To be so angry with friend's dr!

[Juniper68]

My friend has had some vaginal bleeding is constantly bloated and weeing more plus dribbling. Her Male gp said it's normal for her age, 50s. She's petite and eating less because she thinks it's that.
I've talked her into making an appointment with her usually female gp. She's same one I have and spot on.
Doesn't he know these are symptoms of ovarian cancer?
She's getting so down.

This is horrifically so common.

She has other symptoms too. He said it could be fibro? I know a few women with fibro they don't have the constant bloating.

Infuriating. A quick Google would be more helpful than that GP.

I had to really push at my female doctor who kept wanting to “wait and see” between trialling different things to see if the spotting stopped. She did agree that it was worrying though and once I’d kicked off a bit she sorted some scans and things.

We have to really advocate for ourselves and each other

Yes I know it could be anything. But he's obviously not arsed.

I tell you something if she's seriously Ill and could have been helped I'll have my day with him.

@Googlecanthelpme

Infuriating. A quick Google would be more helpful than that GP.

I had to really push at my female doctor who kept wanting to “wait and see” between trialling different things to see if the spotting stopped. She did agree that it was worrying though and once I’d kicked off a bit she sorted some scans and things.

We have to really advocate for ourselves and each other

Hope you're ok?

I know this is sexist but it rings true for ever female medical issue I have every had.

A lady in the well woman clinic told me that "it's all well & good to have a male gynaecologist perform any surgery but you need a female GP or advice for everything other than that. Knowing a woman's body from a text book and medical training will never match having a female body & truely understanding what's normal or not".

I know your mind will go instantly to cancer but it could also be a number of other things. Fair play for giving her the support she needs.

Yes I hate feeling sexist in this case too. I've seen some great Male gps but this one is dreadful.

Hope she will be ok and gets a new appointment soon. Very worrying. Wish I could get a new female gp as stuck with a male narcissistic one and he did not even want to listen to me about getting hrt and how I was in peri menopause. Shocking really and the well woman clinic and female doctors were great so started my hrt gel this week. It is worse if the male doctors are older as think we should just get on with it.

Forget the GP, send your friend to a walk in sexual health clinic. They know their stuff, and fast tracked me into the local hospital when I had uncontrolled bleeding and pain. I had surgery to sort it out. My symptoms could have been cancer, but they were fibroids and polyps...lots and lots of them, alongside a very bicornuate and twisted uterus, and polycystic ovaries. Much better after surgery. I would never trust a GP to make a final decision on this sort of treatment. I had a few GP's brush away my symptoms as perimenopause.

Post menopausal vaginal bleeding should be a 2 week wait referral to rule out endometrial cancer - possibly other things to but my experience is only of that.

Thanks everyone. Hopefully she'll be seen by someone competent soon.
Shocking how many have to fight to be heard.

I think a medical education is more helpful than Google. Maybe he knows things you don't, either about her or her symptoms.

@Outhouse71421

I think a medical education is more helpful than Google. Maybe he knows things you don't, either about her or her symptoms.

Symptoms of cancer should always be referred on the cancer pathway. Most of the time they are not cancer, but they need investigating to confirm that.

Just wanted to say I'm horrified and I'm so glad you have your friends back. This is the type of thing that can really put people off going back to the doctor, feeling so dismissed and/or feeling they shouldn't be at the doctors as the doctor can't do anything it can be very difficult to advocate for ones self and i feel this js an example where there is a total power imbalance x

Please get your friend for have a second opinion, or at least force them for a consultant referral. Tell her not to be polite, and to demand it.

My Mum’s best friend 8 years after she had breast cancer, developed secondary bone cancer. The GP dismissed her chronic back pain (she was sleeping upright in a garden chair because she couldn’t lay down) as ‘stress because her husband was depressed’. 😡

Her son found out, sent her for a private scan and the cancer was everywhere in her spine and hips. The GP couldn’t have given less of a shit, she didn’t even get an apology.

@Outhouse71421

I think a medical education is more helpful than Google. Maybe he knows things you don't, either about her or her symptoms.

Oh do behave

This really resonates with me as I'm over 6 years older than my mother was when she died. She had a kidney removed in the 1930's and had to urinate more frequently. She had discomfort which the now closed women's hospital diagnosed as post menopausal dryness and gave her a cream. She had a single practice GP. When the hospital closed she went to a well woman clinic who referred her to a hospital, suggesting George's or Tommy's. I advised Tommy's as she was near enough to Clapham Junction to walk, there was a toilet in McD's and at Waterloo, whereas George's was a bus ride. She had a gynae examination and was referred to Urology, where she was diagnosed with bladder cancer and she died 15 months later. So please take your friend to the Well Woman clinic

@Outhouse71421

I think a medical education is more helpful than Google. Maybe he knows things you don't, either about her or her symptoms.

You'd think right?

A local nurse [about 5 years ago] refused to give me a vaccination as I answered a question she asked me. When I next went to see a doctor the screen said I'd refused the vacc. I said 'No I didn't the nurse refused it because x' and the doctor replied 'you should know if that is right or not, you have access to google, the same information that the nurse had so you shouldn't have refused it'. I was like WTF???

So you are supposed to argue with a nurse having googled the actual answer [there and then] and force them to give you a vaccination that may or may not kill you? Ok sure.

My sister had horrendous pmt for most of her fertile years. She always felt fobbed off by women GPs who treated her like she was overreacting to the monthly we all get. In the end it was a male GP who listened and got her all the right referrals. In a way it was the fact he was male and didn't experience female cycles that enabled him to make the right call.

I know this is sexist but it rings true for ever female medical issue I have every had

what are you worried about? feeling sexist against a male GP when it is very well documented that they are more than sexist in their treatment of women? Why are you worried about being sexist? do you think it ever stops sexist men? gets more help for women who go to their GP?

(also, female GPs can be next to useless too - it is partly because they are shitty GPs but a large part is that medical training concentrates on male bodies/symptoms etc as being the norm.)

OP your friend must get noisy and advocate for herself.

Just to say that this is not just a female thing. My DH was fobbed off and fobbed off with meds when he couldn't even keep a yoghurt down and had to beg in the end for a referral. He died less than a year later from oesophageal cancer.
I will forever wonder whether, if he had been referred on the two week cancer pathway he would have been diagnosed before it got to stage 4 and terminal.

I tell you something if she's seriously Ill and could have been helped I'll have my day with him

You might well care about your friend but you can’t stick your beak in like that! She might tell you about her medical issues but legally you have not right to get involved, or confront any doctor!

Just give her time to be seen by someone more competent.

Its shocking how women can be fobbed off. She certainly needs to go to another doctor. I went to mine with irregular bleeding and they immediately did swabs and did a referral to gynae. I didn't have any of your friends other concerning symptoms either.

My GP missed my breast cancer because I was 6 weeks post partum and breastfeeding. I went back twice and then my GP friend suggested I go to the breastfeeding clinic as they've seen everything. I was seen at hospital the next day where they confirmed likely malignancy, I did complain and it was upheld. A couple of my GP friends have also said that they've referred other patients because of their awareness of my experience.