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

Thank you @RhiannonEMumsnet. I'd also like to raise the profile of Healthwatch. It would be good if all new issues were reported and formal complaints made. Healthwatch helps with this and they can help advocate.

It's really important that patients complain. Health Services will not improve unless we do.

I don’t have neutropenia as my neutrophils were normal that day
I don’t have autoimmune neutropenia as it’s a kids disease I must have misheard
painful periods are normal
my ankle isn’t broken as I was walking on it
they can’t do anything for endometriosis if I don’t want the pill and no they won’t refer me

Oh and my endo that they couldn’t do anything for caused me a decade later to spend 18 months on morphine and needing an 8.5hr surgery as my bowel was folded in half
still, painful periods are normal right

I suffered with pain on and off since I was a child, and after having a baby I had another push at getting diagnosed. I was seeing a lovely NHS physio who, after a few sessions getting nowhere, asked a senior physio to pop in and give his opinion.

He started pulling my legs around, loudly declaring over and over again that it's all in my head, laughing at one point, shrugging at the younger bloke who had been treating me (who looked horrified) while I sat on the bed and cried. I felt so small and disregarded I didn't make a complaint, which really bugs me. I wish I had. It turns out I've had arthritis the entire time. It was finally a new female doctor back at the GP surgery who asked why on earth no-one had ever sent me to rheumatology, and there I was finally diagnosed.

My son caught a serious stomach bug in Egypt, which has left him with a gluten and dairy intolerance. The NHS advised food diary. I did and it was very obvious what the culprits were. Cut them both out and he’s been much better.

I returned to the doctor to let them know (and because DS (then 12) had missed quite a lot of school in the interim, I didn’t think it would hurt to have it documented). They told me I’d need to do several months of food diaries and have it reviewed by a dietician before they’d do any testing and then ultimately diagnose. In the interim DS should continue to eat everything as normal.

The doctor told me it was likely that I was anxious, this was rubbing off on DS and that’s why he was projectile vomiting and spending 4-6 hours a night on the toilet. She also told me she didn’t believe he’d lost weight as I said as his last weight, taken when he was 8, was significantly lower than his weight at 12. No shit Sherlock, he’s also over a foot taller!

What a silly anxious woman I am.

That I should put some cabbage leaves and a warm compress on my breast, just 3 hours before I was hospitalised with sepsis as a result of mastitis, spending a delightful 2 weeks in intensive care, while my newborn baby was cared for at home.

@MittensTheKittens They would rather believe you’d swallowed razor blades….. for attention. Rather than legitimate medical issue that’s fairly common?

My baby is a teenager now but...
I thought I was in labour, but the contractions stopped at dawn.
Every night.
For two weeks.
I was also getting weird whole body cramps.
Midwife said "no no, you're not in labour, go home".
Another several nights until I was due date plus five. Went to hospital.
STUDENT midwife did a check and said "something's not right".
Midwife says "no no, all okay".
Six hours later midwife told me you're about to give birth, quick check. She went very pale, hit the panic button and about ten medics ran into the room to hold me down while they stopped me from pushing my firmly closed uterus out along with my baby.
There seems to be approximately zero research into women's experiences/perceptions of being in labour. It's stunning.

Pneumonia - to be fair my GP sent me straight to hospital suspecting a pulmonary embolism but A&E ignored his letter of recommendation requesting an X-ray and for 7 hours told me it was anxiety and to ‘breathe normally’ or else they would put a big needle into my artery to get an accurate oxygen reading (O suspect the wording was to scare me into acting normal). My temp was 104 but my other SATS were normal. It took 7 weeks of treatment (and a stay in the hospital) before I was remotely better. I also got told I was silly when I said that I felt my waters had broken with my first baby. I ended up with maternal sepsis and both me and my child almost died as a result.

I'm so so sorry to hear of all you other womens shoddy treatment. MNHQ I have signed the petition, I'm just waiting for the confirmation email to come through.
My other ignored by doctors story is my periods stopped for over 8 months when I was 42. The doctor said it was menopause. Then they came back with a vegence. I could literally put a maxi pad on, stand up and flood. I kept mentioning it to various doctors and one even laughed at me and said, "Well, you're not in menopause are you?!" I tried mentioning it one last time to a final doctor and they asked me a few questions. I remember one of them was have you recently lost weight unintentionally? I had lost over a stone. I was put on the two week pathway...turns out it was womb cancer.

