Women With The Exact Same Conditions As Men Get Different Treatment - recent study

[IwantToRetire]

An analysis found that men were offered more stents, painkillers, and surgery than their female counterparts with the same health problems.

Earlier this year, the government launched a renewed Women’s Health Strategy. This, they said, could help to address “outdated and misogynistic practices around pain relief” and “long-standing disparities” in care.

If a new paper is anything to go by, this is long overdue.

According to research from the University of St Andrew’s, which reviewed 38 studies, “men and women are frequently treated differently by healthcare systems”.

Their analysis found that 33 of the 38 studies, selected because they specifically compared the care of men and women in a health setting, showed significant treatment discrepancies.

This included a trend of women being offered less “active management” than men with the same conditions, including heart failure, Parkinson’s, liver failure, and kidney disease.

Article continues at https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-vs-men-medical-treatment-same-conditions_uk_6aabb322e4b0812a5f10876b

(This issue has come up on a number of threads, so not surprising but interesting there has been a study.)

1 in 3 UK women feel their migraine pain not taken seriously
https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/organon-commissioned-survey-finds-1-3-uk-women-feel-their-migraine-pain-not-taken

I had endometrial ablation for heavy periods. In basic terms, they put a wand thing in the uterus and microwave the lining off.

The pain relief offered was a suppository ibuprofen dose that was inserted so I'd be under peak pain relief at the time of the procedure.

However, there were complications with the patient before me and her procedure took much longer. So much longer that my Mum turned up to collect me thinking I'd be finished and I was still sitting waiting to go in!

By the time I finally had it done, the ibuprofen had worn off and they said I couldn't have any more and just had to "be brave." I had the procedure done with no pain relief at all and it was excruciating.

I've had several instances of medical issues being dismissed and blamed on my menstrual cycle and I've been told just to deal with it. I thought that might change when my periods stopped, but nope, now everything is apparently menopause related and I just have to deal with that.

Have only just found out by chance that MNHQ published this report not that long ago and apparently Government did listen. (Not sure any action promised!)

Medical Misogyny: a lifetime of failure
https://cms-uploads.mumsnet.com/Medical%20Misogyny%20Report%20-%20Digital.pdf

And there will be a meeting as part of the Labour Party Conference tomorrow.

Sorry can only find this link on instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/DdzT6AoARyg/

I like to think I'm a reasonably well-informed person, but I can tell you quite honestly, until I washed up on the beach of Mumsnet Island, I'd never heard of endometriosis. I am 73 years old. I'm not proud of that, but unless you've had a wife/girlfriend/partner/sister who's suffered from it, I daresay many (most?) men would say the same. It's not the sort of thing people chat about in the pub. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think that if a similar ailment affected men, the NHS would take it much more seriously.

Exactly. Any member of the public who had ever watched tv would have known that was a heart attack.

I have complained and was fobbed off. I have escalated to the ombudsman.

Did anyone see the guy who googled how to help his mum with dementia stop having seizures, found it was B6 deficiency caused by her meds and actually got a "high five" from her consultant? I mean, not as if women all over the country are crying out for B12 to stop nerve damage and being completely ignored...women given nitrous oxide (G&A) depleting B12 in labour to this day with no warnings given.

Pleased for his mum but never seen such a blatant sexist mansplaining held up as news in my life! www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmy0zewj483wo

The findings come amid growing public concern about women’s health, diagnostic delays and experiences sometimes described as ‘medical gaslighting’.

The study found substantially higher levels of patient voice - feeling heard, involved and empowered in decisions about care - among women diagnosed by consultants than among those diagnosed by GPs.

Importantly, there was no significant difference between male and female GPs. This suggests that the difference between primary and specialist care is not simply about individual doctors’ gender or communication style. Instead, the clinical setting itself appears to play an important role.

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/26212/

yep

on some cases women and girls might need different treatment than men and boys.

but if there is no reliable experience or study the treatment should be the sane.

Which is rubbish because we know we are different - just look at how Covid affected the sexes, let alone how we have heart attacks, which deficiencies we are likely to have that trigger hormonal changes/mental health issues, likelihood of osteoarthritis that we don't get scans for until it starts effecting us and becomes irreversible...it's a total shambles.

We need Women's Health Hubs. I want a DEXA scan for everyone who was put on the progesterone only injection for over 10 years before suddenly being told it might cause brittle bones - I was on it for 20 years before I was told this. When NHS knows it has prescribed medication that causes further harm, they should be made to do the preventative health checks in a timely manner. Women are getting shafted for being made to use men's drugs that were untested on women.

Women suffer more pain throughout body and across their lifetimes than men, major study finds
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/women-pain-comparison-men-study-b3061907.html

I have found this at my mum's GP surgery. The newer GPs or locums are more willing to consider alternatives for treatment or drugs. Perhaps the more recent training reflects improved diagnosis for these life long conditions.

To be fair, Viagra was being trialled as an agent to treat high blood pressure when male participants reported the effect on erections. It wasn't originally developed as a treatment for impotence, the drug company just got lucky.

Now they want to use placenta wraps to help men get erections post prostate surgery. They really do just constantly think about erections it seems.
I mean, I get that it is important to have kids, but maybe we need to move away from it being the be all and end all of a man's life even when they are 50+? When a man loses erectile function due to prostate surgery, medicine historically classified it as a traumatic "loss of function" that requires a clinical fix.
When a postpartum woman experiences painful sex or low libido, it has historically been dismissed by society and doctors as "normal tiredness," a "temporary phase," or simply the price of motherhood

Do that many men really want to father (more?) kids at 50+, though? Obviously there's always going to be some.

They want to be able to have intercourse and climax. And I think quite a lot have self esteem wrapped up in the idea of their virility.

Well if you want to think with your dick at that age, that's your problem. Trouble is, it's someone else's too.

Yes, this, although I agree with most of this thread.

If older women have vaginismus and want that treated, that should happen. Same for ED- both age-related physical changes that can happen & make sex physically hard.

I agree though that women's health is being shamefully neglected. And I agree it's difficult for women if they are happy not having sex after a certain time & don't want to do it anymore but then feel pressure that was not so intense before Viagra came out..

Isn't this just like life. You want to have a talk about women's issues and somehow men's dicks become the centre of discussion!

Far more money spent on them medically and in research than the birth giving vagina, sadly.

I worked out pretty quickly that if I sent the kids to the gp with dh, that they got better treatment too. I suppose that would be harder to assess but it's the same deal.

Women with autoimmune diseases are significantly more likely than males to have their autoimmune disease misdiagnosed as a psychiatric or psychosomatic condition, according to a study of more than 6,600 patients.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/females-with-autoimmune-diseases-less-likely-to-be-believed-than-males-and-face-longer-diagnostic

Yes I've witnessed this. My DD was admitted to hospital with kidney stones. In severe pain and vomiting every 20 minutes. She was offered nothing for the pain, and when I asked if they could give her something for the sickness,the nurse gave her a sick bowl. When her DH was admitted for the same thing,he was instantly given a shot of morphine because he was in so much pain.