Aibu to ask you to tell me your experiences of being dismissed by medics as a sick woman? I promise to listen

[Graphista]

WOMEN NOT LISTENED TO BY DRS

I was thinking of maybe posting this in FWR, or health - but I've chosen to post it here because I think it's important and it affects ALL women not just those of us with a particular interest in FWR or healthcare.

It affects us, our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces... ALL of us and I think it's a scandal it's not major news.

I've posted before about research I was shocked to read which said that women take 3-4 times LONGER to get a dx (including for non-specifically women's illness) than it takes for a man.

Due to discussion on another thread where @Helenadove kindly posted a link, I ended up doing some more reading - and I've barely touched the sides I fear!!

I really strongly feel this is an important issue that's being ignored.

www.the-pool.com/health/health/2018/43/Selma-Blair-multiple-sclerosis-diagnosis-MS-Instagram?fbclid=IwAR0kyme8FylvAYrpY3BNRi-ZCO4UJN5nzLMElYA9xQFcPJy3HMbl7QYCZHM

"Unconscious and conscious bias work together, to ensure that women's health complaints are minimised, ignored, trivialised and belittled. Female patients are told they're hysterical, hypochondriac, anxious or paranoid - that it is all in their head" - X 1000 if you have a mh dx!!

They even coin a term for it "healthcare gaslighting".

Venus Williams pnd pre-eclampsia and burst c section, blood clot

www.the-pool.com/people/women-we-love/2018/32/beyonce-and-serena-williams-show-vulnerability-in-vogue-cover-and-instagram-post

"As is so often the case for women experiencing pain, both the nurse and doctor dismissed her claims"

www.the-pool.com/news-views/latest-news/2018/7/Lily-Peschardt-on-Lena-Dunham-hysterectomy

Such attitudes are KILLING us:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/31/mother-died-paramedics-accused-faking-symptoms-attention-inquest/

Coroner: "Gross failure to provide basic medical care"

I'm allergic to the same medication.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/how-sexist-stereotypes-mean-doctors-ignore-womens-pain-a7157931.html

"women are more likely to be given sedatives as treatment, instead of pain-relieving drugs"

And apparently it's the one time being good looking works against you:

"doctors subconsciously assume people who look ‘better’ on the outside, are healthier and subsequently require less treatment."

www.independent.co.uk/voices/period-pain-is-officially-as-bad-as-a-heart-attack-so-why-have-doctors-ignored-it-the-answer-is-a6883831.html

Shocking!

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/

I've had ovarian torsion too. Incredibly painful, worse than endo or labour and frightening because one second you're fine then next in a heap in agony! I was lucky, as I'd that already previously had an ectopic pregnancy (also less painful but I was worried it was happening again) and dx of the endo and surgery for same, the medics straight away assumed a gynae issue. But I know from 2 friends who've had the same that it could have been very different. One was assumed initially to have appendicitis, the other like the lady in the article kidney stones. Thankfully in time these diagnoses were found to be wrong but not in the general course of things but in one case by a neighbouring patient suggesting it, and the other the ct scan person suggested it - before doing the scan!

thenib.com/medicine-s-women-problem

Sonething I know a LOT of mners have experienced and a relative of mine too - again several YEARS of appointments and telling several Drs of the symptoms. That's UNACCEPTABLE.

So I would love to know your experience of being dismissed by hcps as "exaggerating" "hysterical" "anxious" rather than having your symptoms investigated, tests done and referrals made.

I'd also like to ask WHY don't Drs LISTEN to patients?! Especially women?! (And in my experience the female Drs can be as bad as the men!)

Such heartbreaking stories. Thank you for starting this thread, OP. As a woman with lifelong chronic illnesses I've experienced much of this too.

It's the powerlessness I think that it brings up in me. When I'm sat in a consulting room and being told I'm hysterical or that there's nothing wrong. I just feel so very weak and don't seem to be able to stand against it (I have got better over the years.) I had an experience when I was 14 which I wonder contributed to this kind of feeling, at the time I thought I was being silly and never said anything to anyone. I was on a field trip with school and got very poorly with chest problems (have lung disease which was only diagnosed much later). Teacher took me to a local doctors and doctor asked me to strip off top half, right in middle of room with male teacher stood there, no females on the room. Then doctor listened to my chest but placed his stethoscope right over parts of my breasts and was staring etc. I stood there like a deer in headlights. Teacher just stood and stared. I said nothing. I thought it must be what they have to do.

