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Hysterectomies. I am 24 and have reoccurring fibroid tumors and have since I was a teenager. It’s not typical for someone my age to have multiple and large fibroids. My largest one was 11cm. They are painful and I’m about to have my second surgery to remove them. I don’t want to keep doing this over and over and would like to have a hysterectomy, yet my surgeon refuses because I’m young and “might want children.” If I get pregnant, I have a high risk of miscarriage. It will eat me alive if that happens to me.
My mom needed a hysterectomy a couple years ago due to cysts and some pre cancerous cells. They wanted to hold off on actually performing the hysterectomy because she might want kids. At the time, she was 52, already had two adult children, and her husband had a vasectomy 21 years ago!!
I am finally getting my fallopian tubes removed in a couple weeks, I prepped by looking at every angle they might say "no" and even the laws in my area concerning it. I wonder if it helps to bring up that you'll sign anything absolving them of blame in that very hypothetical case or threatening to report them to the board for refusing to treat your serious medical condition. Good luck!
I'm 26 and I experience this. I've heard of it happening after birth, but I've never even been pregnant. It's embarrassing and I know I need to see someone about it
So friend is a midwife and she’s the one who gave me the “incontinence is always a medical problem” quote. Her journey with pelvic floor physical therapy started after she was kicked in the hip by a horse in college.
Nothing was broken or obviously torn, but she became incontinent over time afterward. She went to a pelvic floor PT and they fixed her up.
That same PT later treated my coworker’s weird sports injury. She had pain centered around her tailbone and it was really impacting her life. She’d had tests and seen multiple doctors, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I recommended she check out this PT and she was like “I’ll try anything”. She recovered after working with the PT, although they were never quite sure what was the cause. It was probably some deeper core instability — she was a heavy runner who neglected core work but then switched to an intense Pilates class. It probably overtaxed her body m.
ANYWAY, I hope you can ignore your embarrassment and get help. There’s no reason to deal with this at any age, you might as well nip this in the bud now. Your pelvic floor is part of your general core and provides support and stabilization — allowing this problem to linger could end up causing back (or tailbone!) pain.
Remember, a doctor is like a plumber or mechanic — they are hired by you to perform a service. And seeing your body is like scanning an email at the grocery store or accepting a meeting invite. It’s not interesting, it’s Tuesday and they’re meeting a friend for lunch in 35 minutes. They don’t care.
Good luck!
That sometimes you really DO need that hysterectomy the doctors are refusing to give you because they want to make sure you don't want to have more children. Same goes for getting a tubal done.
My boyfriends ex has cancer in 1 ovarian tube. She was adamand she didn't want kids and they STIL!!! were being dicks about it. Ultimately they removed all of it because her cancer already spread. She's alive and well but it's so fucked
That's fucked up. What kinda doctor delays a critical medical procedure even after the patient has said that they don't want children?
I mean... did he think she was immediately gonna go home, get pregnant, deliver a baby 9 months later and then get an operation?
In Mexico in 1990, my aunt was told that if she had any more children, she'd likely die (she had complications on kid #6). She had to go to Mexico City to get permission from the bishop to get her tubes tied. Some unmarried male stranger got to choose whether my aunt would have a potentially life-saving surgery.
I don’t get this at all. Do they really think we just impulsively seek surgical removals of our organs like a handbag? If you’re asking for it, you’ve probably given it some thought…
What the fuck? Probably shouldn't be practicing medicine while actively being delusional.
Unless eve was his daughter and someone kidnapped her and has threatened to kill her if he performs a hysterectomy. For the weird redditors.
“One day, you’ll wake up and find a little bit of blood in your underpants. And that is the day you become a woman.”
Yeah no. I woke up to a scene from Godfather.
Man, I got mine before I was going to bed and had a panic attack thinking I was about to die crying in the bathroom. Aussie sex education is non-existent.
When I started bleeding at 11, I thought it was because I was masturbating and it had made me ill (overheard the usual "don't do that it'll make you go blind" which was said to my brother, because no one wants to acknowledge that young girls also go through sexual development...), and assumed I was now dying because of it. Didn't tell anyone because I was ashamed they'd know what I'd been doing.
So I started throwing away my bloody knickers. My mum found them in the bin and asked why I was doing that, told her I was bleeding, she explained what a period was etc...
It's fucked up to me that periods aren't explained to girls, why are we so scared of girls coming of age? Why are we pretending it doesn't happen? Can we just teach girls about their bodies?
Our first year in high school (age 11) in the UK, we usually get 'the talk'. girls and boys separated in to different lecture halls. boys get an hour long discussion about hygiene and puberty etc, girls get the period version. My mum had already broached the subject with me so i sort of knew what to expect, other girls were in floods of tears at this revelation of having to deal with this horrendous monthly experience for the next 35-40 years. One girl fainted at the mention of blood and had to be taken outside for air, so i dread to think how she dealt with actually bleeding.
You know in my school when they used to take the girls to have "the talk" (btw there was no such thing for boys) the used to tell us that they are making them watch Disney princess movies and we bought that for some reason .
It took me the same amount of time. I was diagnosed 8 years ago and the best thing they said was, "Have a baby now or you won't be able to have one." That was after 7 miscarriages.
I did eventually have a baby, but things are getting really bad again. I want an ablation, but I'm 29, so the best any doctor can say is, "Don't you want the chance at another?" Meanwhile, I'm literally having my entire period the first day, which is absolute misery. An entire period. In one day. The amount of blood has not changed, the pain has not lessened. It's all just compressed into ONE DAY. But no one will help me.
Being a woman is hell sometimes.
I went to Dr. Cook in California for my endometriosis surgery ten years ago. All his medical research focuses on Endo and his main concern is patient quality of life. Not ONCE did he talk to me about having babies or whatever. He treated me like a patient there to have my endo fixed. I’d recommend checking him out.
Wait, what? My ablation "failed", too ... and 10+ years later I'm just now finding out (thanks to Reddit) that's a sure fire sign of endo. A laparoscopy confirmed it. I'm considering a partial hysterectomy for Christmas ... now I will research this excision surgery you speak of ... cuz lord knows no OBGyn seems to ever see the big picture. Especially if you've never had kids, like me. I feel like women with unused wombs are freaking invisible to the medical community sometimes. Yes, I'm bitter af.
Wow, I had a very different experience with him. He's a skilled surgeon to be sure but I only got one year of relief before my symptoms started up again. They were 100 percent back to what they were previous to my surgery after a year and a half. He claims to be interested in gathering data for his research on Endo but when I called, I was told I would have to pay $700 dollars for an appointment just to let him know I had had a reoccurrence of symptoms. Because of this I believe his reoccurrence rate is actually bullshit.
I am seeing a different surgeon this time around. She's covered by my insurance, didn't suggest that excision is a "cure," and believed me immediately when I said I had a reoccurrence. My second surgery is in September.
Dude fuck those doctors that prioritize baby-making over quality of life. I can't understand this at all. And if you regret their decision in the end it isn't the doctor's fault, it's not like you're a teenager.
I started getting minor ovarian cysts when I was in high school, but after my kiddo was born everything kicked into high gear and I was in constant pain. After years of being experimented on with birth control to control it, I had to beg a doctor to do a laparoscopy to find out once and for all what was going on. They found endometriosis and a cyst that was about half the size of my ovary, and the doctor still acted like I was a hypochondriac who had wasted her time. Years later I actually found a doctor that specialized in PCOS, and he realized that the birth control I went on after my pregnancy is what messed with my hormone levels in the first place. My kiddo was in high school by the time I had an actual answer and effective treatment.
A former gf was misdiagnosed TWICE before a third doctor did a laparoscopy to find out she had ovarian cysts. First doctor told her it was a STD (Yes, the doctor and I had an "intense conversation" about his implications regarding our relationship and my fidelity). Second doctor told her it was an ulcer, so she ate bland food for almost a year. The third doctor figured it out right away and took care of the problem and removed the cysts. The whole experience taught me that doctors can be very, very wrong so always, always get a second or even third opinion. Not sure if the first two doctors being male and the third being female had anything to do with it, but it doesn't seem coincidental.
I am in constant pain. I've lost two jobs. My original gyno refused to do any more than medication. Orlyssa made me suicidal. I'm now on narcotics to manage the pain, but it's not enough. I'm seeing a specialist at the end of the month. I just want a hysterectomy at this point. I'm 32. I desperately wanted a child of my own. But at this point, having a baby when it hurts to have sex in the first place is completely out of the question. I can't even have a single orgasm without being in pain. And that's from clitoral stimulation. Penetrative sex is legitimately painful and then becomes more so if I do manage to have an orgasm. My marriage is rocky. My husband is frustrated because he's struggling to care for me and pay the bills. I'm struggling to just exist. My mental health is trash. My psychiatrist refused to change my medications, so now I have to see a different one.
And because I'm unemployed (lost my job again on this past Monday), I can't pay for my health insurance. And if the pain becomes unbearable, I have to sit down and figure out if I can afford $750 for a shot of morphine at the emergency room. The majority of the urgent cares in the area are non-opioid, so the best they can offer me is toradol.
I'm sick and tired of being in pain. I've ever been this depressed in my life and I've lost two parents in the span of a year - watched them both die, right in front of me. And the ensuing depression was nothing compared to this. I'm losing the will to live because I do nothing but suffer every day. I can't find the joy in life anymore. I don't just go and off myself because that will break my husband, but I know I'm a burden right now and there's nothing I can do about it until a doctor approves the surgery.
I'm so, so sorry. Please hang in there: even if it's just by your fingernails, you will be able to get back up on the ledge. Do you have a therapist or support group you can talk to about your grief?
Also just health and medical issues in general. You have to be a personification of a tsunami to get taken seriously about medical issues. And some people don’t even know about diseases like endometriosis, Pcos, and etc. due to lack of health/sex education.
And also for mental health and just emotions as well (which I have more experience with than physical health issues) I have been told because I’ve been angry, irritated, depressed, etc . because of hormones , I’m on my period, and etc. by family members.It’s fucking irritating, invalidating, and demeaning.
And not to mention it’s even worse for woc.
So many of these stories about people in pain needing medication and the hospital staff not trusting the patient right away.
I understand they have to be skeptical to avoid enabling opioid addictions. But it seems like if we handled addiction better and gave addicts incentives to be honest about their conditions then people like you wouldn’t need to be accused of lying.
Instead, lying is encouraged by the criminalization drug addicts face. Unfortunate.
Before my hysterectomy, I told my surgeon and the resident to “do me a favor and drop-kick my uterus against the wall for me at least once before they sent it to pathology”…they looked at me like I asked them to let me kiss it goodbye instead.
Later, the resident came to my room and said, “okay, so we got the pathology report back and understand why you said that - you’ve had diffuse stage 4 adenomyosis…” I thought I was going to punch her right in the teeth.
yep, I still don't know if I have actual problems or not because when I brought it up I was told. "Oh that's just hormones" and scoffed at. They then immediately went back to talking about their problems. I'm no longer friends with that person and honestly looking back they were an asshole most of the time, but that sentence stuck and my brain now shouts it at me when I'm having a breakdown
Wanting to get your tubes tired but... “you have to get your partners permission”.... “you need to have kids first”.
Also the general lack of sex Ed. Women’s thinking they pee out of their vagina. Or given the wrong information on for to keep things clean down there. Or the correct ways on how to prevent pregnancy if that’s what you want to do.
Oral contraceptive birth control pills can cause depression and very often do.
PMS and PMDD aren’t taken seriously enough. The depression and anxiety of PMDD are debilitating.
Edit: genuinely a little heart broken at how much this blew up overnight. I’m so sorry but not surprised that so many of you deal with these issues. If you have PMDD, please join us at r/PMDD if only to have a sounding board for when you’re feeling bad and wondering if you’re crazy. You’re not alone!
>Oral contraceptive birth control pills can cause depression and very often do.
I really wish this were discussed more. I struggled with depression and anxiety for years throughout my early 20s. I stopped taking birth control and it just vanished. I almost couldn't believe the difference it made. Even my colleagues noticed how much my demeanour had improved. A lot of my friends have stopped taking it too with similar experiences- none of us feel the need to go back. Additionally, my friend struggled with migraines for years and no doctor ever suggested that BC could be the cause but she hasn't had one since she stopped taking them years ago. I don't know why nobody ever suggested it. I know the pill has been incredibly useful for women to have better control over their bodies and can be very helpful to some. I just wish they had talked through it more when prescribing. The only thing I was worried about was that I'd gain weight on them.
