Why are females not believed in the medical field

[Onionbhajisandwich]

I’ve honestly lost count of the times that I’ve been told I have anxiety in place of a diagnosis at one point I was referred to a psychologist for stage 4 endometriosis and ulcerative colitis (which I turned down).

So now, I have a range an odd symptoms, pins and needles, numbness, pain, absent reflexes in my legs and various other things. My mum has MS. My GP referred me and the neurologist told me that he would do an MRI scan of if I wanted one but he’s sure it’s anxiety due to my family history. Turns out it’s not anxiety, I’ve got bulging discs in my lower neck, excess fluid, some kind of issue with the bone marrow and a lesion which needs a CT to look at in more detail.

I don’t have anxiety - I’m actually quite relaxed about it - I just want to know what I’m dealing with and what I can do to help myself!!

Why can’t they just believe what we are telling them???!!!

You added 'human'. Because 'females' could be dogs or chimps. Female humans or women or anything that ascribes humanity is great. Female is a great descrptor. It's not a great noun.

It’s because we are way, way down on the list of priorities for the NHS. They can’t even be bothered to use the words women/woman in their literature, we are reduced to our body parts - if we’re lucky.

My dad went to his GP with vague symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and was immediately referred for further testing. It took my mum four years to get her far worse symptoms taken seriously and get a referral. Dad was fine, mum most definitely wasn’t. Had her treatment for Parkinson’s started earlier the disease progression would not have been as bad as it is.

I don’t bother going to my GP any more, an annual review with a nurse for my HRT is enough interaction with the misogynistic organisation that is the NHS for me.

Not necessarily, my arsehole of a consultant neurologist has a private practice.

Maybe you get better treatment and bedside manners for the £250 per half hour that he charges.

Life is biased towards men, haven’t you noticed?

Well the NHS as far as I'm aware is not a veterinary service. I don't mind the shorthand description. Obviously you do, but I'm just giving another point of view.

I was told I had anxiety, peri menopause and needed to start weight loss jabs, by another GP in the practice.
I had cancer
My GP was very apologetic and now takes me seriously

I had a heart attack recently. Absolutely text book symptoms, the pain was so bad I thought I was going to die. The 999 call handler flatly refused to send help. It was absolutely terrifying. Eventually after quarter of an hour of DH pleading with them to send help, they grudgingly sent a first responder. That paramedic saved my life and got an ambulance to get me to hospital.
The ward manager on CCU told me that a man with my symptoms would have got an ambulance immediately. It is absolutely disgusting.

Elinor Cleghorn's Unwell Women is a good read on this subject.

Just to add, I think we're on the same page here! The NHS has form for saying men can be women, however, so to me female seems fairly unambiguous. I don't want to quibble about OP's thread title, though. We all know what she means.

DH and I are both doctors. When our kids have health problems I get DH to deal with the GP because he’s taken more seriously than me. I once was crying at the GP earlier this year because our son was vomiting for 7 weeks and no one knew why - the GP insisted DS was fine and that I was the ill person (!!!!!!!). Ended up in hospital with bowel obstruction.

I used to see it all the time in hospital (at work) with patients too, particularly on surgical wards. Young women with abdominal pain especially were often seen as mentally unwell or drug seeking.

No I do understand. I think 'females' is often used by misogynistic men online so it grates. But i

Even at medical school, and this was in the 2010s, whenever there was an exam question about a young woman it was nearly always “anxiety” unless it was obs/gynae. As soon as you read the line “25 year old female..” you could practically answer the question without reading any more

Don't think that's what OP is doig.

My first post-c section midwife appointment was 5 days post surgery, 4 days post leaving the hospital, on a Sunday and at the hospital. I asked for more co codamol (I was on the super generous not dose of 10mg codeine which I'd already stopped taking at mid day so was taking first thing and a last thing only).

Midwife was told she could NOT give me more pain meds as I'd already had my full amount and I would have to see my GP... on Monday. She went ballistic, pointing out that a man who had had full abdominal surgery would have been kept in hospital for a week, then sent home with the strongest pain killers available and told to stay in bed vs me who went home after 24 hours, with a baby, and then had to return to the hospital to be checked.

I got the drugs!