No doctor since has asked me to take my bra off to listen to my chest or poked and prodded that area.

Whenever now I am sat hearing a doctor fob me off I feel like I am in that moment and feel this overwhelming shame.

Thankfully I've had so much good experience of doctors too.

But not of the one who I saw when I was 7 months pregnant. I told him I had a chest infection, he told me I was just being a bit silly, I was pregnant and worrying too much. After a couple more days I was rushed into hospital with severe pneumonia. I nearly lost DD and my own life, and DD was oxygen starved which had lifelong effects for her.

Then the time after giving birth to DD. It had been traumatic, she'd got stuck, had to be delivered via ventouse, massive tear etc. I was out of it but clearly remember a young doctor in the room shouting that I was 'hysterical'. After the birth I was in even worse pain and told the mw who said it was normal. I felt worse and worse and was crying in agony. The MWs and doctors told me I was being over dramatic, that all births are painful. I tried to tell them something was wrong but they just wouldn't listen.

I kept on asking someone to look over the next 2 hours, then eventually my DH got very stroppy and told them they needed to ask a doctor to have a look. After much huffing and puffing from the MW a doctor examined me and discovered a massive great clot had been sewn into my cervix. Doctor said if it had been left much longer it would rupture and I'd likely have died. So I spent the next few hours being operated on.

It took 35 years to be diagnosed with a rare lung disease I was then told I'd had from tiny.

Powerlessness and the word 'hysterical'. That's the overarching narrative I experience from my life as a chronically ill patient.

I have never told anyone that story about when I was 14 before. I thought I was just over dramatising. Was I?

So saw the dr today. He shouted at me. So impressed. Not.
They did a bunch of blood tests in August. I asked for a print off. Lo and behold my Serum free T4 level is at 9.8, normal range is 12.00-22.00pmol. Dr said that was a 'bit low' and that I need a repeat done at the end of November. As I have been fatigued for my adult life plus adolescence, I am getting sick of all the hoop jumping the NHS requires to get treatment. My vitamin D levels are barely in range as of Dec last year and they don't appear to have run any bloods for thyroid problems back then. Urgh and Ahhhhhhh.

Gunpowdergelatine so sorry all that happened to you!

The hard sell of the coil REALLY pisses me off and sadly some women patients are also colluding.

Gp's get extra money for patients who accept the coil being fitted, I personally won't and can't have it (endless arguments with primary care medics on this who think they know better than a gynae surgeon who's actually SEEN my womb) it also bugs me that it's called contraception as that's not really the only way it works, one of the ways it prevents pregnancy is by preventing implantation of a fertilised egg. I'm pro-choice but I also believe in INFORMED choice and I've met women irl and seen discussions on here by women who they personally wouldn't want an abortion BUT they're fitted with coils UNAWARE that this is one way it prevents pregnancy.

Not to mention endless reports of women who've experienced serious difficulties with the coil who are then stonewalled from getting the coil removed - I believe (but as yet haven't been able to see this admitted anywhere) that this is likely because the payments made to GP's for a woman having a coil fitted would be recalled if these women have the coil removed within a set period of time.

It SHOULD be a fucking scandal that this is happening to women - especially when poor menz can't even cope with MINOR side effects of hormonal contraception during drug trials!

Also re heavy periods - why the fuck are GP's STILL being so ignorant and dismissive re this? Just bloody refer women to gynae! It HAS to be better for the patient and cheaper long term than us continually having time off work, seeing gp's, getting treatment for SYMPTOMS rather than treating the CAUSE!

HelensCrescent what was the EVENTUAL correct diagnosis.

Jackshouse - yes gallstones also seems to be getting ignored - do women have different symptoms to men on this or are we just being IGNORED again?

Madhairday - I don't think you were over dramatic at all!! That's appalling what happened to you and should never have happened!

Room101 - wtf! Why is thyroid treatment so shit in this country?!

Again so sorry! Hope you get the CORRECT treatment SOON, I can't even think how you would ensure that! Because we're beholden to GP's who are NOT DOING THEIR JOB!