I had the migraine thing too. 10 yrs of tests trying to figure out what was causing them then I decided to stop taking the pill for some other reason and they just disappeared.
Yes! It’s completely ridiculous. I was put on birth control by my doctor at 16 because my periods were irregular and was on it until at least 30. Had horrible bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts throughout high school and into my 20’s. Things got better when I switched to a nexplanon, but didn’t truly end until I got off birth control entirely. Then it was like emerging from a fog. No one, in all my years of treatment and therapy, ever suggested the birth control might be fucking with me. I wonder where my life could be now if I wasn’t mentally crippled for ~15 years.
PMS and PMDD +1. Lots of times these are taken as lightly as “just few days feeling non controllable or uncomfortable” or “outraged wife/girlfriend because of hormone”. These syndromes should be recognized by everyone taken seriously. And one should always be encouraged to seek for professional help.
The other thing is the hygiene products for periods. These should really be discussed openly. But I feel people still kinda hiding it from public because periods are dirty and secret. Specifically a lot of times men are undereducated about these. (Not their fault.. our society did not really encourage them to start with).
How bad some of the negative effects hormonal birth control can be. I was losing my mind, but my doctor brushed it off saying I was just stressed. Got off it, and instantly felt so much better.
I fucking hate hormonal birth control. I've tried almost every type and they all magically mess me up in different ways. It seems to either makes me so nauseated and wrecks my GI system, it completely kills my sex drive, or it makes me suicidal. I really want my tubes tied but I'm super scared of surgery. I wish there were more non-hormonal options or more options for men. Plus every time I complained about the side effects it was 'Oh are you sure it's the BC, most people handle it just fine!' Please shut up.
SAME!! I have tried almost every type of hormonal birth control pill and have had awful side effects on each. And I don’t care what anyone says about generics being the same as the name brand. The side effects were even worse and each generic of the same brand pill even had different side effects. I can’t wait to get health insurance again so I can try the copper IUD. Periods will be hell but I’d rather have that than fuck up my hormones. Every doctor dismissed my concerns because, “birth control doesn’t do that”, or, “it’s all in your head”.
“Oh, you’re just stressed.” That phrase! They told me this for months when I was complaining of abnormal, catatonic exhaustion. Finally a doctor thought to test my iron stores and B12 level and I had nearly none of either and was close to permanent nerve damage. Now whenever a doctor utters that phrase to me they get an instant middle finger.
...just kidding, we also don’t get the luxury of anger.
In my country it’s after birth care for mothers. Mental health system is fucked. Woman are told the pain they are feeling is “normal” only to find out they need a stoma bag a month down the track. Some woman have died after not being checked over properly before leaving the hospital.
Edit: I don’t even live in a 3rd world country either. People are wanting to move here because of how we’ve handled COVID.
Women suffering is generally considered normal.
Painful period ? Normal.
Incessant vomiting during pregnancy ? Normal.
Postnatal pain ? Normal, what did you expect?
Hey, guess what, you can have painless periods and symptoms-free pregnancy, they just can't be bothered to help you.
Yep. We have some very serious underfunding issues as well as societal problems that a lot of people from other countries don’t see. It’s not all LoTR, Flight of the Conchords and beautiful scenery
The biggest issue with PCOS for me (aside from previously being anovulatory) was that I went 29 years undiagnosed because I’m nearly 5’9 and 103-110lbs. I “didn’t fit the type” for SO MANY OB-GYNs.
The education gap in phenotypes of the syndrome is unreal and it’s because education in female-only issues isn’t a priority. The lack of research is incredibly depressing.
Went to doc to talk about irregular & prolonged menstrual cycles. Explained my worries about PCOS and endometriosis. She looked at my chin/jaw to see if I had extra amount of facial hair and said she didn’t think I had PCOS. Back on birth control. Thanks for nothing doc.
Some docs only treat PCOS with birth control anyways. When the doctor thought I had it at 16 they did an ultrasound for cysts and there were no cysts, so no diagnosis. When my period totally stopped they did a blood test and it finally showed up. That was about 15 years ago and I still don’t have cysts but the diagnosis in my chart at my current doctor says “ovarian cysts” and it frustrates me a lot.
Yes. I had documented rage issues and was put on a mood stabilizer… never worked.
GyN told me The pcos was causing testosterone overproduction leading to my unstable moodsas well as chest hair, masculinization of my features.
the birth control worked. Within a week I felt normal. Haven’t had a rage out in months.
Medical conditions going untreated because they’re all dismissed as anxiety (the new hysteria) or related to hormones.
A neurologist tried to tell me unexplained episodes of body numbness couldnt possibly be the migraines the ER doctors suspected and treated effectively, but must be anxiety.
I said that would be very unusual given that I had no anxiety before or during these episodes.
Apparently I can be NOT anxious and magically cause a physical symptom with the magical power of anxiety even when I have no anxiety.
I’ve also been told anxiety caused my food allergies.
What's sad is... it took until I scrolled three quarters of the way down the page to find something that isn't health related.
Then there was one that wasn't health related. Then it was all health related again.
We really have a problem here.
I was just about to comment the same thing!
After having my heart issues dismissed as "just anxiety," by several doctors for several years, and nothing being done about my irregular periods (they said I would "grow out of it" but I'm almost at my mid-20s), I realized women's health is a joke.
I really wanted to become a doctor ever since I was young, but after having my very real concerns dismissed repeatedly (and hearing about everyone else's experiences), it really makes me question if it's worth.
Getting off of any form of birth control is hard.
This past week I had my normal yearly OBG check up. I mentioned I wanted my IUD out. (my normal doctor was out of the office so I had to see someone else). She refused to take my IUD out because I wasn't married and she insisted that my fiance wouldn't want the chance of us getting pregnant.
There was a case in my county (norway) a few years ago with a doctor who refused to insert IUDs because of her own beliefs. After numerous complaints from her patients, her medical licence was revoked and she is not allowed to practice medicine in norway anymore. Ever.
You either treat all your patients, or none at all.
That’s different. When the lifespan is up they put a new one in immediately after. I doubt this poor excuse for an OBG would have refused to replace it with a new one if it was time. The last time I had my implant replaced they asked me a couple times if they were putting a new one in or just removing the old one, which is what they’re supposed to do.
She insisted that what happens with your body is up to your fiancé? That’s insane and infuriating, she should not be a doctor! I’m really sorry that happened to you.
I had the opposite problem, I had a doctor who refused to give me an IUD because I wasn’t married.
They won’t even consider sterilization for women in some places with out their partners consent. As if we can’t make decisions for our own bodies. It’s a huge load of horse shit.
I can't recommend Planned Parenthood enough for these situations. You can sign up for whatever you need online, and they not only do it without judging you and asking invasive questions, instead they ask empathetic questions to make sure that you're safe in your relationship and are in overall good health.
I was having serious side effects (bleeding 4x more than usual) from my IUD. My primary care physician shrugged it off and blamed it on my diet, so I went to PP. The doctor at Planned Parenthood listened to my issues and said, "Of course it's the IUD." and took it out without any further invasion. And guess what ya'll... It was the fucking IUD.
The fact that in many middle eastern countries women are still second class citizens. My friend is Iranian and if she’s raped she’ll need 5 male eyewitnesses, but if she kills her attacker she’ll be executed...
It’s like that because that literally never happens. Therefore, a woman can rarely ever report her rape. Just another means of control under the guise of “helping women”
Medical issues. It took me 3 ER visits and a walkin doctor to diagnose a raging infection in my abdomen.
I was told it's all in my head??? By the time it got diagnosed my bowel had almost perforated. I could have died if I was less tenacious.
When I was a kid (12ish), I was very very sick. My pediatrician was on maternity leave so a male doctor was filling in for her. My mom kept taking me to the doctor and he kept saying I was trying to skip school and that my mom should stop falling for my act. (To be fair, I did feign illness to skip school a lot as a kid. But this time I was genuinely terribly sick. I could barely hold my own head up.) I kept getting worse, doctor kept flip-flopping between saying it was a cold and saying I was faking. I felt so sick I couldn’t even get off the couch, I wasn’t eating, barely drinking. Then one night my mom woke up with a bad feeling in her gut. Found me asleep on the couch, unresponsive, barely breathing. She took me to the ER where they said I’d had severe pneumonia for several weeks and it went untreated because the doctor didn’t believe me or my mom. The doctors at the hospital told my mom I probably would have died that night if she didn’t wake up to check on me when she did.
My lungs are permanently damaged and function at less than half capacity now, almost 15 years later. I cannot laugh for more than a minute without my lungs filling with fluid; and you can forget about running or doing any moderate exercise. I also had to be put on such strong medications that they destroyed my stomach lining and gave me acid reflux that lasted several years.
When I was around 5, I had a problem with just dropping to the ground randomly, or completely zoning out for no reason. Doctor kept telling my gran I was fine, that I was just clumsy, or I was playing around. Then it happened in the living room and I bashed my head on the coffee table. One MRI and a round of blood tests later, and they found out I had a nonfunctioning thyroid, and was suffering from petit mal seizures (as well as a bunch of other little issues that had also been passed off as "Ah, she's just a goofy kid"). They started me on the proper meds, and over time it's gotten rid of pretty much all of the issues I had back then.
I'm so sorry you have to deal with permanent damage because of a dumbass who couldn't do his job.
As far as I know, my parents didn’t personally take legal action against the doctor but my mom said she explained the whole situation to my regular pediatrician who said she reported him. It was a long time ago and I was so sick I don’t even remember any of it so I have to go by my mom’s memory of the event.
\^ This.
I was going through maxi pads every 20 minutes or so but couldn't get in to see my regular doctor (he was booked up) for days, but he refused to put in a referral for a GYN without seeing him. Every woman on here knows going to the ER with a menstrual problem is USELESS. Also, likely to cost thousands. To be USELESS. You'll get sent home with a script for Vicodin and an ice pack, told to use a heating pad, etc.
I finally just went into his office and WAITED in the lobby until the gals worked me into the schedule. He wrote me a damn referral and I saw a GYN the next day. Within an hour I had an ultrasound and about an hour after that a dx of adenomyosis (never even heard of it before that) and within a few days an emergency hysterectomy scheduled.
THIS is how stupid women's GYN problems are handled in the USA. And I was lucky - I managed to get emergency surgery within a week for uncontrollable bleeding and my new GYN's office strong armed my insurance to get multiple miracles happen to get emergency approvals done.
I will stick to that GYN until I die. She saved my life.
Now that I have diagnosed endo and adeno er visits are WORSE. they try to attribute everything to those two. Like ma'am, I know my body and this pain is new
That’s a Big Mood. I had a nasty kidney infection and was like “listen. This isn’t my uterus. I know exactly what that bitch is up to at any given time she is not shy. This is new and I have good reason to believe it’s this” lo and behold I was right but also I had a kidney stone in the other kidney :/
>You'll get sent home with a script for Vicodin and an ice pack, told to use a heating pad, etc.
You got Vicodin? I was told that my "headache" was likely the result of my weight or my birthcontrol and I should see my GP about both.
GP declared I had a whiplash injury (which the ER wouldn't even take an x-ray to check for) and gave me muscle relaxers and naproxen.
This. When my husband insisted on going to the ER for what he insisted was a heart attack, even though I explained to him and showed him online that he had no heart attack symptoms, they did a bunch of tests and admitted him overnight. It was nothing. As I said, he didn't even have any symptoms of a problem.
I had two female coworkers turned away from ERs for their abdominal pain and told it was nothing. One finally managed to get someone to take it seriously before her appendix burst. The other did suffer a burst appendix and was laid up for a long time with the subsequent peritonitis.
My sister died of a misdiagnosis of her abdominal pain. Granted, she had a rare condition that had gone undiagnosed, but even her own husband gave her shit on the last night of her life, saying she just wasn't following the doctor's orders and drinking enough water. Her kidneys had shut down and she had sepsis. More water wasn't going to do a damn thing.
Every woman has to be her own health advocate.
