Woman in coma told she has anxiety 🙄

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24njzzkgjo

A woman IN A COMA, with past medical history of epilepsy and paralysis told "she has anxiety" and THREATENED WITH MENTAL HEALTH DIAGNOSIS if she keeps coming to the A&E!

This is one of the most harrowing examples of medical misogyny I've ever seen. That "doctor" should be named, shamed and struck off! This situation is precisely why we have maternity services enquiry, too.

There MUST be something we can do, we're over 50% of population FGS!!!

Sorry, but I'm fuming at this. I've experienced it myself, years and years of fobbing off, anxiety, have you tried losing weight (my BMI is top end of normal) etc, only to discover I have quite a serious autoimmune condition. This whole situation is unacceptable!

Years ago DH went to the doctor with a history of headaches... he was referred for a scan.

I've been recently with headaches and a few other symptoms, told to get an eye test (recent one was September) and was probably my GAD.

Seawolves, please accept my deepest condolences 💐.

We are all hysterical little women who have silly little woman brains and we swoon and faint all of the time because we dont have a strong and powerful cock 🙄. Hasn't changed much in the last 100 years really 🤬

The deniers on this thread really need to read Unwell Women. Of course there are examples of misdiagnosis, carelessness and malpractice in treatment of male patients which can have catastrophic and tragic consequences. That doesn’t change the provable fact that medical misogyny has been deeply ingrained from the very start of medicine and the inequality is backed up by evidence. It's absurd for people to dismiss this and try to deny the long and terrifying history of women's healthcare.

Do you think women doctors think like this? Because they now make up the majority of doctors in the UK. Seems like things should be improving.

My poor mother had classical angina symptoms - shooting pains down her left arm when climbing stairs - and her (male) GP told her it was stress because her H (my father) was cheating and treating her terribly. A year later, she was bluelighted to hospital with a heart attack at 43. She survived the heart attack with a bypass but it damaged her heart. She died at 67 from chronic heart failure that led to a lethal pulmonary embolism.

My mother's life was literally cut short because of the misogynistic reflex to disbelieve women and attribute clinically justified health anxiety to female hysteria and mental health problems.

There's plenty of internalised misogyny in female doctors too. We swim in patriarchy, which teaches everyone to disrespect and dismiss women.

It wouldn't be surprising that she had anxiety with uncontrolled epilepsy that put her in a coma for three days, that is very dangerous. She wasn't told that while she was in a coma! And eventually she got a diagnosis of a very rare genetic condition, with a little help from AI.

It’s not just women. Those with autism experience this hugely too.

But why did she need to resort to AI? It's an excellent illustration of the woeful state NHS is in, and not just because of underfunding. Staff prejudice is harming people.

Hallamule, sadly a lot of women have internalised misogyny 🤷‍♀️

My middle DD's female GP sent her for a scan. The male consultant refused to do it. He saw my DD as a young woman with an eating disorder and because she'd been through DV, obviously anxious. She was later diagnosed with endocarditis and colitis. Other gastro issues, that she'd reported meant that she ate as little as possible to prevent pain and diarrhoea. My youngest DD, who has started with gastro issues was told her condition was because her work environment (someone else getting bullied) had upset her. Men aren't being told these things and women are trained by senior males and then are pushing against other males. A lot of brilliant female specialists are staying within women's medicine, but unfortunately that takes them out of general practice and training.

But it also happens with men too.

While I’m incredibly sorry for everyone who has experienced a male loved one being “fobbed off,” this is NOT an issue of just being fobbed off. It is a 100% female phenomenon, well-researched and well-recorded, that women - with everything from endometriosis to cancer to heart attacks to rare conditions like the woman in this article - are told their symptoms are ALWAYS anxiety. Maybe this happens to a very, very few men too, but not at the incredibly dangerous rates at which it’s happening to women.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Most men don’t hate women. They just don’t care if women die.

If this isn’t true, then why does research into female-dominated cancers receive less funding than male-dominated cancers? This DESPITE the fact that we already KNOW what causes men to die of cancer at a higher rate than women: smoking and alcohol consumption. Those are fucking choices! No woman “chooses” to get breast cancer. If it isn’t true, why isn’t something being done BY MEN about the rate at which women are murdered by men? If it isn’t true, why is MN flooded by stories every day of abused women, battered women, sexually assaulted women, coercively controlled women… it’s just women being hurt again and again.