Went to GP in my 20s, ticking all the boxes for PCOS- extrememly heavy, painful periods with "clotting", weight issues, PMS, migraines, stomach pains, bowel issues, excess hair on my face, chest, arms, acne on face and back etc only to b etold by the GP that I was making a fuss and "we don't like referring obese people for gynae scans because underneath the fat, it is hard to find anything. Anyway, your symptoms are only a nuisance." I eventually did get the scan and by accident found an endo who was skilled in diagnosing PCOS and he told me I had one of the worst cases of it he had seen, pretty much.

I know Mumsnet is a feminist site in many ways, but it took a MAN to take me seriously that time. I will always be grateful to him for helping me.

I have had since my late teens a pretty extensive mental health history including what would later in my 20s be diagnosed as EUPD/BPD and so have tended to earn a reputation as a "difficult" attention seeking hypocondriac, not helped by developing ME/CFS as well. I think a lot of it has been to do with childhood trauma, and finally I have someone helping me who is taking that seriously, but it took decades.

MadHairDay Words fail me. So sorry you have gone through all that.

LaCarmencita - I consider myself a feminist but I also don't think men can't be!

Just as women can be mysoginist.

Eg Women campaigning for the vote would not have succeeded if it weren't for male MP's voting to give women the vote.

I think it's cutting nose off face to dismiss male supporters.

Most of my gynaes have been men and the majority of them have been most vocal about the shit treatment of women by primary care medics, saying by the time they see women it's ridiculously common that women have spent years even DECADES just trying to get a referral! A few of them I know actively campaign/ed to get this changed - plus it makes their job harder of course.

I also have male friends/relatives who are very supportive and actively campaign on women's rights. One is someone who for many years was a single father to dds who've had similar issues he's frequently correcting people on SM etc re the poor treatment women and girls get within nhs (although as I said research and #doctorsaredickheads is bearing out its not just U.K., not just nhs that has this problem).

Graphista Agree completely.

I also have a theory that some women doctors tend to think that because they themselves have periods and they just get on with it, that why can;'t other women do the same, but a normal period is very different from a PCOS or endometriosis period. No way could I have worked as a GP when I needed months in bed and was nauseous from the pain

Some of the medications I was given for my mental health years ago caused me to suffer with a "movement disorder" and very painful muscle spasms and loss of balance- I use a stick and struggle climbing stairs. Finally been referred to a neurologist to see if I can be helped, after some nasty experiences with doctors, who dismissed me by saying "that particular antipsychotic doesn't cause dystonia" or "this is all in your head due to the BPD/EUPD." I have even been accused of lying for attention by healthcare professionals and it has left me suicidal and feeling hopeless and triggered back to an abusive childhood where I was constantly told my needs did not matter or I was a liar.

BPD/EUPD is not gender specific as such, but it presents more , at least it presents more typically,(there are different manifestations and not all are the "classic" type) in women. It seems to be used against the patient as a way of being told we're "too needy or dependant on HCPs."

I had a miscarriage a few years ago and had retained products. I bled horrendously and abnormally for months.

7 visits to my GP and four separate visits to A&E. I was only taken seriously when I collapsed in a heap on Sainsbury's floor in my own blood.

I'd developed an infection by this point also.

Awful.

I was lucky enough to have a female gp who gave me tranexamic acid for really heavy periods. Was hard though to have to 4 horse sized pills a day when at work.

When I had my first melanoma, aged 25, I was expected to allow a huge group of medical students in to look at me while I was topless and frightened. No one asked me if I minded; no one appeared to be at all concerned with the fact that I was a young woman being told about the radical surgery they were about to do, no one took any notice of me as a person.

I have endometriosis and Fowler’s disease. For my endometriosis I and my parents battled from my late teens to early 20’s to get help. The consultant actually said he would do the lap to prove us wrong. He actually said that. Guess what, I was riddled. He did not even apologise.
My Fowler’s took 5 years to be diagnosed and my Gp tried to convince me that my need to self catherterise 6 times a day after months of hospital visits to be drained was down to non existent psychological trauma. No matter how many times I said I had no trauma. I was in constant pain and life was miserable. Eventually got sent to the right consultant who straight away knew what was wrong. Some not so nice tests and 4 ops later and I’m a normal toilet visiting person with little daily pain that I can cope with without painkillers. I need a op every 4 years and that’s it. At times I was so low and honestly thought there was something wrong with my head due to the constant dismissal. Despite my two very firm diagnosed conditions not once have I ever had a apology for them doubting me or making me feel like I was a complete time waster with made up illnesses. I’ve found once you get to the right person everything can change for the positive so quickly. It’s just getting to that point!