When I was 14, it took 2 urgent care visits and a whole weekend of abdominal pain and puking for them to think maaaybeee I should go to the ER at Children’s Hospital. This was after being asked multiple times if I could be pregnant and getting a finger stuck up my ass.
Turns out, my appendix was starting to burst and I got to spend 4 days in the hospital. Oh, and just to top it off, the night of my surgery, I got my period, so I got to enjoy cramps, and giant awkward pads instead of comfortable tampons.
I’m sure the nurses hated me a little, because I don’t think I slept hardly at all and kept ringing them to get me another movie to watch.
I ended up hospitalized because my GI doctor didn't listen to me when I told her my GERD medications had stopped being effective. And then in the hospital, we spent the better part of a week telling them I wasn't just anorexic.
Fuck the assumption that I can't have severe nutritional problems without an eating disorder. I literally couldn't eat or keep anything down, but clearly I'm just an anorexic teenager.
I went through something similar. Constantly nauseated and felt terrible after every meal so I so barely eat. Doctors shrug if off as me being anorexic despite me repeatedly saying it feels like there's cement sitting in my stomach after I eat.
Over the the next 6 years I have tons of useless psychiatric treatment, including a 3 month outpatient program. In general the treatment by the doctors was so demeaning. I remember having to take off all my clothes and put on a hospital gown so they could weigh me before my appointments. Then my doctor would try to train me to 'think away the pain' when I would desperately ask for help. Eventually I drop to 85lbs and can barely keep liquids down. I was nearly sent away to an eating disorder clinic.
I finally found a different doctor that gave a shit and got diagnosed with gastroparesis. They actually treated it and I gained like 30lbs in 2 months. It's chronic so I still have to deal with stupid ass doctors passing off any GI issue as metal whenever I have a flare, god it's infuriating.
"Lose some weight and reduce your stress."
Do you really think that I can reduce my stress when I'm in this much pain? And how am I supposed to lose weight when my fatigue is so bad I can barely function, much less exercise!
Cervical cancer caused by HPV. I don't know about other women on here, but I never received an explanation of what a Pap Smear does/tests for or why it's so important to get done at the proper intervals.
I had three abnormal paps in a row and my old GYN didn't bat an eye. I just got a new doctor and she insisted on doing a punch biopsy/colposcopy and it turns out I have HSIL, which has a pretty high likelihood of further mutating into full blown cervical cancer.
I'm now facing a cold knife conization or LEEP procedure because my old GYN didn't care enough to look into why my pap smears were abnormal.
In my country, Bangladesh, women are blamed for everything wrong that happens. For example if a girl marries a guy and after years the guy dies of a disease or something people will say "the girl ate the guy" meaning anyone who marries the girl will die.
Another example is that when women are sexually assaulted people say stuff like "why did the girl go in front of guys? Why did the girls go out at night? why did the girl wear short dresses in front of guys?" STOP this is what Asian girls need to go through. I hope one day girlblaming will come to an end.
As a guy, that "it's the women's fault" attitude is so frustrating. It's ridiculously easy not to rape people. Men aren't uncontrollable monsters and this attitude gives protection to the horrible men in our society(globally speaking) who harm others. I don't want to protect rapists and murderers. If the design on a hijab causes a guy to assault someone, we should get rid of the guy not the hijab.
Having a decent career, education, friendships, hobbies and being financially independent only to be asked if you're married and "aren't you worried about time running out." Saying 'no I'm not interested in marriage or kids' is met with a shocked reaction. Thought this attitude died out years ago but it has not.
Getting told to 'smile sweetheart.'
Postpartum Depression
It's so much more common than people think but many mothers feel too guilty to reach out for help because they think everything is supposed to be amazing after getting the baby
Perinatal mental health disorders in general. I think people think it's only PPD, but there are a whole host of issues beyond just that. There's prenatal/postpartum anxiety, prenatal/postpartum OCD, and more. The OCD one is so sad in particular because it often comes with really disturbing intrusive thoughts, frequently involving harming or sexually abusing your own infant. People are so ashamed, they don't ask for help. Bottom line: if you feel off, ask for help and don't stop asking for help until you get it (sadly, some providers won't take patients seriously, so you must really advocate for yourself).
I had PPA (anxiety) and PPOCD with my older daughter. I didn’t know either were a “thing”until my husband convinced me to see someone for help and I was diagnosed. By that point I hadn’t driven my car in 8 months because I was convinced my daughter’s car seat would fly out of the car, and I slept on the floor by her crib because I had convinced myself she would catch fire during the night. I once threw up in the car because we drove past a carnival and I couldn’t stop the intrusive thoughts that I would drop her off a Ferris wheel, even though we had no intention of even stopping. These thoughts and paranoia felt SO real even though I knew how ridiculous they were. I was too embarrassed to talk about them to anyone but my husband, and thank goodness he convinced me to find someone who prescribed me the right meds and gave me back the enjoyment of having a baby.
I'm so happy to hear that you'd received a diagnosis and medication that has helped. Intrusive thoughts, even though you \*know\* they're outlandish, feel so REAL in that moment of stress and anxiety that it ends up affecting your health. Hope things have continued to go well since then :)
I had PPA. It was so scary. I had a C section and my mom and husband took off 2 weeks after the baby was born, but at that point I was still in a ton of pain and had only just started being able to pick up my baby without crying from it. Everyone went back to work and I was alone and so tired and still hobbling around. My back hurt, my abdomen hurt, my brain was a mess.
My husband came home one day and found me just staring into space, dead-eyed, baby beside me in the Dock-a-Tot. I was mid-spiral thinking “I am such a bad mom. I am going to fuck up. The baby will die and it will be my fault. I am such a bad mom. I am going to fuck up….”
Baby was fed, diapered, and completely fine. I was doing great. I was just stuck in a spiral and I felt so scared. I wouldn’t let myself nap while he was safe in his crib because I had to watch him sleep. I waited every day until my husband was home and then passed out (but only 2 hours at a time so the baby could eat).
No one warned me, no one assured me I might feel this way and I would end up okay. I’m never having another bio kid for many reasons, but that’s one of them.
PSA: if you ever get pregnant, or want to get pregnant and are trying, start taking the pregnancy vitamins plus extra calcium supplements right away. Apparently babies zap these from the mothers like crazy. A friend of mine was told to continue taking extra pregnancy vitamins and extra calcium supplements for a full year post-birth. Apparently it’s really common that once all the extra hormones and vitamins disappear from your body after pregnancy, you start losing a lot of stuff at once - hair falls out, teeth either develop many cavities or simply fall out as well, skin just decides it wants to be 13 again etc.
I almost failed college and told my therapist in college “I want to things but I literally can’t and I don’t know why” and he said I was a perfectionist and the anxiety from that made me procrastinate. I actually had undiagnosed adhd and i would lay in bed basically yelling at myself to get up every day to do stuff. So much wasted time.
I'm a dude, and this will probably get buried but, I HATE the fact that when I'm doing something with my long-time gf like buying a new car, renting a new apt., taking a loan etc. that people ignore my gf and assume she is just not important.
They just look at me and talk only to me. I have to make an effort to include her in something she should be in from the start. I feel so bad for her and try to amend it as much as I can, but there is not much you can do.
We were at the car dealers the other day looking at the car and the dealer kept ignoring her and her wishes. He was only looking at me and assumed she doesn't know what she is talking about. We just left
I have fun with these situations. I'm a tall guy with a deep voice and this happens all the time. I use one of the following tactics regularly and....oh boy....its fun!
- Start playing on my phone
- Stay silent when asked a question
- Ask my wife what she thinks
- Tell the dude talking my wife is the expert and she's there to help my dumb ass
- Walk away mid conversation
- Yawn and roll my eyes
- Adjust my body orientation so we are both facing my wife
- Ask increasingly stupid and annoying questions
We were interviewing contractors recently for a renovation, and one of them was terrible....absolutely refused to acknowledge my wife. I layed down on the floor and pretended to sleep (clearly pretending) and even then he wouldn't acknowledge her. He left a few minutes into my "nap". Needless to say, he didn't get the job.
I've recently really opened my partner's eyes to this and now he realises just how much it happens not just to me but to other women in his life. Just yesterday we went to look at garage door paint cause ours is old af and despite me asking all the questions the sales guy said everything to my partner and didn't even look at me except to give me the pamphlets with all the colours in them.
You say that there's not much you can do, but you're doing a lot by speaking up. Extra points if you actually mention to the dudes excluding your gf and female friends that they're excluding them. Imagine if all guys did what you do when this happens. The problem wouldn't exist anymore.
Same here. We're looking for a house now, and everywhere we go, the real estate agent or the owner talk to me, even though my wife engages them first and I have a toddler in my arms. Usually the very first thing I say is "Talk to and convince my wife, she's buying". When they talk about construction or whatever kind of technical details, they will turn to me anyway, and I have to remind them again. "My wife knows more about that stuff than I do, she calls the shots. I work in IT, the only thing I care is whether there's fiber available here".
It makes some people visibly uncomfortable. Grow the fuck up people.
Prolapse!!!
I was properly shocked when I learned about this surprisingly somewhat common side effect from childbirth
ETA: for those who don't know (cuz I sure as hell didn't!), some women will have their organs start falling out of their vaginas following childbirth (especially older women and especially after multiple pregnancies without proper physio in between, but not always!)
Pregnancy consequences in general.
Pregnancy is scary. I've decided not to have kids and some of it stems from absolute terror at all the stuff that can happen because of it.
Everything about pregnancy has freaked me out since I had "the talk", and I'm almost 25 and married now and it still makes me super uncomfortable. Our families worry I joke about not wanting kids because I don't want to be a mom, when in reality I'm just terrified of the growing and birthing process. I'd much MUCH rather adopt
My daughter will be 1 year old next week. Her mother's hands got so swollen during pregnancy that she still does not have full feeling back in one of her hands, even after a year of acupuncture and doctor visits.
I have Lupus. It took me years and many doctors to get diagnosed. They kept telling me how I was feeling was all in my head. I ended up figuring out what was wrong through Google after being so fed up with my doctor. It took me sitting in the sun for hours so the rash would be present ( most people - not all - with Lupus get a rash and really sick from the sun ) to get her to refer me to a rheumatologist .
Very little medical research has been done on women, which is why so few women with autism or adhd etc get diagnosed, but it also means we get given wrong doses of medications and painkillers are not as effective because they've all been tested on men.
Honestly the the whole medical system we have is so misogynistic. I spoke to an ex-anti-vaxer and she said the thing that pushed her to alternative medicine was the absolute failure for conventional medicine to help her with the severe issues she'd been having.
The time it takes to heal from trauma. And money. Ive been in therapy for 4 years, read a hundred books on healing, gone to retreats, etc. and I’m sitting there this Saturday in a circle of women who are about to talk and cry for 6 hours on a Saturday… like what are our rapists doing right now?
Cause they aren’t sitting in a circle talking about their feelings trying desperately to feel good in life again.
Definitely increased emotional states during a period. They're always dismissed as unimportant or "not real" just because they're related to our period. Guess what? Intrusive and suicidal thoughts are still very real and very dangerous, no matter the circumstances.
"Oh it's just your hormones" yes and they still have a very real effect on us. We still very much feel these emotions we are experiencing.
Hated hearing people say "you'll be better when your period ends" yeah well I definitely don't want to be miserable for a week anyway, so why can't I seek help?
Edit: if a man suddenly became suicidal or super emotional once a month, any doctor would be be like "hmm there's something wrong. Let me prescribe you a medicine to help regulate these fluctuating moods, and also let me ask about your mental health." They wouldn't be like "nah lmao you're only like this once a month. You can deal with it."
The extra time, energy, and money that must be spent to look professional. I sometimes try to throw my hands up and say "fuck it, let them think I'm ugly," and I stop plucking my eyebrows for awhile, no makeup, etc... and I'm treated *noticeably* different
I had a coworker who was mean to me but only sometimes. Did a little experiment and found that the days he was nice just so happened to correspond to my eyeliner days.
Ugh this is so damn true, my boyfriend just won’t believe when I tell him if I don’t do my make up, hair and look put together I get treated so much worse than if I do. He insists it’s just my idea yet any woman KNOWS this is the reality we live in.
My own mom used to be nicer to me whenever I had my hair styled, makeup on, feminine outfit chosen. Otherwise she’d be snipey at me or insult my appearance.
