Excuse me, doc! please listen to me.
BLOG 6: 20/04/2024
This could be a unique experience as a result of everchanging GP’s, or maybe the whole everchanging GP’s thing is a result of this ‘unique experience’. Having grown up as a woman with few health problems in my life, the limited times I have decided to take my concerns to a doctor, I have been left with no answers, a script for some kind of contraceptive pill and often with more questions. Seriously, one time I went to the doctors clinic with stomach issues, was told it was anxiety and left with a contraceptive pill script. One year later I went a different doctor with the same ‘anxiety’ stomach issues, got a blood test and found out I had some unwanted inhabitants (iykyk) residing in my gut, their rental agreement duration: unknown (it was implied that they could have been there for upwards of 18 months).
Maybe I’m the problem? Maybe I’m really bad at articulating myself, causing confusion and misleading diagnoses? After some research, I found an article, ‘It’s time to stop gaslighting women when it comes to their health’ and realised I’m not alone. Historically, a broad range of women’s symptoms were attributed to ‘hysteria’ - from headaches and pelvic pain to unpredictable mood swings - this term was used to stigmatise women. This terminology remains present in modern doctors’ surgeries. Maybe not the word ‘hysteria’, but often women experiencing pelvic pain, have their pain discounted as ‘normal’ period pain, rather than undiagnosed endometriosis. Some research suggests women have gone undiagnosed for over 10 years, resulting in fertility issues and years of suffering. I mean, seriously? It’s 2024. Get yo shiz together Doc!
Only recently, as a 20-year-old woman have I noticed a difference in how doctors treat me, paying more attention to me and my symptoms rather than just waiting for a chance to hand over a script for the contraceptive pill – the magical pill that apparently cures all female issues! From my experience, it just pumps us with hormones, making our bodies operate like robots. A regular cycle, predictable hormonal changes and a 2000-word list of side effects. I mean, that doesn’t sound great, does it? Maybe I sound like a loopy voodoo lady, but honestly, bodies, particularly women’s bodies, should live through a natural hormone cycle, supported by diet and exercise rather than a daily hormone boost. GP’s should get onto that gut health thing, apparent it works miracles.
Back to the evident gender pain gap. Nurofen has recently released a campaign, a mission rather, to help close the gap. Their research found that 55% of women felt like they have had their pain ignored or dismissed rather than 48% of men. Among those women, 32% of women versus 20% of men believe it was because their GP didn’t take them seriously. The top factors contributing to theses numbers were, women not being taken seriously because they’re viewed as emotional, women are expected to naturally suffer pain (periods, child birth etc), women experience very different hormones to men, different pain thresholds between men and women, and women’s pain is seen to be psychological. This scary reality has led to women not receiving a diagnosis as quickly as men, some having to wait 12 months or longer (44% of women VS 24% of men), women in this survey believe this is due to the Gender Pain Gap.
After reading this blog, please can you go and search up the Nurofen Gender Pain Gap Index Report, the survey results have left my jaw on the floor, particularly the impacts on daily life. God, this is actually stressing me out, particularly because this report was only released in Feb 2024. It’s just disheartening really, that this is a very real problem existing in 2024.
Anyway, lol, yeah this totally sucks. Advice of the day, question your doctors, be persistent for results and trust your gut (pun intended). Sometimes I know something is wrong with me, but I tell myself I’m just being dramatic, together lets try and stop that negative self-talk, let’s stop gaslighting ourselves x. Ummm yeah, I think this was my attempt at a feminist blog post, not really sure if I’m educated enough on human bodies to write about gender pain gaps, but yolo, just trying to make tabboo topics less tabboo and I’m totally over being prescribed the contraceptive pill every 5 seconds. Cheers to that.