When I was pregnant I woke in the middle of the night with what I thought was a heart attack. Pain subsided very quickly and I vomited. Doctors insisted it was heartburn.

Ten days after my son was born I was in agony with the same pain. DH called an ambulance and i was taken to hospital. I got a row from the doctor at a&e as he insisted there was nothing wrong with me; just that I had eaten crap all day (I had a ten day old newborn, admittedly I wasn’t eating the healthiest diet). I asked if it could be my gallbladder; the medics insisted that it wasn’t

The next day the pain reappeared. Starting vomiting what I thought was blood. Dh called GP who told him to take me straight to a&e. A&e told me I had a stomach bug and sent me home.

That night I googled my symptoms: I had an infected gallbladder. When the pain reappeared I went to the emergency GP and told her I was certain it was a gallbladder issue; she took it seriously.

It turned out that it was infected and my liver was blocked with gallstones and I was at risk of getting pancreatitis

Had a slipped disc misdiagnosed for over three years. Kept being told it was either period pain or other ailments.

@LaCarmancita was the anti-psychotic qutiapine? I am on that and have vocal chord dystonia. One dr has said that that could be the cause of the vocal chord problem but the ENT dr I have been seeing recently didn't think that qutiapine would cause that sort of issue.
Also agree on the child hood trauma causing long term physical and mental problems. And here is a link that explores someone's resesrch in this area www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/well/mind/how-childhood-trauma-can-affect-your-long-term-health.html
So as of coming up to 37 years of age, I have the following diagnoses:
Fybromyalgia
Bi-polar disorder with an EUPD cross over and OCD tendencies
Dyspraxia
I guess being tortured at my child minders was really bad for me.
All I want now is for it to stop, to not be constantly tired, to not have pain manifesting itself all over my body, to not have another symptom to pop up ( this thing going on on the right side of my is getting worse. I feel like a weight is pressing on my head on the right hand side, my ear is tingling, in the last 48 hours I have developed tinnitus in my ear on the same side AND I am also getting new amd random pains, mostly also on the right side of my body).

When my DS was born I got sepsis.

I had gone to hospital several times in the days before, complaining of feeling iller and iller. I had a temperature, chills, excruciating headaches followed by pain all over.

I was told I had a simple uti and sent on my way with ABX. Repeated twice. Was made to feel I was being a complete hypochondriac and wasting their time.

A few days after I first became unwell I woke up in the night and honestly thought I was dying (which actually I would have if I hadn’t gone in). I was hallucinating, couldn’t stand, had a temperature of 40.5c. I tried calling the delivery suite, I really struggled to make the call. I couldn’t hold the phone up by that point. The MW told me I must have used the thermometer incorrectly and that really I shouldn’t come in, but rest at home. Thankfully I insisted.

I have no recollection of getting to hospital.

Once their they agreed to do blood tests and cultures. I remember throwing up all over the place when they did that, just bile. The rest of it is a blur.

They put me on broad spectrum IV ABX and paracetamol and induced me. DS was taken to SCBU.

They removed the drips and took me to postnatal. Temp shot back up and I became very ill again. The MW huffed and puffed and told me I was making a fuss and gave me a paracetamol. I really struggled to look after DS who was now back with me. No one helped. Hospital policy was no partners on the wards outside visiting hours.

The next morning the bloods came back and I was told I had to stay in on a drip of ABX for a week. I had sepsis.

The most awful DR I have had the misfortune to meet came and tried to bully me into having an internal with a speculum. I said I didn’t want to proceed as obviously, having given birth about 13 hours ago, i was VERY sore with a minor tear. I was sobbing. Alone (DH at home with older child), sleep deprived, vulnerable and very ill. She told me ‘not to make a fuss’ and her attitude was awful. She was a complete bully. I relented. She tried to do the internal. I cried and told her to stop. She rolled her eyes and tutted at me. Treated me with complete disdain.

The whole time I was in hospital I was made to feel as if I was making a fuss. Aside from being very ill and struggling with DS, I was also struggling to pick him up due to the drips in the back of my hands.

It was honestly one of the worst experiences.

I had another baby several years later and it brought back all the trauma. I nearly ended up going privately to avoid a repeat. I had meetings with the head of midwifery.