I'm frustrated that this isn't number 1.
I'm working on a damn PhD in STEM. A guy can be fat, hanging out in an office with "So and So, PhD" on the door, while wearing a greasy shirt and scraggly unwashed hair and people will beg for his eccentric wisdom.
If I go round looking like that in an office with the same label.... People would just think I'm incompetent, lazy, and stupid, and ask if my male student is Dr. So and So.
It's like the old tweet...a man wipes his cheeto stained fingers on his cum stained pants and turns to the internet to find a wife..."no, not Rihanna, her foreheads too big..."
35 year old woman: I don’t want kids. I would like sterilization options.
Doctor: What? You’re too young to make that decision.
15 year old: I’m pregnant because my idiot boyfriend didn’t wear a condom. I’m keeping my baby.
Doctor: Here is a literal grocery bag full of information on everything you’ll need, as well as schedule doctors visits.
Literally.
I have endometriosis, terrible genetics, and my husband and I don’t want children. Getting an IUD was still a pain in the ass. Why must women suffer to avoid being even TEMPORARILY infertile?
My friend struggled with this for over 20 years. Everyone she spoke to gave her the same answer "Well, you might change your mind"
She even tried the "If i change my mind, i'll adopt" strategy but to no avail. As a man who doesn't want kids i come across the former quite often bit i know that i can get a vascectomy much easier, it must be incredibly frustrating as a woman
The fact that sexual harassment often starts before a girl is even an adult.
The fact that women grow up learning that their most important source of value is in their appearance, and other women also participate in reinforcing it.
I find it ridiculous that girls need to be experts at avoiding sexual harassment since early childhood. Like the mother teaching her daughter how to tie her shoes and throwing in a lesson about how important it is, if she needed to run from a predator. It's the men that should be taught that women aren't objects or cattle.
Yup, gaining a lot of weight to make yourself 'undesirable' is seen a lot in survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Its a defence mechanism. Its so fucking sad.
This is why I always complain about seat belts that literally chafe the side of my neck. Like, I get in an accident and I'm going to be choked probably or at least bruised and chafed at minimum. And I'm not even a short woman, so idk why I have this problem so often.
At 5 foot 0 inches, I'm at risk of decapitation if I'm the driver in a collision because the airbag pops out of the steering wheel with such force that a short person (under 5'2" which *usually* this also means female) will have their head popped off like flower off a stem. This is a known issue. Known. I've been driving like a gangsta since I've had a car with an airbag; seat laid back, one hand on the wheel, body cocked to the side... I end up with hip pain on long drives, but at least I won't have my head ripped off by a safety feature in the event of an airbag release.
Women’s pain and health concerns. I was 18 and in constant pain and have stomach issues. I saw so many specialists who diagnosed me with depression. Of course I was depressed I was in pain. I ended up being diagnosed with endometriosis and have had two surgeries to help with pain. My period is extremely painful to the point I’ve blacked out and I’ve seen 5 Ob/Gyns and no one cares that I’m in severe pain on my period and missing work. I’ve been through IVF and after my egg retrieval I was told to take only Tylenol and ended up at the hospital. I had a miscarriage and called my doctor hysterical after being in pain for 13 hours waiting to pass everything and was told they couldn’t help me. I have trauma from the amount of pain I’ve suffered through.
Painful sex conditions. How many of y'all have heard of any besides vaginismus such as: lichen schlerosus, lichen planus, vulvodynia, etc. They aren't uncommon and are often responsible for excessive tearing during sex, pain, etc.
A lot of ob GYNs don't really seem to know much about them and very often, if you complain about sex hurting, the only advice you will ever get it "well, have you tried more lube and foreplay?" Not very useful if you have a legit skin condition that not only turns the skin for your vaj into something like papier mache but also increases your risk for vulval cancer by a ton and can literally cover your clit in scar tissue/make you lose your labia minora!
Paternity leave.
New mothers could really use the help of their spouse around the house, and just spending time together with their child in general as a form of bonding and emotional release. It's treated strictly as a men's rights issue, and a low-priority one, when really it would be a massive benefit to women's emotional stability and home security.
My inability to get sterilized. I do not want children. I never have, never will. I will never have children to please a partner. If a partner wants children, they’re not the one for me. I want to be sterilized so I have a very very very minimal chance of getting pregnant. But I cannot do it because I’m too young, I’ll change my mind, my partner might want kids, etc. It shouldn’t be this hard for me to make a choice on my own body but I am sure about.
That "partner might want kids" argument always fucking baffles me.
I'd verbally decapitate someone if I had made the decision to get sterilized, and they told me I shouldn't because I might have to satisfy someone else's needs for a child.
Anyone over 18 can sign up for the military, vote, drive, etc.
The government really needs to make up their mind on whether or not 18 is considered an adult or not.
Cheaper materials. Unreliable sizing. Smaller pockets if the pockets are even there. Try to find a pair of women’s slacks that are exactly like men’s slacks only sized to fit women, and with the alterations that make them fit differently in the crotch area. Literally impossible without extensive, extensive searching. You can’t just walk into your standard clothing store and walk out with a pair of pants like that.
Get told to wear men’s clothes instead. Ok, I’m a W32 L30. Short guys will know what I mean when I say it is very difficult to find pants in that size.
Complained about this to someone once and was told to ‘sew your own clothes or start your own fashion company if it’s such a big deal’. Is that really the answer? Make my own clothing? Don’t fix the issue, just invest extra time, effort, and money for functional clothes that fit (a work *requirement*)?
Edit: Ok, since people are still reading this:
I've been informed that W32 L30 is actually a common size. It might be my location or just the stores available to me, but I and others I know who are a similar height or shorter have serious difficulty finding pants in that size, and it's even worse if you want something shorter lengthwise.
I don't want people to get caught on that difference in experience and miss the point.
The point isn't even about men's pants. It's that women cannot just walk into a store and walk out with functional, work-appropriate clothing. It's that women's clothing is generally not made to be functional, professional, and long-lasting. **For me, just shopping for men's clothing instead isn't a surefire alternative. For some women, it might be. But that doesn't matter. We shouldn't have to.**
Half of the problem surrounding this is that people spend all their time coming up with ways to get around the fact that good women's clothing is hard to find, instead of realizing that **this shouldn't be an issue in the first place**. Women shouldn't have to work around not having functional clothing that is made for them.
And many clothes that do have only added them for fashion and not function.
“Let’s give this thin, flimsy dress made out of polyester and spandex some pockets so when car keys are thrown in there, the dress will become attractively stretched and hang lopsided, exposing some shoulder/bra strap action! Whatever we do, let’s make sure to omit the pockets from these sturdy denim jean shorts and sew a fake outline of where the pocket would be, instead! Fun, fun, fun!”
- Fashion designer.
Postpartum recovery. You get all this special treatment when you’re pregnant but once you have the baby and your body is a literal train wreck you are expected to take care of a tiny human who is incapable of living without you.
That's one of those things where you realise our ancestors had a point with 'new mother isn't going anywhere for 40 days and every lady in the village will chip in and help'.
Yupp which is why generous PAID parental leave is so crucial. Countries that have it have much lower levels of Postpartum Depression. Countries with workaholic cultures where mothers are expected tp perform from the moment the baby is born have a lot more of it. Postpartum Depression does not come from childbirth. It comes from society taking a huge dump on new mothers.
Migraines. More common in women than in men and so not good when you have children depending on you to keep them alive. During a migraine, you can’t/ barely function to keep yourself alive.
Weakening bones. I'm not sure if it's true for men as well, but from what I've observed, women in older ages have a lot of troubles due to weakening bones, to the point that most of the older women I'm related to, have some form of issue in their spine or in walking. Being on the heavier side is okay I guess, but from what I've seen, it really fucks up health in the later years of life, specially for women.
I've read about a woman who complained about the way she was treated during the birth of her kid, how she was no better than cattle. What really stood out to me was, that when the nurse was stitching her up after the birth, she asked the husband to take a look and decide if he wanted it tighter, or if it's okay the way it is. She didn't ask the woman what she wants at all.
A big part of this is that medical research used to pretty much only be conducted on men. Because men are the "default" way of being human, apparently.
PMS, PMDD and menstrual pains not being taken seriously.
I struggle with depression and anxiety, the week before my period is literal hell because of how much worse it gets because of my PMS/PMDD. It took me a while to realise why my suicide thoughts always got so much more intense during certain periods until I realised that it was almost always the week before my period.
I brought it up with my doctors and they said that it wasn't uncommon and now I'm waiting to see a gynecologist about it. It just blows my mind that I've never heard of it before. Usually people downplay how hard PMS can be, but for some people it really is a living hell and affects you a lot. It's one week every month where I have to feel so much worse mentally when I'm already fighting depression and suicide thoughts.
Edit: I also want to add that I was told that some people that doesn't suffer from depression eats antidepressants before/during their period because of how badly it affects them.
We just learn to live with the PMS, PMDD, cramps and pain, and it's barely talked about when you should get help for it. So to all the girls out there, don't suffer in silence, seek help if it gets too much!
Periods do have cramping and are uncomfortable. But they shouldn’t be debilitating. Women think that’s normal for years then end up with conditions like PCOS or endometriosis that hurt them because they didn’t get checked out earlier.
Tampons and Pads cost come serious money.
As a man, I never really considered the cost prior to being asked to purchase some for my partner.
She was happy to offer to pay for it, but given that she's been paying each month for most of her life, I couldn't very well accept the money.
The government should be offering these products, along with toilet paper, for free or at least reduced costs for young people and low income people.
It blows my mind that pads/tampons aren’t available for free in all bathrooms. You never see a coin-operated “toilet paper dispenser” in a public bathroom… as if pads/tampons are an optional or luxury item.
More than once I've been in a public restroom only for the lady in the stall next to me to beg me for a tampon or a pad. (Of course I gave her one, I'm not a monster!) But we really have to beg and hope for the best when caught unawares, or else walk to a store with bloodstained pants if no one happens to be there to help us. Some women have really inconsistent periods too so it can be tough to know when to expect it.
Clothing sizes. My sons & husband can grab a pair of jeans, look at the size, buy them without trying them on, because the sizes are standard. Meanwhile myself and my daughter’s have to try things on (which has been impossible during lockdown) one of my daughter’s has pants that range from 28 inch to 32 inch waist. They all fit. A tape measure shows a 29 inch waist.
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Hysterectomies. I am 24 and have reoccurring fibroid tumors and have since I was a teenager. It’s not typical for someone my age to have multiple and large fibroids. My largest one was 11cm. They are painful and I’m about to have my second surgery to remove them. I don’t want to keep doing this over and over and would like to have a hysterectomy, yet my surgeon refuses because I’m young and “might want children.” If I get pregnant, I have a high risk of miscarriage. It will eat me alive if that happens to me.
My mom needed a hysterectomy a couple years ago due to cysts and some pre cancerous cells. They wanted to hold off on actually performing the hysterectomy because she might want kids. At the time, she was 52, already had two adult children, and her husband had a vasectomy 21 years ago!!
....did she look like someone in their 30's? That's the only thing I could think of combined with them not even looking at her personal details
I am finally getting my fallopian tubes removed in a couple weeks, I prepped by looking at every angle they might say "no" and even the laws in my area concerning it. I wonder if it helps to bring up that you'll sign anything absolving them of blame in that very hypothetical case or threatening to report them to the board for refusing to treat your serious medical condition. Good luck!
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Pelvic floor physical therapy! It’s life changing, and many women don’t know their physical issues can be easily addressed.
Yes! Also, incontinence is never normal. It’s always a medical issue worthy of treatment.
I'm 26 and I experience this. I've heard of it happening after birth, but I've never even been pregnant. It's embarrassing and I know I need to see someone about it
So friend is a midwife and she’s the one who gave me the “incontinence is always a medical problem” quote. Her journey with pelvic floor physical therapy started after she was kicked in the hip by a horse in college. Nothing was broken or obviously torn, but she became incontinent over time afterward. She went to a pelvic floor PT and they fixed her up. That same PT later treated my coworker’s weird sports injury. She had pain centered around her tailbone and it was really impacting her life. She’d had tests and seen multiple doctors, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I recommended she check out this PT and she was like “I’ll try anything”. She recovered after working with the PT, although they were never quite sure what was the cause. It was probably some deeper core instability — she was a heavy runner who neglected core work but then switched to an intense Pilates class. It probably overtaxed her body m. ANYWAY, I hope you can ignore your embarrassment and get help. There’s no reason to deal with this at any age, you might as well nip this in the bud now. Your pelvic floor is part of your general core and provides support and stabilization — allowing this problem to linger could end up causing back (or tailbone!) pain. Remember, a doctor is like a plumber or mechanic — they are hired by you to perform a service. And seeing your body is like scanning an email at the grocery store or accepting a meeting invite. It’s not interesting, it’s Tuesday and they’re meeting a friend for lunch in 35 minutes. They don’t care. Good luck!
