I was told was told my stomach ulcer was psychological, how about you?

[Kay00]

In response to this article in the guardian, what conditions have you been told by a doctor or medical professional with psychosomatic or psychological?

For fun-ish 🙃

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/oct/13/women-autoimmune-conditions-psychological-misdiagnosis-cambridge-study

Former hospital doctor here. The gap between male and female patients being believed is real. And not just male doctors, but female doctors and female nurses guilty of this too.

I’ve said this before on mumsnet but at medical school whenever there was an exam scenario and you read that the ‘patient’ is a young woman you can pretty much skip straight to the answer - gynae or psych. This was in the 2010’s in London so I’m not talking about a long time ago.

My own autistic child was vomiting daily for 7 weeks a year ago. I had taken him to ED twice and GP several times trying to figure out what was going on. The GP looked at me in the eye and said “the ill person in the room here is you”. She then asked me to leave the room whilst she talked to my husband about my mental health and her concerns. My son was then admitted to hospital and an xray showed he was in bowel obstruction , had to have a NG tube and a week in hospital.

Funnily enough GP and I haven’t seen each other since, I think she put a note on the system not to see our family as she must be mortified.

sorry for rant 🤡

What treatment did he prescribe?

I was repeqtedly told pregnancy "does funny things to women" when I started having pain dizziness and rapid heart racing and that it was normal and "the baby was fine".

A year later I ended up at 5m pregnant with a HR of 215 (yes its possible) in a&e.
I explained to triage I was pregnant and unwell. They told me it wasnt my turn and to sit down.
I explained IF they triaged me I'd need to be seen immediately as my HR is well over 200 and got a " thats not possible. sit down. You cannot jump the queue"
So i sat down and fainted and I checked my records and it was 215!!!!

They took blood told me I was fine and i could leave.i said i wouldnt leave without a referal to cardiology. I was told i was "being difficult" but they'd give me one to 'reassure me i was fine"

Cardiology told me my heart looked "within normal ranges" and wouldnt give me a 24 let alone 72hr halter (which i requested) because they "ran out". I looked them square in the face and said I wanted that refusal in writing on my notes so if anything happens to my baby I can sue.
5 minutes later they produced a halter.

Turns out while the "plumbing" of my heart is fine.... but the "electrics" were fucked.

It cost close to 100k privately to resolve over 12m. Happily i had private and was able to access 2 top surgeons.
I had multiple undiagnosed heart issues and ended up having 3 heart surgeries within a year. The last one was 4.5 hrs.
I had 2 cardiologists and both did case studies at symposiums about the my case.

Mine’s a stomach ulcer one too. My GP referred me because I had pain bad enough it was waking ne up in the night and was worse on empty stomach. Consultant was frustrated I was there and said it was a wasted appointment and I should never have been referred. She ended up doing the endoscopy thankfully and found several bleeding patches and ulceration plus my oesophagus was ulcerated too from hiatus hernia. No apology.

oh and gynae too. Not a pain one but had an internal vaginal cyst in the side wall. Intially too small to need treatment but got bigger. So got referred again. But referral letter had gone missing so I had to explain why I was there. Doctor refused to accept it was a cyst and said it would be a prolapse. And asked me how I felt about having a prolapse. I said that was hard to answer given I knew it was a cyst. Got to internal exam and of course a cyst. She kept getting me to cough. She was clearly desperately trying to find a prolapse too. My notes from that meeting disappeared too. My friends always joke that she burnt them as I’m pretty sure she’d written in the file that I wouldn’t accept I had a prolapse.

Awful stuff and yes worse for women. But I knew a 40 year old man who was repeatedly told his pain and rectal bleeding were due to lifestyle choices until he was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer and died the same year.

Fucking wanker doctor. Did you feel up to making a formal complaint about that? I'm so sorry, the utter shit show.

My mum was told that her massive tennis ball sized brain tumour was depression. For two years

Yes. Told my symptoms were psychological and discharged from hospital multiple times before my mum went into full battle axe mode and insisted the doctors did an endoscopy - turned out I had a really nasty duodenal ulcer

How are you doing now @FountainCourted ?

I was told my clear MS symptoms were "anxiety" for 8 years. Also Carpel tunnel. I had to go private in the end.

My gall stones were anxiety and my blocked bile duct was a pulled muscle in my shoulder. Then I saw another GP who pointed out to me I was yellow and needed to go immediately to hospital.

I went in with what I thought was an ulcer and came out with endometriosis/endometrial cyst. Was taken very seriously fortunately, checked for ovarian cancer first (which it might have been).

And spent twenty years going to doctors on and off and being told my symptoms were down to stress /psychological only to eventually be diagnosed with Myasthenia! And it is clear from photos that I would have had the telltale sign of ptosis each time I went to the Dr.

