Gp not taking me seriously because I have anxiety

[Bobbyandme]

So upset right now. I've been suffering with on and off anemia for months. I've been weak and exhausted. My periods have been painful. I had a particularly bad one that made my eyes blurry and I've had four days in the house with a headache and weakness. Palpatations etc. Ofcourse it makes me worry. I'm a parent and when I'm down it affects my husband's work and my child needs to get to school etc.

So after my family expressed their worries when I cried yesterday I called the drs. I told her I do get anxious because I've had alot of worries about being able to function for my kids. I told her I'm worried because since February when my iron was down to 6 I've felt rubbish. I've tried the mini pill and bled and bled. I tried transexamic acid and it did nothing. I tried microgynon and it made me nauseous and low moods. She told me she would refer me but today she suddenly remember any of that. She ignored me telling her my ovary has been hurting for weeks. I told her I'm bed bound on period days.

Her only solution was join the waiting list for steps to change. Or have a hormonal coil put it that can cause bleeds for six months. No matter how hard i tried to tell her my anxiety is from my anemia and bad periods. She wouldn't believe me.

I am anxious because my periods ruin my life. I am always weak and in pain.

I'm really upset as now I feel there's no help for me. What do I do? I desperately need them to take me seriously. It's gotten to the point where we've discussed taking DD out of school until I'm better as oh job is 90 miles away. He works from home the best he can. But sometimes this isn't an option. On top of everything else I want a life again.

Op, you need to push for referral to a good gynaecologist. As there's a possibility of endometriosis, it can't hurt and might help if you get a referral to one of the BSGE accredited centres. Look on the BSGE website and check the list - there is also a list of centres pending approval which should be good enough for your purposes - and pick the one most local to you.

@CorrectileDysfunction, I don't know what your background is, or your training - are you a GP? - but it worries me that you are giving incorrect advice regarding endometriosis. Surgical excision (not laser ablation) is the current gold standard treatment, precisely because there is good evidence that it does make a significant difference. The whole system of accredited specialist centres is predicated upon this evidence. There was a highly flawed meta review that appeared in the BMJ a few years back, that appeared to show that surgery isn't any use - it conflated surgical excision with laser ablation and didn't separate out the two datasets. It was heavily criticised on this basis. I haven't checked whether it was withdrawn but the methodology was so flawed that it should have been, in my view.
It isn't true that surgery is rarely used. It is used a lot, in the specialist centres where excision is offered. There is a problem in that many women who might benefit are not getting referred by their GPs, because their GPs wrongly believe there is no effective treatment other than OTC pain relief and contraceptive hormones. This simply isn't true. Many more severely-affected women function only because they have had good surgery.
The other reason she should be being referred is that referral and diagnosis of endometriosis isn't just to do with relief of symptoms. It's to do with preventing the cases that happen all too often of women needing bowel resections or losing kidneys because the disease is identified too late. When GPs and other non-specialist HCPs take the line that diagnosis of endometriosis is a bit of a pointless exercise, because what-outcome-does-the-patient-expect and there's-no-treatment-anyway, they are ignoring this subset of patients who are then left with avoidable and severe damage because a diagnosable and surgically treatable condition wasn't diagnosed and treated in time to prevent the necessity of bowel/bladder resection or kidney removal. This, as a patient, is a very annoying position to be left in - even worse if both kidneys are affected.
We should be encouraging all symptomatic patients to pursue diagnosis, to alleviate their symptoms but also to preserve their physical health if they are among those worse affected.

Of course, there's no reason why she shouldn't take up the Step referral. But it's also true that being left to cope with certain physical health conditions can negatively affect mental health. It makes sense to diagnose and treat the physical condition, then treat any mental health problems that are left over after the physical health condition is resolved as far as possible.

The OP referred to her GP suggesting Step2Change in her initial post.

This post has never been about iron, periods or coils. This post has always ultimately been about the OP's anxiety and MH.

A whole lot of drama on this thread about coils and scans, not one referenced the OP's GP's advice to seek help from Step for her anxiety.

The OP said in her title she is anxious. Op's anxiety largely under radar/ point missed.

Doctors like this are a pain, literally!

It's like when they say that people in pain are depressed. Well no kidding. People aren't in pain because they are depressed, they're depressed because they are in pain!

And it's the same with you, you are anxious because of your terrible periods. Sort out the physical side and the mental side may well go away. If it doesn't, then sort that out too. But you can't magic away horrible periods with CBT. And it's about time, as was discussed on the menstrual leave thread, that doctors in the UK took period problems seriously.