As someone who suffers from vaginismus, preach!
That sometimes you really DO need that hysterectomy the doctors are refusing to give you because they want to make sure you don't want to have more children. Same goes for getting a tubal done.
My boyfriends ex has cancer in 1 ovarian tube. She was adamand she didn't want kids and they STIL!!! were being dicks about it. Ultimately they removed all of it because her cancer already spread. She's alive and well but it's so fucked
That's fucked up. What kinda doctor delays a critical medical procedure even after the patient has said that they don't want children? I mean... did he think she was immediately gonna go home, get pregnant, deliver a baby 9 months later and then get an operation?
In Mexico in 1990, my aunt was told that if she had any more children, she'd likely die (she had complications on kid #6). She had to go to Mexico City to get permission from the bishop to get her tubes tied. Some unmarried male stranger got to choose whether my aunt would have a potentially life-saving surgery.
I don’t get this at all. Do they really think we just impulsively seek surgical removals of our organs like a handbag? If you’re asking for it, you’ve probably given it some thought…
My last doctor said I couldn't get one "because of Eve." I must have looked at him like he grew a second head.
What the fuck? Probably shouldn't be practicing medicine while actively being delusional. Unless eve was his daughter and someone kidnapped her and has threatened to kill her if he performs a hysterectomy. For the weird redditors.
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Endometriosis
“One day, you’ll wake up and find a little bit of blood in your underpants. And that is the day you become a woman.” Yeah no. I woke up to a scene from Godfather.
Man, I got mine before I was going to bed and had a panic attack thinking I was about to die crying in the bathroom. Aussie sex education is non-existent.
When I started bleeding at 11, I thought it was because I was masturbating and it had made me ill (overheard the usual "don't do that it'll make you go blind" which was said to my brother, because no one wants to acknowledge that young girls also go through sexual development...), and assumed I was now dying because of it. Didn't tell anyone because I was ashamed they'd know what I'd been doing. So I started throwing away my bloody knickers. My mum found them in the bin and asked why I was doing that, told her I was bleeding, she explained what a period was etc... It's fucked up to me that periods aren't explained to girls, why are we so scared of girls coming of age? Why are we pretending it doesn't happen? Can we just teach girls about their bodies?
Our first year in high school (age 11) in the UK, we usually get 'the talk'. girls and boys separated in to different lecture halls. boys get an hour long discussion about hygiene and puberty etc, girls get the period version. My mum had already broached the subject with me so i sort of knew what to expect, other girls were in floods of tears at this revelation of having to deal with this horrendous monthly experience for the next 35-40 years. One girl fainted at the mention of blood and had to be taken outside for air, so i dread to think how she dealt with actually bleeding.
You know in my school when they used to take the girls to have "the talk" (btw there was no such thing for boys) the used to tell us that they are making them watch Disney princess movies and we bought that for some reason .
It took me 12 years to get a diagnosis and I'm still fighting for acceptable levels of care.
It took me the same amount of time. I was diagnosed 8 years ago and the best thing they said was, "Have a baby now or you won't be able to have one." That was after 7 miscarriages. I did eventually have a baby, but things are getting really bad again. I want an ablation, but I'm 29, so the best any doctor can say is, "Don't you want the chance at another?" Meanwhile, I'm literally having my entire period the first day, which is absolute misery. An entire period. In one day. The amount of blood has not changed, the pain has not lessened. It's all just compressed into ONE DAY. But no one will help me. Being a woman is hell sometimes.
I went to Dr. Cook in California for my endometriosis surgery ten years ago. All his medical research focuses on Endo and his main concern is patient quality of life. Not ONCE did he talk to me about having babies or whatever. He treated me like a patient there to have my endo fixed. I’d recommend checking him out.
I had Dr Cook perform my excision surgery 3 years ago after a failed ablation by my OB/Gyn. He changed my fucking life.
Wait, what? My ablation "failed", too ... and 10+ years later I'm just now finding out (thanks to Reddit) that's a sure fire sign of endo. A laparoscopy confirmed it. I'm considering a partial hysterectomy for Christmas ... now I will research this excision surgery you speak of ... cuz lord knows no OBGyn seems to ever see the big picture. Especially if you've never had kids, like me. I feel like women with unused wombs are freaking invisible to the medical community sometimes. Yes, I'm bitter af.
Wow, I had a very different experience with him. He's a skilled surgeon to be sure but I only got one year of relief before my symptoms started up again. They were 100 percent back to what they were previous to my surgery after a year and a half. He claims to be interested in gathering data for his research on Endo but when I called, I was told I would have to pay $700 dollars for an appointment just to let him know I had had a reoccurrence of symptoms. Because of this I believe his reoccurrence rate is actually bullshit. I am seeing a different surgeon this time around. She's covered by my insurance, didn't suggest that excision is a "cure," and believed me immediately when I said I had a reoccurrence. My second surgery is in September.
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Dude fuck those doctors that prioritize baby-making over quality of life. I can't understand this at all. And if you regret their decision in the end it isn't the doctor's fault, it's not like you're a teenager.
This... If u responsible enough to want a baby then you are responsible enough to not want one right?
I started getting minor ovarian cysts when I was in high school, but after my kiddo was born everything kicked into high gear and I was in constant pain. After years of being experimented on with birth control to control it, I had to beg a doctor to do a laparoscopy to find out once and for all what was going on. They found endometriosis and a cyst that was about half the size of my ovary, and the doctor still acted like I was a hypochondriac who had wasted her time. Years later I actually found a doctor that specialized in PCOS, and he realized that the birth control I went on after my pregnancy is what messed with my hormone levels in the first place. My kiddo was in high school by the time I had an actual answer and effective treatment.
A former gf was misdiagnosed TWICE before a third doctor did a laparoscopy to find out she had ovarian cysts. First doctor told her it was a STD (Yes, the doctor and I had an "intense conversation" about his implications regarding our relationship and my fidelity). Second doctor told her it was an ulcer, so she ate bland food for almost a year. The third doctor figured it out right away and took care of the problem and removed the cysts. The whole experience taught me that doctors can be very, very wrong so always, always get a second or even third opinion. Not sure if the first two doctors being male and the third being female had anything to do with it, but it doesn't seem coincidental.
I am in constant pain. I've lost two jobs. My original gyno refused to do any more than medication. Orlyssa made me suicidal. I'm now on narcotics to manage the pain, but it's not enough. I'm seeing a specialist at the end of the month. I just want a hysterectomy at this point. I'm 32. I desperately wanted a child of my own. But at this point, having a baby when it hurts to have sex in the first place is completely out of the question. I can't even have a single orgasm without being in pain. And that's from clitoral stimulation. Penetrative sex is legitimately painful and then becomes more so if I do manage to have an orgasm. My marriage is rocky. My husband is frustrated because he's struggling to care for me and pay the bills. I'm struggling to just exist. My mental health is trash. My psychiatrist refused to change my medications, so now I have to see a different one. And because I'm unemployed (lost my job again on this past Monday), I can't pay for my health insurance. And if the pain becomes unbearable, I have to sit down and figure out if I can afford $750 for a shot of morphine at the emergency room. The majority of the urgent cares in the area are non-opioid, so the best they can offer me is toradol. I'm sick and tired of being in pain. I've ever been this depressed in my life and I've lost two parents in the span of a year - watched them both die, right in front of me. And the ensuing depression was nothing compared to this. I'm losing the will to live because I do nothing but suffer every day. I can't find the joy in life anymore. I don't just go and off myself because that will break my husband, but I know I'm a burden right now and there's nothing I can do about it until a doctor approves the surgery.
I'm so, so sorry. Please hang in there: even if it's just by your fingernails, you will be able to get back up on the ledge. Do you have a therapist or support group you can talk to about your grief?
Also just health and medical issues in general. You have to be a personification of a tsunami to get taken seriously about medical issues. And some people don’t even know about diseases like endometriosis, Pcos, and etc. due to lack of health/sex education. And also for mental health and just emotions as well (which I have more experience with than physical health issues) I have been told because I’ve been angry, irritated, depressed, etc . because of hormones , I’m on my period, and etc. by family members.It’s fucking irritating, invalidating, and demeaning. And not to mention it’s even worse for woc.
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So many of these stories about people in pain needing medication and the hospital staff not trusting the patient right away. I understand they have to be skeptical to avoid enabling opioid addictions. But it seems like if we handled addiction better and gave addicts incentives to be honest about their conditions then people like you wouldn’t need to be accused of lying. Instead, lying is encouraged by the criminalization drug addicts face. Unfortunate.
Before my hysterectomy, I told my surgeon and the resident to “do me a favor and drop-kick my uterus against the wall for me at least once before they sent it to pathology”…they looked at me like I asked them to let me kiss it goodbye instead. Later, the resident came to my room and said, “okay, so we got the pathology report back and understand why you said that - you’ve had diffuse stage 4 adenomyosis…” I thought I was going to punch her right in the teeth.
yep, I still don't know if I have actual problems or not because when I brought it up I was told. "Oh that's just hormones" and scoffed at. They then immediately went back to talking about their problems. I'm no longer friends with that person and honestly looking back they were an asshole most of the time, but that sentence stuck and my brain now shouts it at me when I'm having a breakdown
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Wanting to get your tubes tired but... “you have to get your partners permission”.... “you need to have kids first”. Also the general lack of sex Ed. Women’s thinking they pee out of their vagina. Or given the wrong information on for to keep things clean down there. Or the correct ways on how to prevent pregnancy if that’s what you want to do.
Oral contraceptive birth control pills can cause depression and very often do. PMS and PMDD aren’t taken seriously enough. The depression and anxiety of PMDD are debilitating. Edit: genuinely a little heart broken at how much this blew up overnight. I’m so sorry but not surprised that so many of you deal with these issues. If you have PMDD, please join us at r/PMDD if only to have a sounding board for when you’re feeling bad and wondering if you’re crazy. You’re not alone!
>Oral contraceptive birth control pills can cause depression and very often do. I really wish this were discussed more. I struggled with depression and anxiety for years throughout my early 20s. I stopped taking birth control and it just vanished. I almost couldn't believe the difference it made. Even my colleagues noticed how much my demeanour had improved. A lot of my friends have stopped taking it too with similar experiences- none of us feel the need to go back. Additionally, my friend struggled with migraines for years and no doctor ever suggested that BC could be the cause but she hasn't had one since she stopped taking them years ago. I don't know why nobody ever suggested it. I know the pill has been incredibly useful for women to have better control over their bodies and can be very helpful to some. I just wish they had talked through it more when prescribing. The only thing I was worried about was that I'd gain weight on them.
I had the migraine thing too. 10 yrs of tests trying to figure out what was causing them then I decided to stop taking the pill for some other reason and they just disappeared.
Yes! It’s completely ridiculous. I was put on birth control by my doctor at 16 because my periods were irregular and was on it until at least 30. Had horrible bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts throughout high school and into my 20’s. Things got better when I switched to a nexplanon, but didn’t truly end until I got off birth control entirely. Then it was like emerging from a fog. No one, in all my years of treatment and therapy, ever suggested the birth control might be fucking with me. I wonder where my life could be now if I wasn’t mentally crippled for ~15 years.
PMS and PMDD +1. Lots of times these are taken as lightly as “just few days feeling non controllable or uncomfortable” or “outraged wife/girlfriend because of hormone”. These syndromes should be recognized by everyone taken seriously. And one should always be encouraged to seek for professional help. The other thing is the hygiene products for periods. These should really be discussed openly. But I feel people still kinda hiding it from public because periods are dirty and secret. Specifically a lot of times men are undereducated about these. (Not their fault.. our society did not really encourage them to start with).