Twenty years! It cost me a job I had worked very hard to get. It meant the early years of parenthood were tainted by shame that I found things hard that others did without thinking (cradling the baby for long periods etc)

Mine is not so terrible but I went to the GP after I gained over half a stone in less than a month without any changes in my diet or exercise regime. I swam 3 hours a week, was on a calorie controlled diet and up to that point had lost 3 stone over the course of a year. I knew I had a borderline underactive thyroid so suggested to the GP this might be the issue. She looked at me with disdain and told me all about her ‘chubby’ friend who swam regularly so it was probably my diet causing it. I pushed back and told her firmly I didn’t believe this was the case as I recorded all my meals as I was on a calorie controlled diet. She sighed and said she would get a blood test organised.
A week later I’m sat in front of her again having been called back on receipt of my results. Turns out my TSH level was crazy high (97) and she just giggled and said, ‘You were right after all.’ I felt so much rage in that moment but I managed to hold it together. A few days later I walked past the practice as she was leaving. She reversed out of the drive taking out about 5 flower pots in the process. I felt vindicated in my belief that she was a lousy person. She left the practice soon after.

I was told my nine year old had a bit of gastritis despite my concerns. A few days later it was discovered he had a ruptured appendix and needed emergency surgery! I was a student nurse at the time and had just done a critical care module so was able to recognise the signs of sepsis, otherwise I'm told it could have been a very bad outcome!

I just think that if you give someone, anyone, a special power where they get to diagnose other people with "anxiety" and it means you can ignore everything they say, of course many people will use that power.

You're busy, you're tired, so tired, you're being hassled by your manager to stop spending so much money on this test or that scan. The NHS is on its knees, your team is saying. Just press the anxiety button and this problem will be solved, for you. And they probably won't die. You don't need any evidence - it's completely on your word. You have the magic power of seeing auras anxiety and nobody can overrule you.

There's a million reasons to do it and hardly any not to. So it will happen again and again. It's like water under pressure - it will always flow out where there's a weak spot.

I was told all my classic lymphoma symptoms were anxiety. They werent, they were lymphoma.

My Mum was told for two years by her make GP that her chest pain and shortness of breath was caused by a pulled muscle. Told her she could have a chest x ray if it would make her feel better. Told her she was fine after the x ray. She had a fall and ended up in A & E. The GP had never looked at her chest x ray which showed advanced lung cancer and fluid on the lungs. By the time this happened, it was too late to do anything to help her and she died six weeks later.

Several years earlier, the same GP had told my Mum that there was nothing wrong with my Dad, but to “shut her up” he would run some blood tests. Two hours later he was blue lighted to hospital due to dangerously high levels of calcium in his blood. Terminal cancer, and he died two weeks later. Thankfully the GP has now retired.

Also, all the GPs I saw who dismissed my symptoms over the decades as depression/anxiety /lifestyle will never find out they were wrong and it was Myasthenia. So to them I am just another anxious patient they saw.

Same with the duodenal ulcer. We went to a different hospital the final time, so although that doctor will have learnt that his initial conclusion I was anxious was wrong and it was a duodenal ulcer, all the other doctors who saw me and dismissed me will never learn how wrong they were

Maybe we need a system to ensure everyone who has dismissed a patients symptoms is updated once they get a diagnosis . Maybe then they would start to reflect more before defaulting to seeing any female ailments as most probably psychological

Just to post again,

Both DH and I are doctors. I imagine I get taken significantly more seriously than the average woman BUT he still gets taken far more seriously than me when our kids are unwell. So he exclusively takes the kids to the GP/hospital now. Our autistic son has medical issues so we have quite a few appointments and my DH’s loud posh man voice tends to be believed more than me

I have been told I have a very dangerous pregnancy problem- risk of umbilical cord prolapse, which means serious risk to the baby. It has made me very anxious about going into labour not at the hospital (have to have planned section).
When I tried to discuss my concerns with midwife, she focused on my “anxiety” and how I shouldn’t be so worried- after doctor basically telling me this is very very serious and not to take any change in symptoms lightly. It really upset me that my valid, fact based concerns about a very serious pregnancy complication are being dismissed because I do have a history of anxiety.

FFS

Ah yes the grumbling appendix, it took 30 years for mine to be removed.
Three hospitals admissions and various doctor visits.

"If she was a boy we'd be taking it out now, but, you know..."

They actually x-rayed me to check I hadn't swallowed razer blades for attention.

Aneurysm properly diagnosed by the GP. Misdiagnosed three times in hospital as migraines

@badbunnysadbunny presumably, as a professional you complained, if a doctor doesn't formally call out this level of incompetence, who can successfully.

The Guardian article was resonant and I had no idea.

A lifetime ago, in my 20s, I just wasn't right. I was constantly tired but couldn't rest and lost weight without having to diet. I was a high energy person doing a demanding job and managed my lifestyle well to keep up with 7.30am starts and 7.30pm finishes. With hindsight, I ran warm, was tired but wired, sometimes felt a little shaky without a snack, my periods were scant and could have gaps of 60 days, and my fuse (well controlled) was shortening.

1st GP apt, gave me a blood test for iron levels.

2nd GP apt, he told me to think about and modify my lifestyle.

And so it went on until my lower legs started swelling with severe pitting oedema. I went to see the company physician privately who listened, took note of symptoms and ran full bloods.

They phoned me the next day to advise they had made me an emergency apppintment with a hospital based endocrinologist because my thyroid was through the roof and they were concerned there may be an impact on my heart.

Severe Graves disease and I lived with it for two bloody years.

I've never trusted a GP again.