My second experience wasn’t as horrific but still had several awful incidents with medical staffs terrible attitude. I had to threaten to call the head of midwifery on her personal mobile that she had given me.

Writing this now has made me really tearful.

There have been several other instances with medical professionals over the years (‘you just need to pull yourself together, there’s nothing we can give you’- HG, ‘yes there are cysts on your ovaries and your symptoms are a nuisance but we won’t treat you as you’re not struggling to get pregnant’) but this was the worst.

LaCarmencita re other women refusing to accept that SOME women DON'T have 3-5 day relatively light not terribly painful periods is something obvious on the period poverty threads even on here! I and others with endo or other conditions that cause hugely problematic periods have been outright accused of LYING! Other women saying 'nobody has 2 week long periods' 'nobody has periods so heavy they need to use pads AND tampons' - despite myself and others describing in detail having EXACTLY such awful periods. In addition they then ALSO think they're bloody geniuses when they say 'well that's not normal why haven't you gone to your GP to get it sorted' AND don't believe us when we say we HAVE gone to GP's, nurses, a&e all sorts TRYING to get dx and treatment in many cases for years even decades. SOME then at least have the grace to say they're sorry we've had that experience and didn't know it was so hard getting treatment. SOME ARE genuinely shocked at how shitty women and girls with gynae issues are treated.

Also yes to MI in particular certain conditions being treated as "attention seeking" I've friends with bpd, self harming and schizophrenia who've been treated appallingly by medics. I've certainly myself experienced primary hcps dismissing clear physical conditions/symptoms as "psychosomatic" or I was "hypervigilant" only for those issues to later end up needing surgery or other serious treatment.

RedCoffins I'm so sorry that happened to you. That's such an obvious and common possibility with mc that there's really no excuse for ignoring you.

Yolofish - I USED to think I was "lucky" too, to have a gp when I first reported my bad periods who put me on the pill at 14 and prescribed tranexamic acid. But really that's only barely treating the symptoms. What SHOULD have happened (because a 14 yr old girl SHOULDN'T be having periods that last 2 weeks at a time, that were so heavy I was having to use max absorbency pad AND tampon AND change them hourly, anaemic, serious migraines around time of period starting, fainting, vomiting due to the pain and dizziness, serious back pain, legs shaking, visual disturbances...) is a referral to a gynaecologist! To dx the CAUSE and get proper treatment that didn't just mask it.

And big YES! To the COMPLETE lack of apology, acknowledgement that they fucked up! Have experienced so many times...

Excuses, minimising, denials, closing ranks...

Andromeida - I have slipped discs but the injury done to my spine in my car accident, the symptoms were originally put down to worsening of the slipped discs.

DrunkenUnicorn - that's horrific and completely unacceptable.

I also think such poor treatment is partly due to women are less likely to FORMALLY complain. But then that's understandable too considering the risks of being "blacklisted". As well as because we feel vulnerable and fear complaining will result in getting treatment being made even harder. A not unfounded fear based on this thread!

I must admit since being diagnosed with the neutropenia, the doctor I see regularly noted I was not being seen as much in the surgery because funnily I'm now on meds and don't get infections constantly! She listens to me and gives me options as in "pick up the prescription, see how you feel, if this changes then come back"

A&E did listen to me when I turned up 36hrs before my spinal op and said "I have cauda equina"
They stuck me straight in the MRI and said yes, you have!
Sadly this is probably because my friend spent 3 months turning up to her GP and the same hospital, except nobody scanned her and she had cauda equina and should have been operated on straight away

SOME then at least have the grace to say they're sorry we've had that experience and didn't know it was so hard getting treatment. SOME ARE genuinely shocked at how shitty women and girls with gynae issues are treated.

This is definitely the case for me. I was shocked and saddened

The difficulty is that as we only experience our own periods, it's hard to envisage what 'heavy' means to different people, as we don't tend to talk about the quantity of our bleeds in real life.

So as someone who has exceptionally light periods, whilst I obviously realised that 'heavy' flow tampons etc were used by women with much heavier bleeds, I had absolutely no comprehension of what the extent of 'heavy' meant, until reading MN threads where women described how often they needed to change tampons, towels, extent of flooding etc.

Of course I wouldn't ever disbelieve anyone deciding their periods like some women on these threads - but certainly until someone actually described what they were experiencing, in my head when someone talked about heavy periods, I had absolutely no appreciation of how debilitating that could be.