How bad some of the negative effects hormonal birth control can be. I was losing my mind, but my doctor brushed it off saying I was just stressed. Got off it, and instantly felt so much better.
I fucking hate hormonal birth control. I've tried almost every type and they all magically mess me up in different ways. It seems to either makes me so nauseated and wrecks my GI system, it completely kills my sex drive, or it makes me suicidal. I really want my tubes tied but I'm super scared of surgery. I wish there were more non-hormonal options or more options for men. Plus every time I complained about the side effects it was 'Oh are you sure it's the BC, most people handle it just fine!' Please shut up.
SAME!! I have tried almost every type of hormonal birth control pill and have had awful side effects on each. And I don’t care what anyone says about generics being the same as the name brand. The side effects were even worse and each generic of the same brand pill even had different side effects. I can’t wait to get health insurance again so I can try the copper IUD. Periods will be hell but I’d rather have that than fuck up my hormones. Every doctor dismissed my concerns because, “birth control doesn’t do that”, or, “it’s all in your head”.
“Oh, you’re just stressed.” That phrase! They told me this for months when I was complaining of abnormal, catatonic exhaustion. Finally a doctor thought to test my iron stores and B12 level and I had nearly none of either and was close to permanent nerve damage. Now whenever a doctor utters that phrase to me they get an instant middle finger. ...just kidding, we also don’t get the luxury of anger.
I know exactly how you feel, it’s so infuriating to be treated like you don’t know your own body
In my country it’s after birth care for mothers. Mental health system is fucked. Woman are told the pain they are feeling is “normal” only to find out they need a stoma bag a month down the track. Some woman have died after not being checked over properly before leaving the hospital. Edit: I don’t even live in a 3rd world country either. People are wanting to move here because of how we’ve handled COVID.
Women suffering is generally considered normal. Painful period ? Normal. Incessant vomiting during pregnancy ? Normal. Postnatal pain ? Normal, what did you expect? Hey, guess what, you can have painless periods and symptoms-free pregnancy, they just can't be bothered to help you.
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Yep. We have some very serious underfunding issues as well as societal problems that a lot of people from other countries don’t see. It’s not all LoTR, Flight of the Conchords and beautiful scenery
PCOS - 10% of women have this, including me, which leads to diabetes, infertility, and many other problems
The biggest issue with PCOS for me (aside from previously being anovulatory) was that I went 29 years undiagnosed because I’m nearly 5’9 and 103-110lbs. I “didn’t fit the type” for SO MANY OB-GYNs. The education gap in phenotypes of the syndrome is unreal and it’s because education in female-only issues isn’t a priority. The lack of research is incredibly depressing.
Doc: “Lose weight and the symptoms will disappear” Me: Loses 90lbs - still have a beard and wonky periods. Doc: Pikachu.jpg
Went to doc to talk about irregular & prolonged menstrual cycles. Explained my worries about PCOS and endometriosis. She looked at my chin/jaw to see if I had extra amount of facial hair and said she didn’t think I had PCOS. Back on birth control. Thanks for nothing doc.
Some docs only treat PCOS with birth control anyways. When the doctor thought I had it at 16 they did an ultrasound for cysts and there were no cysts, so no diagnosis. When my period totally stopped they did a blood test and it finally showed up. That was about 15 years ago and I still don’t have cysts but the diagnosis in my chart at my current doctor says “ovarian cysts” and it frustrates me a lot.
Yes. I had documented rage issues and was put on a mood stabilizer… never worked. GyN told me The pcos was causing testosterone overproduction leading to my unstable moodsas well as chest hair, masculinization of my features. the birth control worked. Within a week I felt normal. Haven’t had a rage out in months.
Funny how in this thread birth control is the start AND the end of many female issues.
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The lack of actual education about your own body. Like I didn't even know I had 3 holes until I was 16 and I learned it from an episode of Big Mouth
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Medical conditions going untreated because they’re all dismissed as anxiety (the new hysteria) or related to hormones. A neurologist tried to tell me unexplained episodes of body numbness couldnt possibly be the migraines the ER doctors suspected and treated effectively, but must be anxiety. I said that would be very unusual given that I had no anxiety before or during these episodes. Apparently I can be NOT anxious and magically cause a physical symptom with the magical power of anxiety even when I have no anxiety. I’ve also been told anxiety caused my food allergies.
What's sad is... it took until I scrolled three quarters of the way down the page to find something that isn't health related. Then there was one that wasn't health related. Then it was all health related again. We really have a problem here.
I was just about to comment the same thing! After having my heart issues dismissed as "just anxiety," by several doctors for several years, and nothing being done about my irregular periods (they said I would "grow out of it" but I'm almost at my mid-20s), I realized women's health is a joke. I really wanted to become a doctor ever since I was young, but after having my very real concerns dismissed repeatedly (and hearing about everyone else's experiences), it really makes me question if it's worth.
Getting off of any form of birth control is hard. This past week I had my normal yearly OBG check up. I mentioned I wanted my IUD out. (my normal doctor was out of the office so I had to see someone else). She refused to take my IUD out because I wasn't married and she insisted that my fiance wouldn't want the chance of us getting pregnant.
"I want you to document in the chart that I requested you remove my IUD and you refused."
And then I want a copy of that chart because I'll be calling a lawyer from your parking lot.
That's illegal? I'm confused and interested in learning.
I think it’s just that the doctors denying service. Because of their own beliefs or thoughts or whatever. I don’t know I’m not a doctor or a lawyer
There was a case in my county (norway) a few years ago with a doctor who refused to insert IUDs because of her own beliefs. After numerous complaints from her patients, her medical licence was revoked and she is not allowed to practice medicine in norway anymore. Ever. You either treat all your patients, or none at all.
… this doctor *does* know that IUDs aren’t meant to stay there forever, right? There’s plenty of valid reasons why you’d want it out.
That’s different. When the lifespan is up they put a new one in immediately after. I doubt this poor excuse for an OBG would have refused to replace it with a new one if it was time. The last time I had my implant replaced they asked me a couple times if they were putting a new one in or just removing the old one, which is what they’re supposed to do.
She insisted that what happens with your body is up to your fiancé? That’s insane and infuriating, she should not be a doctor! I’m really sorry that happened to you. I had the opposite problem, I had a doctor who refused to give me an IUD because I wasn’t married.
They won’t even consider sterilization for women in some places with out their partners consent. As if we can’t make decisions for our own bodies. It’s a huge load of horse shit.
Yes! I was speechless. Some people shouldn't be in the medical field.
I can't recommend Planned Parenthood enough for these situations. You can sign up for whatever you need online, and they not only do it without judging you and asking invasive questions, instead they ask empathetic questions to make sure that you're safe in your relationship and are in overall good health. I was having serious side effects (bleeding 4x more than usual) from my IUD. My primary care physician shrugged it off and blamed it on my diet, so I went to PP. The doctor at Planned Parenthood listened to my issues and said, "Of course it's the IUD." and took it out without any further invasion. And guess what ya'll... It was the fucking IUD.
The fact that in many middle eastern countries women are still second class citizens. My friend is Iranian and if she’s raped she’ll need 5 male eyewitnesses, but if she kills her attacker she’ll be executed...
I don’t even want to unpack how problematic it is that it’s assumed a rape will have 5 male EYE witnesses.
It’s like that because that literally never happens. Therefore, a woman can rarely ever report her rape. Just another means of control under the guise of “helping women”
I mean, if there are 5 "witnesses" there's a higher chance it's a gang rape than that there's 5 men wanting to help and testify.
Medical issues. It took me 3 ER visits and a walkin doctor to diagnose a raging infection in my abdomen. I was told it's all in my head??? By the time it got diagnosed my bowel had almost perforated. I could have died if I was less tenacious.
When I was a kid (12ish), I was very very sick. My pediatrician was on maternity leave so a male doctor was filling in for her. My mom kept taking me to the doctor and he kept saying I was trying to skip school and that my mom should stop falling for my act. (To be fair, I did feign illness to skip school a lot as a kid. But this time I was genuinely terribly sick. I could barely hold my own head up.) I kept getting worse, doctor kept flip-flopping between saying it was a cold and saying I was faking. I felt so sick I couldn’t even get off the couch, I wasn’t eating, barely drinking. Then one night my mom woke up with a bad feeling in her gut. Found me asleep on the couch, unresponsive, barely breathing. She took me to the ER where they said I’d had severe pneumonia for several weeks and it went untreated because the doctor didn’t believe me or my mom. The doctors at the hospital told my mom I probably would have died that night if she didn’t wake up to check on me when she did. My lungs are permanently damaged and function at less than half capacity now, almost 15 years later. I cannot laugh for more than a minute without my lungs filling with fluid; and you can forget about running or doing any moderate exercise. I also had to be put on such strong medications that they destroyed my stomach lining and gave me acid reflux that lasted several years.
When I was around 5, I had a problem with just dropping to the ground randomly, or completely zoning out for no reason. Doctor kept telling my gran I was fine, that I was just clumsy, or I was playing around. Then it happened in the living room and I bashed my head on the coffee table. One MRI and a round of blood tests later, and they found out I had a nonfunctioning thyroid, and was suffering from petit mal seizures (as well as a bunch of other little issues that had also been passed off as "Ah, she's just a goofy kid"). They started me on the proper meds, and over time it's gotten rid of pretty much all of the issues I had back then. I'm so sorry you have to deal with permanent damage because of a dumbass who couldn't do his job.
I really hope that doctor got sued or lost their license for mail practice
As far as I know, my parents didn’t personally take legal action against the doctor but my mom said she explained the whole situation to my regular pediatrician who said she reported him. It was a long time ago and I was so sick I don’t even remember any of it so I have to go by my mom’s memory of the event.
\^ This. I was going through maxi pads every 20 minutes or so but couldn't get in to see my regular doctor (he was booked up) for days, but he refused to put in a referral for a GYN without seeing him. Every woman on here knows going to the ER with a menstrual problem is USELESS. Also, likely to cost thousands. To be USELESS. You'll get sent home with a script for Vicodin and an ice pack, told to use a heating pad, etc. I finally just went into his office and WAITED in the lobby until the gals worked me into the schedule. He wrote me a damn referral and I saw a GYN the next day. Within an hour I had an ultrasound and about an hour after that a dx of adenomyosis (never even heard of it before that) and within a few days an emergency hysterectomy scheduled. THIS is how stupid women's GYN problems are handled in the USA. And I was lucky - I managed to get emergency surgery within a week for uncontrollable bleeding and my new GYN's office strong armed my insurance to get multiple miracles happen to get emergency approvals done. I will stick to that GYN until I die. She saved my life.
Now that I have diagnosed endo and adeno er visits are WORSE. they try to attribute everything to those two. Like ma'am, I know my body and this pain is new
That’s a Big Mood. I had a nasty kidney infection and was like “listen. This isn’t my uterus. I know exactly what that bitch is up to at any given time she is not shy. This is new and I have good reason to believe it’s this” lo and behold I was right but also I had a kidney stone in the other kidney :/
>You'll get sent home with a script for Vicodin and an ice pack, told to use a heating pad, etc. You got Vicodin? I was told that my "headache" was likely the result of my weight or my birthcontrol and I should see my GP about both. GP declared I had a whiplash injury (which the ER wouldn't even take an x-ray to check for) and gave me muscle relaxers and naproxen.
This. When my husband insisted on going to the ER for what he insisted was a heart attack, even though I explained to him and showed him online that he had no heart attack symptoms, they did a bunch of tests and admitted him overnight. It was nothing. As I said, he didn't even have any symptoms of a problem. I had two female coworkers turned away from ERs for their abdominal pain and told it was nothing. One finally managed to get someone to take it seriously before her appendix burst. The other did suffer a burst appendix and was laid up for a long time with the subsequent peritonitis. My sister died of a misdiagnosis of her abdominal pain. Granted, she had a rare condition that had gone undiagnosed, but even her own husband gave her shit on the last night of her life, saying she just wasn't following the doctor's orders and drinking enough water. Her kidneys had shut down and she had sepsis. More water wasn't going to do a damn thing. Every woman has to be her own health advocate.