Women of every size, shape, and colour have been fucked by the system; we need to all stand together and stop judging each other over trivial bullshit like looks or economic status, because together we could change this. But as long as women fuck over other women, which you see CONSTANTLY on this site, we never will. My grandmother, who was born in 1926, told me that men will just fuck me over without thinking or caring, but at least you KNOW they’re not going to support you, whereas the worst things in your life will be done to you behind your back by other women - women bullying other women at work, women having affairs with married men that ruin families and leave other women and their children worse off financially, women spreading devastating rumours about other women, women slagging off other women in every fucking setting, including MN.

Also, due to the fact ChatGPT is trained on existing misogynistic assumptions, medical misogyny will eventually start flavouring all its answers.

Women die of medical misogyny and unfortunately, a lot of men in the medical profession treat it as a feature of the system, not a bug they helped create.

ETA: fixed typo

There's a great organisation trying to put pressure on the medical profession to try to remedy this.

https://www.equal-care.org/en

Essentially for generations men's bodies have been seen as the default. Things like drug dosages etc based on men's physiology, clinical trial subjects being mostly male still etc

They're are campaigning to fix this. Definitely worth supporting

Oh that's awful

My DS has hereditary spastic paraplegia.

he recently had a virus that caused him to collapse and have a seizure. It can be related to the central nervous system failing.

He was originally suspected to have epilepsy and that’s what he was under neurology when his muscles got worse.

he was also suspected of having dyspraxia as always had problems with Co ordination but was diagnosed as autistic before the muscle stuff started.

im not sure how much it’s mysoginistic treatment or how much it’s just morning as it’s a rare condition and degenerative and so many of the worse symptoms don’t show up until years after the original mild ones.

I feel like age plays a big part in misdiagnosis too. GPs tend to think in very linear ways, crossing things off a list and diagnosing the most likely causes.
Most of the time this is a sensible and practical way of approaching things but if you dont fit into the criteria because you are younger then the norm or have more diverse symptoms (which women tend to do for alot of complaints) then they dont know what to do with you...

I recently had a stay in hospital with sepsis which caused a serious problem with a different medical issue I have had all my life and know absolutely everything about! The baby doctors - as I called them - residents -(male) had little experience or knowledge of this and kept trying to reassure me all was 'normal' and would sort itself out; whereas if they had done one simple thing, it would have been ok. Because they didn't, I'm now having to have more (after many many many since childhood) painful surgeries to correct it. I'm pretty angry. Maybe I should have advocated more, but at the time I was really unwell with the sepsis and pretty well drugged ! The female doctors were rather more interested but didn't seem able to defer to their male peers. I think I will be taking it further when I'm fully better.

Oh and I'm (very youthful looking - honest hahahaha) over 60...no idea if that helped their decisions..

Yes, this is definitely true.

Sadly many literally have nobody do advocate for them if adults and are battling disability and often MH struggles on top. I’ve been shocked at what I’ve experienced as a parent.

The day a man gets a vasectomy with just a paracetemol tablet as opposed to a woman getting a hyseroscopy without anaesthesia is the day I will accept that medical mysoginy does not exist.

Can someone explain why the female doctors wouldn't approach it with internalised misogyny?

Just because you're a woman it does not negate the potential for this in the slightest. 😬

My minor heart attack(s) were missed initially because medics were looking for the classic presentation- which is more commen in men. It was only discovered because I had bloods taken the day before a cardio appointment during one. I had gone to the GP that morning and was told I had a virus.
The cardio consultant ( female) told me my symptoms- breathlessness, dizzynes & nausea with chest pain were typical female symptoms. I had been ill for months, asked to see my medical records and was not suprised to see a diagnosis of depression , the catch all for unwell females.

On the doctors strike thread a couple of days ago someone was completely dismissing the use of ai in medicine and here we have one of many examples of how it can work better than doctors. A doctor comes to the table with far too many prejudices and pre assumptions and most are incapable of seeing things objectively, unless it's a pathetically straightforward illness. I for one won't be sorry to see most doctors go and be replaced with a reliable diagnostic tool. I've experienced cases of non/wrong diagnoses too. It's incredibly frustrating when they just don't listen. We need a different type of practitioner now.