blood tests I don't have high cholesterol or diabetes think nurse was in shock!

Using a cuff thats too small can result in a higher BP reading, not 'fat arms'.

So a nurse thats bigger than you cant comment on your weight? Regardless of her own struggles?? I think your judgemental and shortsighted here

I don't as I have a good GP and I'm having weigh loss surgery later this month. If I'm honest my weight does effect my health in some small ways which could get worse if unchecked.

But and this is a big but, it doesn't effect me that much and there are definitely things GPs have said will be helped by losing weight which are unrelated and I've had issues with before I was fat. I also only recently experienced health issues with a few stone of weight gain, related to some health issues. Before this I sat at a few stone over my ideal weight for years and could be quite active and had no health issues. Yet was still told to lose weight.

For example heavy periods, they've pretty much always been awful. Or a tendon injury in my wrist. So I totally get it op.

I also think there's quite a variation in how weight impacts on health. I think you can be bigger and active and quite healthy but Dr's assume all fat people are lazy. But don't think about slimmer people potentially having and awful diet and doing no exercise.

But going back to your original point I have definitely been put off going in the past and have experience of being ignored about health issues due to my weight. Eg I have an underactive thyroid and was exhausted prior to diagnosis. I was obviously told I was knackered because I was fat, I got diagnosed and medicated and felt way better so it was actually a long term medical condition not my fat.

I am quite old now but from the time I was 18 my weight has fluctuated between about 10 and 20 stone, sometimes I have been comfort eating, sometimes I have made a determined effort to lose weight. In all that time ( not quite 40 years) if I have been to the doctor between March and September I have been told anything wrong with me is because of my extremely bad hayfever. From September until March anything wrong with me is because of my weight. I do now finally have an absolutely lovely young doctor. She is empathetic, actually listens to what I tell her and speaks to me like I am a person and not an inconvenience. She called me on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago as she had some concerns. So If I can get an appointment with her I don't mind going. If not I'd rather avoid.

Never had an issue with weight across the three gp surgeries that I've been to. They've always taken me serious. I did hate going to the one at my uni though cos they always saw I was on the pill and lectured me about safe sex - I was still a virgin at the time and thry never believed me....

Same here. I’m well aware that I’m obese, I’m working on it but it’s a long slow process. Every time I’ve ever been to the dr for anything while overweight I’ve been told it’s because of my weight. No matter what I’ve gone for. So now I don’t go, it’s just easier to deal with whatever is going on by myself.

My GP knows I'm obese. It's in my notes. I have made efforts reduce my weight over 20 years with variable results. At the moment I don't know how heavy I am, I go by what my shape is and if my clothes fit or not.

The GP will bring my weight up every time I'm there. I gave an ear infection...have you thought about losing weight? I need a fit note...have you thought about losing weight? One of my knees hurts when I'm cycling (yes! I do exercise!) and I know my weight is probably a factor, I'm probably going to need some kind of intervention at some point, but I haven't bothered to see the GP about it because he will put it solely down to my weight.

@Plonkton

I think you have to remember a doctor is a medical professional qualified to give you advice on how to manage a healthy lifestyle and prolong your life expectancy.. I'm not sure how that can cause you offence.. You've mentioned you're obese, perhaps you just don't want to hear it? Unfortunately a doctor isn't going to lie to you to save your feelings.. I agree some of them can be tactless, but you unfortunately need to suck it up a bit.. It's different if it's a member of the public telling you you're obese etc, but this is a doctor. I wouldn't take offence at being told the truth by my physician if I was obese.

It isnt quite as simple as that.

Fat people already know it is unhealthy they dont need a tactless dr humilating them pointing out the obvious in a tone that suggests it is the patients fault, or taking their weight and just recording it with an awkward silence to show their disgust, which is what normally happens. They need a Dr that recognises it is possibly a symptom of something else that they are too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about and asks them if they can help and tell them what help is available.

They wouldnt tell a depressed person to just be happy, or someone with ptsd to just forget about their trauma, someone with anorexia to just eat, so why do fat people not get the support they need?

Fat people already know it is unhealthy they dont need a tactless dr humilating them pointing out the obvious in a tone that suggests it is the patients fault, or taking their weight and just recording it with an awkward silence to show their disgust, which is what normally happens. They need a Dr that recognises it is possibly a symptom of something else that they are too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about and asks them if they can help and tell them what help is available.

They wouldnt tell a depressed person to just be happy, or someone with ptsd to just forget about their trauma, someone with anorexia to just eat, so why do fat people not get the support they need?

This is so true. I am autistic and struggle with my weight. I need someone to recognise my weight is a problem I can't manage, because like lots of other pasty of my life - I can't manage. I know the theory about losing weight. I'm autistic. I have extensively and obsessively researched it. What I don't know is how to take care of myself. I was diagnosed as an adult and I can't help but wonder why nobody thought to look for a cause.

No. I'm in the obese category and I go to the doctor when I need to. If they mention my weight that's OK. I accept it just like I'd accept them talking about any other health issue . I'm certainly not going to let my health deteriorate , and not get any treatment, because I'm offended by their comments.

The last time I went for a small Gynae procedure the Nurse ( who wasn't exactly slim herself) told me "time to go on a diet". I was mortified and ended up crying a bit. She made out she thought I had got tearful due to the procedure. I was already hugely anxious about the procedure, then to be lying there in a horrendous position thinking staff would be tittering about how huge I was was just mortifying.

I'm obese and a doctor.

I was fucking livid when I was told I had to change pill because I was too old and fat - not what he said but absolutely what I heard - but in reality I'd been told a medical fact, I did have to change. And I actually liked the new pill better

I'm sensible enough to know that all my health problems would probably be better if I lost weight but also that losing weight is hard and not just a matter of willpower.

So I'll go to my GP when I need to and if they tell me losing weight would help, which they do, we both know it's true and we both know it's bloody unlikely to happen.

I young GP recently decided to put me on weight watchers or slimming world ( I was there for a completely different reason) and I told her I have mental health issues that need sorting to address my weight. She then proceeded to tell me that WW and SW do address the reasons for overeating. Never realised either of those two could do more than the tree years of private psychotherapy did for me. Not. She obviously had no clue and no life experience.

I'm not ashamed of my weight. My life has been a struggle and I'm glad to still be here. If one of those doctors had walked in my shoes I'd very much doubt they'd come out the other side unscathed. I just accept that they don't know a fuck about childhood abuse and its consequences.

My sil gets a lecture on her weight every time from the GP but no help with the thyroid issues causing it because her numbers are under some magic threshold. But the low energy, weight gain and depression are all put down to her being fat and lazy.

My db was on the lower end of obesity and medicated for heartburn and a persistent cough, and mildly encouraged to consider taking up exercise. He lost the weight and those medical issues and others cleared up.

It’s frustrating and there does seem to be an element of sexism. DB was annoyed that no one told him that his weight could be causing those issues. My sil on the other hand needs medication to treat the problem underlying the weight gain.

When I was several stone overweight I refused smear test invitations

Back to the point earlier, a doctor isn't going to lie to you to spare your feelings. He or she is qualified to give you medical advice.. I'm not sure why anyone would refuse to go to the toilet... Not being at all funny here, but if you don't want to hear you're obese then why not try and do something about it?