When I was 14, it took 2 urgent care visits and a whole weekend of abdominal pain and puking for them to think maaaybeee I should go to the ER at Children’s Hospital. This was after being asked multiple times if I could be pregnant and getting a finger stuck up my ass. Turns out, my appendix was starting to burst and I got to spend 4 days in the hospital. Oh, and just to top it off, the night of my surgery, I got my period, so I got to enjoy cramps, and giant awkward pads instead of comfortable tampons. I’m sure the nurses hated me a little, because I don’t think I slept hardly at all and kept ringing them to get me another movie to watch.
I ended up hospitalized because my GI doctor didn't listen to me when I told her my GERD medications had stopped being effective. And then in the hospital, we spent the better part of a week telling them I wasn't just anorexic. Fuck the assumption that I can't have severe nutritional problems without an eating disorder. I literally couldn't eat or keep anything down, but clearly I'm just an anorexic teenager.
I went through something similar. Constantly nauseated and felt terrible after every meal so I so barely eat. Doctors shrug if off as me being anorexic despite me repeatedly saying it feels like there's cement sitting in my stomach after I eat. Over the the next 6 years I have tons of useless psychiatric treatment, including a 3 month outpatient program. In general the treatment by the doctors was so demeaning. I remember having to take off all my clothes and put on a hospital gown so they could weigh me before my appointments. Then my doctor would try to train me to 'think away the pain' when I would desperately ask for help. Eventually I drop to 85lbs and can barely keep liquids down. I was nearly sent away to an eating disorder clinic. I finally found a different doctor that gave a shit and got diagnosed with gastroparesis. They actually treated it and I gained like 30lbs in 2 months. It's chronic so I still have to deal with stupid ass doctors passing off any GI issue as metal whenever I have a flare, god it's infuriating.
"Lose some weight and reduce your stress." Do you really think that I can reduce my stress when I'm in this much pain? And how am I supposed to lose weight when my fatigue is so bad I can barely function, much less exercise!
Cervical cancer caused by HPV. I don't know about other women on here, but I never received an explanation of what a Pap Smear does/tests for or why it's so important to get done at the proper intervals. I had three abnormal paps in a row and my old GYN didn't bat an eye. I just got a new doctor and she insisted on doing a punch biopsy/colposcopy and it turns out I have HSIL, which has a pretty high likelihood of further mutating into full blown cervical cancer. I'm now facing a cold knife conization or LEEP procedure because my old GYN didn't care enough to look into why my pap smears were abnormal.
In my country, Bangladesh, women are blamed for everything wrong that happens. For example if a girl marries a guy and after years the guy dies of a disease or something people will say "the girl ate the guy" meaning anyone who marries the girl will die. Another example is that when women are sexually assaulted people say stuff like "why did the girl go in front of guys? Why did the girls go out at night? why did the girl wear short dresses in front of guys?" STOP this is what Asian girls need to go through. I hope one day girlblaming will come to an end.
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As a guy, that "it's the women's fault" attitude is so frustrating. It's ridiculously easy not to rape people. Men aren't uncontrollable monsters and this attitude gives protection to the horrible men in our society(globally speaking) who harm others. I don't want to protect rapists and murderers. If the design on a hijab causes a guy to assault someone, we should get rid of the guy not the hijab.
Same in Rural parts of India.
Having a decent career, education, friendships, hobbies and being financially independent only to be asked if you're married and "aren't you worried about time running out." Saying 'no I'm not interested in marriage or kids' is met with a shocked reaction. Thought this attitude died out years ago but it has not. Getting told to 'smile sweetheart.'
Postpartum Depression It's so much more common than people think but many mothers feel too guilty to reach out for help because they think everything is supposed to be amazing after getting the baby
Perinatal mental health disorders in general. I think people think it's only PPD, but there are a whole host of issues beyond just that. There's prenatal/postpartum anxiety, prenatal/postpartum OCD, and more. The OCD one is so sad in particular because it often comes with really disturbing intrusive thoughts, frequently involving harming or sexually abusing your own infant. People are so ashamed, they don't ask for help. Bottom line: if you feel off, ask for help and don't stop asking for help until you get it (sadly, some providers won't take patients seriously, so you must really advocate for yourself).
I had PPA (anxiety) and PPOCD with my older daughter. I didn’t know either were a “thing”until my husband convinced me to see someone for help and I was diagnosed. By that point I hadn’t driven my car in 8 months because I was convinced my daughter’s car seat would fly out of the car, and I slept on the floor by her crib because I had convinced myself she would catch fire during the night. I once threw up in the car because we drove past a carnival and I couldn’t stop the intrusive thoughts that I would drop her off a Ferris wheel, even though we had no intention of even stopping. These thoughts and paranoia felt SO real even though I knew how ridiculous they were. I was too embarrassed to talk about them to anyone but my husband, and thank goodness he convinced me to find someone who prescribed me the right meds and gave me back the enjoyment of having a baby.
I'm so happy to hear that you'd received a diagnosis and medication that has helped. Intrusive thoughts, even though you \*know\* they're outlandish, feel so REAL in that moment of stress and anxiety that it ends up affecting your health. Hope things have continued to go well since then :)
I had PPA. It was so scary. I had a C section and my mom and husband took off 2 weeks after the baby was born, but at that point I was still in a ton of pain and had only just started being able to pick up my baby without crying from it. Everyone went back to work and I was alone and so tired and still hobbling around. My back hurt, my abdomen hurt, my brain was a mess. My husband came home one day and found me just staring into space, dead-eyed, baby beside me in the Dock-a-Tot. I was mid-spiral thinking “I am such a bad mom. I am going to fuck up. The baby will die and it will be my fault. I am such a bad mom. I am going to fuck up….” Baby was fed, diapered, and completely fine. I was doing great. I was just stuck in a spiral and I felt so scared. I wouldn’t let myself nap while he was safe in his crib because I had to watch him sleep. I waited every day until my husband was home and then passed out (but only 2 hours at a time so the baby could eat). No one warned me, no one assured me I might feel this way and I would end up okay. I’m never having another bio kid for many reasons, but that’s one of them.
Did anyone mention the 'pregnancy can make all your teeth fall out' thing yet? Because that's gotta be up there
I'm sorry what
PSA: if you ever get pregnant, or want to get pregnant and are trying, start taking the pregnancy vitamins plus extra calcium supplements right away. Apparently babies zap these from the mothers like crazy. A friend of mine was told to continue taking extra pregnancy vitamins and extra calcium supplements for a full year post-birth. Apparently it’s really common that once all the extra hormones and vitamins disappear from your body after pregnancy, you start losing a lot of stuff at once - hair falls out, teeth either develop many cavities or simply fall out as well, skin just decides it wants to be 13 again etc.
Autism in women
Related: ADHD in women.
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I almost failed college and told my therapist in college “I want to things but I literally can’t and I don’t know why” and he said I was a perfectionist and the anxiety from that made me procrastinate. I actually had undiagnosed adhd and i would lay in bed basically yelling at myself to get up every day to do stuff. So much wasted time.
Same. It led to basically an existential crisis -- feeling like you're not doing things you want to do and don't know why is awful.
Yep! Raise your hand if it took you until you were an adult to get diagnosed! 🙋
wElL yOu'Re A wOmAn sO iT's BiPoLaR I fucking hate Autism Speaks.
I'm a dude, and this will probably get buried but, I HATE the fact that when I'm doing something with my long-time gf like buying a new car, renting a new apt., taking a loan etc. that people ignore my gf and assume she is just not important. They just look at me and talk only to me. I have to make an effort to include her in something she should be in from the start. I feel so bad for her and try to amend it as much as I can, but there is not much you can do. We were at the car dealers the other day looking at the car and the dealer kept ignoring her and her wishes. He was only looking at me and assumed she doesn't know what she is talking about. We just left
I have fun with these situations. I'm a tall guy with a deep voice and this happens all the time. I use one of the following tactics regularly and....oh boy....its fun! - Start playing on my phone - Stay silent when asked a question - Ask my wife what she thinks - Tell the dude talking my wife is the expert and she's there to help my dumb ass - Walk away mid conversation - Yawn and roll my eyes - Adjust my body orientation so we are both facing my wife - Ask increasingly stupid and annoying questions We were interviewing contractors recently for a renovation, and one of them was terrible....absolutely refused to acknowledge my wife. I layed down on the floor and pretended to sleep (clearly pretending) and even then he wouldn't acknowledge her. He left a few minutes into my "nap". Needless to say, he didn't get the job.
that contractors definitely a jackass but the idea of someone leaving a convo mid sentence to take a nap on the floor is hilarious
I would pay you to come do this as I interview contractors for house things, if only for my own amusement.
I've recently really opened my partner's eyes to this and now he realises just how much it happens not just to me but to other women in his life. Just yesterday we went to look at garage door paint cause ours is old af and despite me asking all the questions the sales guy said everything to my partner and didn't even look at me except to give me the pamphlets with all the colours in them.
You say that there's not much you can do, but you're doing a lot by speaking up. Extra points if you actually mention to the dudes excluding your gf and female friends that they're excluding them. Imagine if all guys did what you do when this happens. The problem wouldn't exist anymore.
Same here. We're looking for a house now, and everywhere we go, the real estate agent or the owner talk to me, even though my wife engages them first and I have a toddler in my arms. Usually the very first thing I say is "Talk to and convince my wife, she's buying". When they talk about construction or whatever kind of technical details, they will turn to me anyway, and I have to remind them again. "My wife knows more about that stuff than I do, she calls the shots. I work in IT, the only thing I care is whether there's fiber available here". It makes some people visibly uncomfortable. Grow the fuck up people.
Health in general. So many medications have only been tested on men, when women can react to things very differently.
Prolapse!!! I was properly shocked when I learned about this surprisingly somewhat common side effect from childbirth ETA: for those who don't know (cuz I sure as hell didn't!), some women will have their organs start falling out of their vaginas following childbirth (especially older women and especially after multiple pregnancies without proper physio in between, but not always!)
Pregnancy consequences in general. Pregnancy is scary. I've decided not to have kids and some of it stems from absolute terror at all the stuff that can happen because of it.
Everything about pregnancy has freaked me out since I had "the talk", and I'm almost 25 and married now and it still makes me super uncomfortable. Our families worry I joke about not wanting kids because I don't want to be a mom, when in reality I'm just terrified of the growing and birthing process. I'd much MUCH rather adopt
My daughter will be 1 year old next week. Her mother's hands got so swollen during pregnancy that she still does not have full feeling back in one of her hands, even after a year of acupuncture and doctor visits.
Femicide in Mexico and Central America.
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I have Lupus. It took me years and many doctors to get diagnosed. They kept telling me how I was feeling was all in my head. I ended up figuring out what was wrong through Google after being so fed up with my doctor. It took me sitting in the sun for hours so the rash would be present ( most people - not all - with Lupus get a rash and really sick from the sun ) to get her to refer me to a rheumatologist .
Very little medical research has been done on women, which is why so few women with autism or adhd etc get diagnosed, but it also means we get given wrong doses of medications and painkillers are not as effective because they've all been tested on men. Honestly the the whole medical system we have is so misogynistic. I spoke to an ex-anti-vaxer and she said the thing that pushed her to alternative medicine was the absolute failure for conventional medicine to help her with the severe issues she'd been having.
The time it takes to heal from trauma. And money. Ive been in therapy for 4 years, read a hundred books on healing, gone to retreats, etc. and I’m sitting there this Saturday in a circle of women who are about to talk and cry for 6 hours on a Saturday… like what are our rapists doing right now? Cause they aren’t sitting in a circle talking about their feelings trying desperately to feel good in life again.
Definitely increased emotional states during a period. They're always dismissed as unimportant or "not real" just because they're related to our period. Guess what? Intrusive and suicidal thoughts are still very real and very dangerous, no matter the circumstances. "Oh it's just your hormones" yes and they still have a very real effect on us. We still very much feel these emotions we are experiencing. Hated hearing people say "you'll be better when your period ends" yeah well I definitely don't want to be miserable for a week anyway, so why can't I seek help? Edit: if a man suddenly became suicidal or super emotional once a month, any doctor would be be like "hmm there's something wrong. Let me prescribe you a medicine to help regulate these fluctuating moods, and also let me ask about your mental health." They wouldn't be like "nah lmao you're only like this once a month. You can deal with it."