@puffinkoala

Absolutely agree with you. This is exactly the issue

OP I believe you.

This may not be an option, but when I wasn't being taken seriously for my constant bleeding and was worried I paid to see a private GP, because they can't not listen to you. She came up with a prescription the GP had never offered, and a much better explanation of what was going on. It's absolutely terrible and unfair that women have to pay or push to be taken seriously.

@Graphista

Thank you. Your post was really interesting and you are absolutely right. My partner and I often talk about the lack the f help and support. The obsession with mental health always coming first. Never getting to the bottom of things. I have no life half the time. Not because I'm depressed but because my head's aching or I'm weak from a 7 day period every 23 days. My ovaries have been hurting for weeks. I spot and get a fever every ovulation. I feel sick from the iron tablets. I sometimes have 4 showers in a couple of hours because blood is pouring down my legs. I soak through 5 pairs of PJ bottoms in an afternoon. I can't get my lungs to feel full and my eyesight goes blurry. I end up freezing cold. I've been like this for months and months. Yet now I feel anxiety around functioning for my kids I get told that's the cause.
We are looking into going private as I'm getting nowhere. I said to the gp today I'm not sure therapy is needed over me getting some energy back. I was a perfectly happy person before all this.

I had a natural birth but he was born quite fast. Without being too grim the midwife did say some of my placentas was stuck to my cervix and she had to deal with that to stop the bleeding. But other than that and a few stitches I was ok. I was anemic after my first child too but didn't particularly notice. I was sent home with iron. So it's something I'm prone too.

I will look at self referral for physio too. Thanks!

This happened to me and I put up with it for ten years until I went to the dr in February and refused to leave until I’d been referred to a gynaecologist and to whoever couldn’t give me a blood transfusion as my ferritin was 3 and they were trying to fob me off with yet more awful iron pills!

To cut long story short I had a course of a New drug called Ferracru Prescribed by a gastroenterologist which sorted my blood levels with no side effects at all and I’ve just had endometrial ablation which meant my last period was basically a bit of spotting.

No more debilitating periods, constipation/diarrhoea/abdo pain/piles, I can think straight, my hair and nails are growing and i don’t get out of breath walking up the stairs! It’s made me realise how dreadful I had felt for years and years.

All I had to do was get a bit stroppy with my doctors. Generally they don’t give a single shit about women. TEN YEARS I’d been dealing with it.

Oh an another thing the Ferracru improved - my anxiety.

Anxiety can not make you anaemic but aneamia can make you anxious.

I reported your posts all well.

I am not bullying you. Merely asking you to be honest in your posts. You have posted the same thing over and over, your Gp has suggested Step. You are not giving full history on post so how can posters give advice if they are not informed of full facts.

Then you have my posts deleted when you take exception to what i have said.

I had all this OP.
I ended up asking to be referred to a gynaecologist and had an endometrial ablation which stopped the heavy periods, stopped the anaemia and stopped the anxiety! Keep pushing.

@katherineoftarragon I hardly know where to begin with your post. So much so very wrong and quite honestly outdated in it. I can’t see your or ops deleted posts, but I have to say I too think your posts smack of trying to silence op.

The op cannot have your posts deleted any more than you can hers, mnhq decides that. I don’t always agree with their moderation but generally they seem to get it right.

Also the REASON Why so many of us have focused on the gynae issue is because that is the CAUSE of the anxiety.

This is the gp fobbing the op off and I’m veiled terms saying she is “hysterical” “neurotic” - the gp may be carefully avoiding certain words/phrases - but their actions say it all!

People aren't in pain because they are depressed, they're depressed because they are in pain! exactly! Yes people can suffer mental illness in isolation, but an awful lot of the time ime it’s because they’re suffering physical pain or distress and that’s not being dealt with.

@Bobbyandme People bully on these boards for no good reason. Not the first time @KatherineofTarragon has tried to write my story for me."'

Not true. I have only ever responded to the posts you have posted on these boards with kindness. You are trying to imply i am a bully. This of course is only your second post under this user name so all the other posts i have replied to re Covid and mental health are not you and someone quite different . If you use magnify glass icon under my username you can see exactly what i have posted on all threads bullying is not something i have ever, nor currently participate in.

It is very easy for you, across all threads ,to disagree with posters with fain bullying, a tactic you have employed across many threads.

Our truths may deleted but they are truths none the less.