Had this problem a few years ago when I had severe back pain. Waited forever to see a specialist NHS (male) physio. Just to be told he couldn’t find anything wrong and I ‘couldn’t possibly be in the amount of pain I was describing’ because I was young and looked fit and healthy. I was told he would be doing a full skeletal examination and to wear sports bra & shorts. He didn’t even get me to undress or examine me properly. He could tell “just by the way I was standing” that my pain wasn’t real apparently! He made me feel like I was wasting precious NHS time and money and being dramatic. It took me paying hundreds of pounds for a private spinal doctor a few months later to diagnose the fact I had a slipped disc that was so far out they had to do emergency surgery there and then. I made a formal complaint about the physio, and got a reply to it saying how “highly regarded” he was and pressuring me to drop it by his male boss. Such utter bullshit. I did drop it because I was just so fed-up with it all. I wish I hadn’t though.

The more medical professionals ignore you or don’t listen of course you get more anxious. It’s actually a normal reaction to knowing something is wrong but not being sure what or if you will get treatment.

I was first accused of just having anxiety when I was 19, persistently unwell with recurring infections for four years and sore joints. It wasn’t until my late 30s an optician noticed something wasn’t right and started to look into what was really going on. I have a rare disease and I’m still questioned by doctors about it and even have junior drs when I don’t get to see my own consultant trying to amend the diagnosis because it couldn’t possibly be correct. It’s hard work because I’m constantly battling doctors to get simple things like pain relief, no I’m not just a depressed junkie looking for a fix and so I often have to ask them to contact my consultant if they have issues, oddly they never do after that. And don’t even get me started on how long it took to get HRT.

I read this earlier - another case of a woman being continually ignored by the health service:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dr4y51qd6o.amp

Agree and it's all the more disappointing when the Dr not believing you is female herself....

Calling a woman a 'female' is the same as calling a person an 'it.'

I really don't know. I went to my GP in early May some years ago with a pain in the right side of my abdomen, and was told I had IBS and I needed to eat less spicy food and rubbish, eat more veg and drink more water.

The pain got progressively worse and I went back every two weeks for months. He refused to consider anything else, didn't suggest any tests and eventually told me I was "a woman of a certain age seeking attention".

It didn't seem to occur to him that if I was seeking attention, he was the last person I would seek it from. His arrogance and conceit were breathtaking. 😡

In mid-October I crawled into A&E at 3am in agony and passed out. I has a twisted ovarian dermoid the size of a grapefruit, a raging abdo infection and sores all up my back.

I had a two hour op, lost an ovary and tube, spent 7 days on women's surgical and six weeks off work.

Someone from the hospital must have rung him because my gp turned up at my bedside on day 2 or 3. He couldn't bring himself to apologise, the best he managed was "oh so there was something wrong with you after all." If I'd been able to sit up, I'd have beaten the arsehole to death with my drip stand.

I've had women GPs ever since and they have been wonderful, without exception.

Recently I was treated for early stage breast cancer. I had a female consultant surgeon, female consultant radiologist, female oncologist, female nurses. Professional, competent, efficient. I couldn't have been treated better or felt safer

It's men. Breathtakingly arrogant and selfish men who are so dazzled by big doctor syndrome and their own self-satisfaction that they don't give a toss about their patients.

Literally physically on the floor, I was so unwell and weak with a newborn, 10 years of going backwards and forwards and even offered hypnotherapy for my 'anxiety'. Eventually, I diagnosed myself with the condition by going to the library and looking at medical books (pre-internet days) and asked them to test for it. The hospital doctor sneered and said, 'It's not that. ' It was. I did get an apology from the male GP (of sorts). I always consult Dr Google now.

Literally physically on the floor, I was so unwell and weak with a newborn, 10 years of going backwards and forwards and even offered hypnotherapy for my 'anxiety'. Eventually, I diagnosed myself with the condition by going to the library and looking at medical books (pre-internet days) and asked them to test for it. The hospital doctor sneered and said, 'It's not that. ' It was. I did get an apology from the male GP (of sorts). I always consult Dr Google now.

Yep. Stage 4 endometriosis
only treated when I was referred to a female consultant who was incredible and operated on me for a full day as it was so severe
the doctors wouldn’t prescribe morphine, a&e tried to give me paracetamol, she came down and went mad that I hadn’t had proper pain relief
someone called it period pain and I was “my bowel is folded in half FFS”

It's awful. I've had the same attitude so many times. I've now been having awful migraines and exhaustion for a couple of years now but I can't face going to the GP and being told I have anxiety, or accused of being drug seeking, which is all that has happened with previous health issues, ever since I was about 14. Before that they just blamed my mum instead. 🙄