Women Are Calling Out 'Medical Gaslighting'

[Nevilledog]

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Marisa Kabas
@MarisaKabas
I know all too well how fucked up it is to be gaslit by a doctor. It’s an insidious problem and women have had enough of being told our very real health problems are in our heads.

“I’ll never get back the pieces of life I’ve lost to medical neglect.”

nytimes.com
Women Are Calling Out ‘Medical Gaslighting’
Studies show female patients and people of color are more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by medical providers. Experts say: Keep asking questions.
9:33 AM · Mar 29, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/28/well/live/gaslighting-doctors-patients-health.html

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https://archive.ph/ZnMum

Jenneh Rishe could easily run six miles in under 45 minutes — until suddenly she couldn’t. In the spring of 2019, Mrs. Rishe, now 35, began finding her daily jogs a struggle.

Years earlier, she had been diagnosed with two congenital heart conditions that, she said, doctors told her would not affect her daily functioning. Yet she was getting worse: Intense chest pains woke her up at night, and she started using a wheelchair after passing out too many times.

Mrs. Rishe, who lives in Los Angeles, found a highly recommended cardiologist in the Midwest and flew there to see him. He immediately dismissed her symptoms, she said. “People who have these heart conditions aren’t this sick,” she remembers him saying. He prescribed a new heart medication, told her to exercise and sent her home.

Unsatisfied with her care, Mrs. Rishe saw yet another doctor, who ordered extensive tests that found her arteries were spasming from a lack of oxygen. “I was basically having mini-heart attacks, whenever I was having chest pain,” she said. Two months later, she had open-heart surgery to correct the problem, which she later learned may have saved her life.

*snip*

[xmas74]

1. I'm going through this right now.

Suspected ovarian cancer. 23cm mass on left ovary. Nonstop post menopausal uterine bleeding since Halloween. 10 cm mass on right ovary. My oncologist wants to remove just the ovary because he wants to "protect my fertility" and actually said it was time to give my 22 yr old daughter a "brother or sister".

Spent Sunday and Monday in the ER for extreme pain. Blood pressure was 224/120. Headache, dizziness and nosebleed. Urinary incontinence. (The mass is compressing my kidneys according to my MRI.) The ER attending said "What do you want me to do about it" and sent me home.

What I want has been dismissed several times.

[lostnfound]

2. Are you kidding??? That's atrocious.

[xmas74]

8. I thought so.

So does my PCP and my gyno.

[Beaverhausen]

5. Wait- you are post menopausal and the doctor wants you to have another child?

am I reading that correctly?

[xmas74]

7. I don't think he read my chart

But yes, he said that.

My PCP is appalled.

[alwaysinasnit]

3. k&r for visibility

[mcar]

4. My sister is dealing with this right now

Recently diagnosed with breast cancer (prognosis good, but treatment necessary), she had a port installed last week in advance of her first chemo today. Doc told her it'd be sore for a day and then she'd be fine.

She's been in continuous pain ever since, now radiating down her back. She can't sleep. Called doc's office several times, they offered strong pain meds. Met with oncologist; he ignored her when she said something is wrong.

I took her to her chemo today. 30 minutes later she texted that the port was infected and unusable.

[chowder66]

6. I've been struggling as well and have come to the conclusion that Doctors are incurious.