I also suffer with serious mh issues, but I’ve come across many and I’ve even gave mh hcps agree with my thoughts on this in a general way, women who’ve been “diagnosed” with mental illness when what’s really happening is they’re pushed to the edge by the lack of support and treatment for physical illness.

This not only does a disservice to those patients but also means the extremely finite mh services are stretched even further than they need to be.

@GelisVanBorselen - excellent post! Particularly that last paragraph

Thank you op I do genuinely hope my post is helpful.

I am genuinely concerned that as you locate the problems starting postnatally that you haven’t been checked for potential infection/injury which may be causing/exacerbating your problems.

I used to bleed extremely heavily (Max absorbency tampon and pad needing changed hourly and frequently even that wasn’t enough to prevent leaking) for 2 weeks out of 4 in the first year of my periods. I also had migraine, dizziness, vomiting, pain basically from the level of my solar plexus to my knees, feeling unsteady on my feet and I even fell a few times. Home life wasn’t ideal and nobody noticed how bad I was until I passed out at the top of a flight of stairs at school and hurt myself.

A combination of normal teen embarrassment, ignorance of what was “normal” because nobody discussed flow with me, and dealing with being sexually abused at home at the same time is why I hadn’t told anyone.

Mum took me to the dr and when I said all I’d been experiencing both immediately said that’s not normal and needed something doing. The (male, much older) drs answer was to put me on the pill.

It did help, a lot, initially by which I mean around 5 months, then it gradually stopped being as effective, I went back to the same dr (I didn’t know any better then) and he simply put me on a different pill, same kept happening and drs (army brat so no continuity of care either) just kept putting me on different pills...

I honestly couldn’t tell you all the different brands I’ve been on there were so many, and this was over a period of over 20 years.

When I’d run out of prescription due to moving etc I’d end up often in a&e because I’d passed out somewhere and nobody was with me who knew the history.

When I’d been dating my ex a short while the pill I was on was withdrawn from circulation as it had been found to be high risk for iirc either cancer or heart attack, something quite serious. There was an issue with getting a new pill prescribed, my period hit and I was in extreme pain and bleeding profusely. Despite my knowing this was “normal” for me when not on the pill he insisted we go to a&e (sods law it was a bank holiday weekend), he was shocked and angry at how I was treated - basically told off for going to a&e with “just” period pain, “wasting resources” etc and had quite a heated discussion with the dr.

When we were back at mine discussing, being I’m normally quite a bolshy type he mentioned he was surprised I just accepted what they did/said and I had to remind him that at that point that’s what I’d been dealing with for over 10 years.

He was rightly disgusted, but even now there’s no really effective way to complain about a gp without risking not having one! (And again the hcps will likely try and refute this but myself and others have definitely experienced this! And no I don’t mean patients being rude or aggressive but simply raising a formal complaint as we’re SUPPOSED to have the right to do)

Generally they don’t give a single shit about women totally agree!

I had a thread running a good while back on medical misogyny, the stories posters told were utterly horrifying and NOT (as I must admit when I started the thread would be the case) mainly when dealing with gynae issues.

From “minor” complaints like gastro issues, fatigue right up to cancer and heart disease, so many women (either the posters or the people they were talking about) had been ignored, fobbed off, ridiculed, dismissed... in a few cases the result was fatal!

This is completely unacceptable.

I’ve since done a lot more reading/research and even as a former hcp myself I find it truly shocking how STILL so little of hcps training is female focused. Even medical textbooks, training curricula, placement training is almost exclusively on how MALE bodies present with ailments. In fact in some areas what little education was happening has even been reduced within the nhs.

The thread I mentioned in case anyone is interested

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3402449-Aibu-to-ask-you-to-tell-me-your-experiences-of-being-dismissed-by-medics-as-a-sick-woman-I-promise-to-listen

To be fair it sounds like you a diagnosing yourself. You aren't happy with what she's suggesting. Why not try a coil? You can get appointments to get it taken out. You also don't seem to be giving things long enough o take full effect. Medication takes time to get into your system and working. You need to try that also.
Referrals are taking a long time at the moment, there is a big back log. So even if she does refer you it won't be the quick fix that you are wanting.
If I was you, I'd ask to see another GP for a second opinion but be prepared for them to tell you the same.

Which is actually not your business to moderate which you seem to be attempting to do.

Mn allows name changing allows posters to post what they need to when they need to within TG's

If you have an issue with how this poster uses mn you report to/discuss with mnhq

You don't do a thinly veiled personal criticism on their thread