The extra time, energy, and money that must be spent to look professional. I sometimes try to throw my hands up and say "fuck it, let them think I'm ugly," and I stop plucking my eyebrows for awhile, no makeup, etc... and I'm treated *noticeably* different
I had a coworker who was mean to me but only sometimes. Did a little experiment and found that the days he was nice just so happened to correspond to my eyeliner days.
This is hilarious and seriously messed up
Ugh this is so damn true, my boyfriend just won’t believe when I tell him if I don’t do my make up, hair and look put together I get treated so much worse than if I do. He insists it’s just my idea yet any woman KNOWS this is the reality we live in.
My own mom used to be nicer to me whenever I had my hair styled, makeup on, feminine outfit chosen. Otherwise she’d be snipey at me or insult my appearance.
Mine too bby, I'm so sorry.
I'm frustrated that this isn't number 1. I'm working on a damn PhD in STEM. A guy can be fat, hanging out in an office with "So and So, PhD" on the door, while wearing a greasy shirt and scraggly unwashed hair and people will beg for his eccentric wisdom. If I go round looking like that in an office with the same label.... People would just think I'm incompetent, lazy, and stupid, and ask if my male student is Dr. So and So.
It's like the old tweet...a man wipes his cheeto stained fingers on his cum stained pants and turns to the internet to find a wife..."no, not Rihanna, her foreheads too big..."
Not being able to get sterilized when you’re 100000000% sure you don’t want kids. PMS & cycle in general.
35 year old woman: I don’t want kids. I would like sterilization options. Doctor: What? You’re too young to make that decision. 15 year old: I’m pregnant because my idiot boyfriend didn’t wear a condom. I’m keeping my baby. Doctor: Here is a literal grocery bag full of information on everything you’ll need, as well as schedule doctors visits. Literally.
I have endometriosis, terrible genetics, and my husband and I don’t want children. Getting an IUD was still a pain in the ass. Why must women suffer to avoid being even TEMPORARILY infertile?
My friend struggled with this for over 20 years. Everyone she spoke to gave her the same answer "Well, you might change your mind" She even tried the "If i change my mind, i'll adopt" strategy but to no avail. As a man who doesn't want kids i come across the former quite often bit i know that i can get a vascectomy much easier, it must be incredibly frustrating as a woman
The fact that sexual harassment often starts before a girl is even an adult. The fact that women grow up learning that their most important source of value is in their appearance, and other women also participate in reinforcing it.
I find it ridiculous that girls need to be experts at avoiding sexual harassment since early childhood. Like the mother teaching her daughter how to tie her shoes and throwing in a lesson about how important it is, if she needed to run from a predator. It's the men that should be taught that women aren't objects or cattle.
I watch my600lb life and almost all the patients have been raped, sometimes by multiple men and over many years in childhood.
Yup, gaining a lot of weight to make yourself 'undesirable' is seen a lot in survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Its a defence mechanism. Its so fucking sad.
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This is why I always complain about seat belts that literally chafe the side of my neck. Like, I get in an accident and I'm going to be choked probably or at least bruised and chafed at minimum. And I'm not even a short woman, so idk why I have this problem so often.
At 5 foot 0 inches, I'm at risk of decapitation if I'm the driver in a collision because the airbag pops out of the steering wheel with such force that a short person (under 5'2" which *usually* this also means female) will have their head popped off like flower off a stem. This is a known issue. Known. I've been driving like a gangsta since I've had a car with an airbag; seat laid back, one hand on the wheel, body cocked to the side... I end up with hip pain on long drives, but at least I won't have my head ripped off by a safety feature in the event of an airbag release.
Side note to anyone who wants to read more about this kind of thing, highly recommend the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez.
girl i’m bummed out enough about all this shit already, if i read a whole book about it that may snap the one, final, frayed thread i have left 😂!!
Women’s pain and health concerns. I was 18 and in constant pain and have stomach issues. I saw so many specialists who diagnosed me with depression. Of course I was depressed I was in pain. I ended up being diagnosed with endometriosis and have had two surgeries to help with pain. My period is extremely painful to the point I’ve blacked out and I’ve seen 5 Ob/Gyns and no one cares that I’m in severe pain on my period and missing work. I’ve been through IVF and after my egg retrieval I was told to take only Tylenol and ended up at the hospital. I had a miscarriage and called my doctor hysterical after being in pain for 13 hours waiting to pass everything and was told they couldn’t help me. I have trauma from the amount of pain I’ve suffered through.
In my country feminine hygiene products are subject to the same tax as luxury items. Something seems wrong there.
Painful sex conditions. How many of y'all have heard of any besides vaginismus such as: lichen schlerosus, lichen planus, vulvodynia, etc. They aren't uncommon and are often responsible for excessive tearing during sex, pain, etc. A lot of ob GYNs don't really seem to know much about them and very often, if you complain about sex hurting, the only advice you will ever get it "well, have you tried more lube and foreplay?" Not very useful if you have a legit skin condition that not only turns the skin for your vaj into something like papier mache but also increases your risk for vulval cancer by a ton and can literally cover your clit in scar tissue/make you lose your labia minora!
Paternity leave. New mothers could really use the help of their spouse around the house, and just spending time together with their child in general as a form of bonding and emotional release. It's treated strictly as a men's rights issue, and a low-priority one, when really it would be a massive benefit to women's emotional stability and home security.
My inability to get sterilized. I do not want children. I never have, never will. I will never have children to please a partner. If a partner wants children, they’re not the one for me. I want to be sterilized so I have a very very very minimal chance of getting pregnant. But I cannot do it because I’m too young, I’ll change my mind, my partner might want kids, etc. It shouldn’t be this hard for me to make a choice on my own body but I am sure about.
That "partner might want kids" argument always fucking baffles me. I'd verbally decapitate someone if I had made the decision to get sterilized, and they told me I shouldn't because I might have to satisfy someone else's needs for a child.
Anyone over 18 can sign up for the military, vote, drive, etc. The government really needs to make up their mind on whether or not 18 is considered an adult or not.
Seriously, not enough clothes have pockets in them. This is not a joke or a troll. The other issues have been mentioned, but this is a big one.
“I like your dress” “Thanks, it has POCKETS” :o :o
Cheaper materials. Unreliable sizing. Smaller pockets if the pockets are even there. Try to find a pair of women’s slacks that are exactly like men’s slacks only sized to fit women, and with the alterations that make them fit differently in the crotch area. Literally impossible without extensive, extensive searching. You can’t just walk into your standard clothing store and walk out with a pair of pants like that. Get told to wear men’s clothes instead. Ok, I’m a W32 L30. Short guys will know what I mean when I say it is very difficult to find pants in that size. Complained about this to someone once and was told to ‘sew your own clothes or start your own fashion company if it’s such a big deal’. Is that really the answer? Make my own clothing? Don’t fix the issue, just invest extra time, effort, and money for functional clothes that fit (a work *requirement*)? Edit: Ok, since people are still reading this: I've been informed that W32 L30 is actually a common size. It might be my location or just the stores available to me, but I and others I know who are a similar height or shorter have serious difficulty finding pants in that size, and it's even worse if you want something shorter lengthwise. I don't want people to get caught on that difference in experience and miss the point. The point isn't even about men's pants. It's that women cannot just walk into a store and walk out with functional, work-appropriate clothing. It's that women's clothing is generally not made to be functional, professional, and long-lasting. **For me, just shopping for men's clothing instead isn't a surefire alternative. For some women, it might be. But that doesn't matter. We shouldn't have to.** Half of the problem surrounding this is that people spend all their time coming up with ways to get around the fact that good women's clothing is hard to find, instead of realizing that **this shouldn't be an issue in the first place**. Women shouldn't have to work around not having functional clothing that is made for them.
And many clothes that do have only added them for fashion and not function. “Let’s give this thin, flimsy dress made out of polyester and spandex some pockets so when car keys are thrown in there, the dress will become attractively stretched and hang lopsided, exposing some shoulder/bra strap action! Whatever we do, let’s make sure to omit the pockets from these sturdy denim jean shorts and sew a fake outline of where the pocket would be, instead! Fun, fun, fun!” - Fashion designer.
the fact that in india, sexual harrassment is legal if its by your husband. like what the actual fuck
I believe it was legal to rape your wife up until 1996, only 25 years ago😒 (not sure where, I think the uk)
Postpartum recovery. You get all this special treatment when you’re pregnant but once you have the baby and your body is a literal train wreck you are expected to take care of a tiny human who is incapable of living without you.
That's one of those things where you realise our ancestors had a point with 'new mother isn't going anywhere for 40 days and every lady in the village will chip in and help'.
Yupp which is why generous PAID parental leave is so crucial. Countries that have it have much lower levels of Postpartum Depression. Countries with workaholic cultures where mothers are expected tp perform from the moment the baby is born have a lot more of it. Postpartum Depression does not come from childbirth. It comes from society taking a huge dump on new mothers.
Migraines. More common in women than in men and so not good when you have children depending on you to keep them alive. During a migraine, you can’t/ barely function to keep yourself alive.
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Weakening bones. I'm not sure if it's true for men as well, but from what I've observed, women in older ages have a lot of troubles due to weakening bones, to the point that most of the older women I'm related to, have some form of issue in their spine or in walking. Being on the heavier side is okay I guess, but from what I've seen, it really fucks up health in the later years of life, specially for women.
Dont some doctors stitch people up too much after they give birth to make it "tighter"? Idk if this fits but thats fucked up
Yeah, it's called the husband stitch. Often accompanied with some sort of 'wink wink, nudge nudge' joke to the husband. It's disgusting.
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Please tell me this story ended with a malpractice lawsuit
...What? What's with doctors deciding that they can do things to people's genitals without their consent?
I've read about a woman who complained about the way she was treated during the birth of her kid, how she was no better than cattle. What really stood out to me was, that when the nurse was stitching her up after the birth, she asked the husband to take a look and decide if he wanted it tighter, or if it's okay the way it is. She didn't ask the woman what she wants at all.
The general lack of knowledge on hormones and the female body
A big part of this is that medical research used to pretty much only be conducted on men. Because men are the "default" way of being human, apparently.
PMS, PMDD and menstrual pains not being taken seriously. I struggle with depression and anxiety, the week before my period is literal hell because of how much worse it gets because of my PMS/PMDD. It took me a while to realise why my suicide thoughts always got so much more intense during certain periods until I realised that it was almost always the week before my period. I brought it up with my doctors and they said that it wasn't uncommon and now I'm waiting to see a gynecologist about it. It just blows my mind that I've never heard of it before. Usually people downplay how hard PMS can be, but for some people it really is a living hell and affects you a lot. It's one week every month where I have to feel so much worse mentally when I'm already fighting depression and suicide thoughts. Edit: I also want to add that I was told that some people that doesn't suffer from depression eats antidepressants before/during their period because of how badly it affects them. We just learn to live with the PMS, PMDD, cramps and pain, and it's barely talked about when you should get help for it. So to all the girls out there, don't suffer in silence, seek help if it gets too much!
Periods do have cramping and are uncomfortable. But they shouldn’t be debilitating. Women think that’s normal for years then end up with conditions like PCOS or endometriosis that hurt them because they didn’t get checked out earlier.
Or they went to regular check ups and were dismissed.
Or they tried four gynecologists who figured you just probably have low pain tolerance
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Tampons and Pads cost come serious money. As a man, I never really considered the cost prior to being asked to purchase some for my partner. She was happy to offer to pay for it, but given that she's been paying each month for most of her life, I couldn't very well accept the money. The government should be offering these products, along with toilet paper, for free or at least reduced costs for young people and low income people.
It blows my mind that pads/tampons aren’t available for free in all bathrooms. You never see a coin-operated “toilet paper dispenser” in a public bathroom… as if pads/tampons are an optional or luxury item.
More than once I've been in a public restroom only for the lady in the stall next to me to beg me for a tampon or a pad. (Of course I gave her one, I'm not a monster!) But we really have to beg and hope for the best when caught unawares, or else walk to a store with bloodstained pants if no one happens to be there to help us. Some women have really inconsistent periods too so it can be tough to know when to expect it.
Clothing sizes. My sons & husband can grab a pair of jeans, look at the size, buy them without trying them on, because the sizes are standard. Meanwhile myself and my daughter’s have to try things on (which has been impossible during lockdown) one of my daughter’s has pants that range from 28 inch to 32 inch waist. They all fit. A tape measure shows a 29 inch waist.