I'm so very sorry for what so many women have to endure, and how dismissive and unhelpful the medical profession are in treating these issues

Unless we actually talk about these issues openly I don't think anyone can really comprehend the scale of what someone else is going through, when they only have their own experience as the yardstick from which everything else is judged

Most of my gynaes have been men and the majority of them have been most vocal about the shit treatment of women by primary care medics, saying by the time they see women it's ridiculously common that women have spent years even DECADES just trying to get a referral! A few of them I know actively campaign/ed to get this changed - plus it makes their job harder of course.

My fertility gynae is an endometriosis specialist and he's absolutely appalled by how endo is managed by GPs

By the time they reach him it's because they're having difficulty conceiving - but they'll have been suffering with it for years (as we know re the 10 years to dx). Because GPs just fob women off when they present with symptoms, they only see a gynae when its progressed to the point that it's affected their fertility. He says if he saw women earlier so they could be diagnosed and treated much sooner then they could prevent infertility problems from developing in the first place - as well as reducing women's suffering

He also thinks the same about fibroids - and that the lack of funding for women's health issues is criminal. He said women are walking around with massive tumours in their abdomen and we don't really understand why - and without the funding for the research we won't make any progress. But women's health isn't cancer or AIDS and is massively under funded from a clinical research POV (as well as from a treatment POV)

Not an illness, but it took me getting pregnant and terminating 6mths after my youngest dd was born to make my (male) dr listen to me and refer me for tubal ligation.

I asked three times prior, and he said "you are a new mum reacting to a traumatic birth" ... reality was that I had an elective c section and all went well.

It's interesting you mention AIDS actually because you may find it informative to look at the history of how that was researched and dealt with initially. Because the shocking thing is there really wasn't the support for research and treatment/trying to find a cure when it was still though to only be affecting gay men and prostitutes. It was really only when straight white men started getting it/getting affected by it (eg their wives getting it from blood transfusions due to birth complications) that it started to be looked at seriously. There's a perception that there was a "flare" in the late 80's, it'd actually been around for decades but because it wasn't affecting those with the power to instigate research it went ignored. It's actually really shocking when you look at the history.

Even cancer there are of course hundreds of different kinds, but even now we're getting certain types of people (not just men!) COMPLAINING about the extra awareness/funding being raised for breast and cervical cancer saying it's sexist - when the reason why there NEEDED to be campaigns for these was because they were being ignored. Ovarian cancer still is to a large degree but then ovarian cancer imo is ignored because it does only completely affect women - breast and cervical cancer affects men indirectly and is visible to them.

Differentname- yea cos God forbid they allow us to have opinions and wants of our own regarding OUR fertility! I despair I really do!

Literally laughed 'first baby? And 'you were scheduled for a home birth? Community midwive says its very early stages of labour'

'As I said on the phone I'm bleeding a lot' i removed my dressing gown to show blood running, they took one look and said 'you're 10cm and bleeding heavily!'

Yeah...I know

graphista I kind of want to disagree about cancer research. Breast has had tons of money chucked at it - quite rightly - but it continues to get tons MORE money because they have made so many breakthroughs, while many other cancers (such as brain) are completely under -researched because they are so much more difficult to make the breaktrhoughs in.

The work in breast cancer has made it pretty much survivable - not great, not fun, but you know, the long term outcome is not too bad these days. So what I am trying to say is, breast cancer is now an 'easy' way for cancer charities to demonstrate success, and what they are now doing is finetuning treatment to make it even better - all well and good, women (and men with breast cancer) deserve it, of course.

Whereas if you get glioblastoma (brain cancer) you will die within 5 years, inevitably. And 5 years is a good prognosis, for most it is much less, with a terrible progress of the disease. But the big charities are unwilling to put the money in because at this stage of the game they cannot necessarily demonstrate the bang for the buck that they can do with cancers in which research is much further forward. This goes for other cancers than brain, eg pancreatic, ovarian etc. I'm not sure if I'm sidetracking here or not...

A fellow Slimming World member had trouble losing weight when i was attending group at the same time as her.

She was sticking to the plan and after several visits to the doctor who moaned at her about her weight, she finally got referred and they found a cyst on her ovary.

It starts young too. Last summer when my then 12 year old daughter had appendicitis, the Drs kept saying it was "probably period cramps" just because it coincided, and she was seen in 2 A&Es.