Wow, so many of your responses are truly harrowing. And it really highlights some problems we have in the NHS particularly around diagnosing women.

I didn't start this post to bash the NHS, they truly do an amazing job, but experiences like this should be learnt from.

I had another one where after two years of asking I finally got a scan and colonoscopy for relentless abdominal pain.

The kind lady doing the scan said the likelihood is I have endo, and can see a ton of fibroids. The colonoscopy showed kinks where my bowel was essentially fused to the inside of my stomach.

Neither of these findings were linked, because there was “no immediate treatment” needed I just….get to live in pain.

When getting the results that basically said I’m fine - the nurse who shared them with me shrugged. There’s loads of surgical options (which I would take) but “they don’t like to do that unless it’s affecting your quality of life”.

Oh because endless pain and a fused bowel mixed with heavy bleeding - doesn’t affect me?

Guarantee a man would be on the operating table within six months for a fix up.

This isnt medical.

We tried to raise concerns over DDs development when she was in preschool. Lack of speech, cloosing down in busy places, noise sensitivity...

Diagnosis: over anxious mother.

Moved before Reception started. After a week of Reception, wss called into school... because they had the exact same concerns. They were shocked at the previous diagnosis, and had already got plans in place for support.

I was told I had PND and liked to make things up when I persistently complained about my new born baby’s panting. Went on for ten days and her heart condition was missed by five medical professionals by which point she was seriously ill. Even then her treatment and care was horrific and things missed

same kid has had anorexia and self harm and I’m told I need to let go of control and trust experts who then tell me she isn’t entitled to help as her life isn’t at risk

GP ordered me out his waiting room as he said he wouldn’t see her when relapsing with not eating until lost enough weight

numerous other fucks up including missing my post partum retained placenta - “you would feel very ill and being told I couldn’t be in labour as my waters breaking was probably urine

i loathe medical staff and the fucking NHS. Loathe them. I never ever go myself and haven’t seen a doctor in a decade

My cancer was anxiety. My gallbladder attacks were anxiety.

basically got the “hysterical woman” treatment

I did forget to add to my post that I was offered talking therapy for my migraines after nothing they gave me worked

This thread should be compulsory reading for any Doctor/nurse in training

I was told my shingles was “stress” and to do some breathing exercises

I was told I was being an over anxious mum when I suggested the bleeding my 12 year old daughter had been experiencing for three weeks ( combined with severe pain vomiting) may be coming from her rectum and not a period as the A&E doctor thought. We had been sent directly to A&E by our GP.

They refused to examine her as they said it would be too intrusive.

They told me a blood test confirmed she was having a first period - she wasn't and didn't actually start her periods for another 8 months.

One week later she was sent back to hospital again by our GP and she collapsed in a pool of blood and vomit in the toilets and was found unconscious when I raised an alarm and the nurses got the door open.

She then went into a crash type situation with 5 doctors working on her.

Once she had been stabilised a doctor asked me if I had realised how dangerously ill she had been!

Turned out to be IBD and she has been on infusion treatment now for 6 years.

I wonder if she would have been treated better if my DH had taken her.

If any of my children need to go to A&E my husband usually takes them for precisely this reason. He’s far less likely to be treated as a hysterical, over anxious parent.
Which reminds me, I did once take my asthmatic daughter in for breathing issues, when she was 9. The triage nurse said it sounded like she was putting it on, and had she tried just breathing normally? Once we got to the waiting room another nurse walked past us and rushed us straight in to the Dr as she said she could quite clearly hear that my daughter was in severe respiratory distress.
So even 9 year old girls are being treated as being hysterical and over dramatic!

Edited to add: I’ve replied to the wrong post! But I do agree with what you have said.

My Ankylosing Spondylitis took 24 years to diagnose. After 16 years of pushing for treatment, with no confirmed diagnosis they put my neck in traction. Turns out this actually could have killed me because AS is autoimmune inflammatory disease in which bones fuse together and don’t bend 🤦🏻‍♀️

The irony is that AS is degenerative and my weekly injection for life costs the NHS £700 a week, I have MRIs annually for life, have rheumatology appointments quarterly, physio appointments six monthly, and am having surgery soon for a linked condition. I also now the higher elements in both components of PIP.

This could have all been so easily prevented had I been heard when I raised it at the age I did.