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!

It’s interesting that the news article if full of ‘she said’, ‘she told reporters’ type of sentences. The implication of this is that her story hasn’t been corroborated as yet. She has an extremely rare condition but that doesn’t mean the medics she has been treated by in the past actually said what she is claiming.
When looking for a diagnosis, medics look at the most common possibility at first to rule it out. They then will carry out further tests until a diagnosis is made. At some point, it may be some apparent that the diagnosis was wrong - usually when further symptoms appear. That’s how diagnostic medicine works.

Thanks so much for sharing this! Looking at it now. I had actually completely forgotten about that as an aspect of medical misogyny - drugs are tested in predominately men, doses are decided based on male physiology, etc. We should all be passionate about this - one day it will be your life or the life of a woman you love at risk!

My grandmother, who was my best friend and my rock, died because of statin-induced liver damage, because the correct dose for statins was calculated for a man twice her size. Instead of, oh, I don’t know, funding some fucking studies of women and statins (so they could at least pretend a pharmaceutical company cares about more than just money), they just stuck a black label on the box to say it might cause liver damage, as opposed to admitting that women metabolize the medication faster, so often take higher doses which are, predictably, linked to more liver damage! The risk of liver damage is absolutely dose-dependent in this case. So ladies, you can either risk taking a drug not designed for you or die of the condition you need the drug for - so glad we have the right to choose 🥰

In my recent experience, if they rule out the most obvious thing they're then disinterested in going further. They seem stumped by the idea that it could be something else.

Hey, not sure if you saw this in the article (I miss things sometimes!) but it does say they did genetic testing and she has the condition. I don’t think BBC would be reporting it this way if it was strictly based on a he said/she said thing with no proof of the disease. Also, sadly, while that IS how diagnostic medicine works, most women never even see a diagnostician (for those wondering, Dr House is in diagnostic medicine - normally, doctors work in a certain specialty and if they can’t diagnose so they don’t know what specialty the patient should be under, they call diagnostic medicine. If they feel certain it’s psychological, they’ll never call diagnostic medicine). They are fobbed off after their condition doesn’t match with the “top three” most common causes for their symptoms, essentially.

The female doctors ...... didn't seem able to defer to their male peers

When you take this further (and I hope you do) I think you mean the opposite of this. ie. The female doctors seemed unable to question or override their male peers"

My husband had a vasectomy with absolutely no medication, no local anaesthetic, nothing. A doctor who had been doing them and only them for 30 odd years felt you got by far the best outcomes with no medication.

Yes! Sorry - Still a bit too cross to write rationally !!

I get it! Good luck getting the justice and satisfaction you deserve 💪🏻

My local GP has the city wide reputation of minimising women and their health issues.

A city wide reputation for missing serious health problems including Sepsis. It's laughed off by other medical professionals including women who work with him.

The Google, NHS and Care Opinion reviews speak loud and clear about the problem.

I don't understand how it's "normalised".... nobody cares. Literally!

Reminds me of the women who was put on antipsychotic medication because no one believed her when she said someone was living in her loft. She phoned the police and everything. Then it turned out someone was there.

From the article: The NHS says it is not known how many people have hereditary spastic paraplegia because it is often misdiagnosed
It's not confidence-inspiring reading

I used to work in medical negligence. He would have still be fobbed off.

If she was deep in a coma, she wouldn’t have understood all this. If she was in an epileptic blackout, she might have done.

And it wouldn't have made a difference -make or female.

Experience talking here. 🙄

They do misdiagnose men sometimes but they are rarely dismissed as often and are for more likely to be taken seriously. I've had an autoimmune arthritis fobbed off as period pains... The pain wasn't even my abdomen and I was on birth control which stopped my periods. It took me years for a diagnosis and many doctors appointments where I was being made out to be practically crazy. I had almost every single diagnostic symptom

One of the reasons men are taken more seriously than women by health care providers is that they seek significantly less treatment than women and tend to be more seriously ill when they do present.

3 GP visits over 18 months, 2 male GPs. One shrugged, and suggested it could be menopause, one was already annoyed that I needed a face to face appointment. Finally, when I got to the third, with a female GP and burst into tears, she ordered an MRI and full screening. Three weeks later I got the brain tumour diagnosis, 12 weeks after the GP appointment I had brain surgery. I would literally be dead now if I hadn't kept going back.

It’s a very complex rate neuromuscular condition.

My ds has it.

It shares a lot of symptoms with MS and cerebral palsy as well as Charcot Marie tooth and various other conditions. It’s slowly progressing on some so you don’t always know it’s neurological.

As I said above my ds was originally referred to neurology with suspected epilepsy with the same condition. It was only after seeing a specialist neuromuscular neurologist that he “wondered” if it could be that and did the gene test.

It took 6 years from the first signs through change (he’s always been uncoordinated!) to diagnosis. He saw Physio’s, OTs and podiatry who all couldn’t work out why he was getting stiffer legs with all the input he had.

On the flip side my female GP brushed off my gynae problems and it was a young male GP who pushed for referral saying I shouldn’t have to live like I was.

I had a hysterectomy 6 months after my apt I was that bad.

This article is a hot mess - are they claiming she doesn't have epilepsy? Hereditary Spastic Paraparesis is rare itself and only certain subtypes are associated with seizures. Todd's paresis is simply a description of temporary weakness after a seizure - it's not a diagnosis in itself. If she wasn't having seizures why was she 'in a coma'? Usual BBC muddled health journalism - there's a lot that doesn't make sense in this. Complaining about non-specialists missing HSP is a bit unreasonable- it is very rare and presenting with 'seizures' is hardly typical.

Yep. I have at least 5 examples of medical mysogyny off the top of my head.

My fave was being told I had stress when in actual fact it was a (benign, thankfully) brain condition causing my headaches and other issues that had gone on for months.

My DP otoh, went to the same GP once with a headache he'd had for just 4 days, he had blood tests the day after and was in the MRI machine a week later. All fine it was just a headache.

Same when we had another similar complaint a few months apart, I got fobbed off with "its stress causing your backache" (it wasnt bit it did self resolve when a cyst burst), he gets sent for scans.

oh and the time I was accused of being an alcoholic because my liver enzymes were elevated once and was grilled about if i knew how my drinking affected my family (2-4 drinks a week if that). DPs enzymes were high, he got told not to worry they can go up and down and just have a repeat test in a month.

Go figure.

my daughter’s allergy doctor (not in the NHS tbf, we went private as couldn’t get an appointment within a year) said to me “I don’t like prescribing epi pens to children because it makes their mothers anxious”. The context was that I had asked whether my child with 10 diagnosed IgE allergies would be given one.

Ever since then, i now insist that my DH goes to her appointments and does most of the talking. I brief him in advance on what to say. It does the trick- she now gets epi pens.