I know I’m not the only woman who’s been completely disregarded by a (male) medical professional and told that something that needs immediate medical attention is essentially a non-issue. A decade ago, I had a psychiatrist tell me that my deep, debilitating depression was “all in my head” right after I divulged some traumatic experiences I had recently gone through.
Feeling completely flabbergasted and knowing that guy could not help me, I attended my next appointment with a smile on my face and lied, saying, “You were right, doctor. It was all in my head. Thanks.” He clapped his hands together, basically patting himself on the back for being brilliant, and sent me on my merry way after 3 minutes of a 30-minute appointment. I wish I were making this up. Sadly, I’m not.
And hearing similar experiences from my three sisters and closest girlfriends, I know I’m sadly not the only one who’s had a medical professional completely disregard me. In fact, over on Reddit, women are sharing the most infuriating experiences they’ve had with doctors — from being told it’s “just stress” or “part of being a woman” — and I’m literally gagged at the audacity. Take a look:
1. “The doctor told my mom she had empty nest syndrome. She had a brain tumor. I wish I was joking.”
2. “As a teenager, I was super sick. My doctor said it was anxiety and put me on a heavy-duty anxiety medication meant for adults. Turns out, I had mono. Then, when I tried to come off the anxiety medication, I experienced such horrific withdrawal that I ended up dropping out of college. So, a misdiagnosis at 17 altered the course of my life.”
3. “I started feeling sick and puking all the time. I was nauseous, couldn’t keep food down, had headaches, and would feel dizzy at home. The male doctor I went to said I was the ‘puking type’ and dismissed me when I tried to address it. It turned out that the apartment where I was living at the time had black mold, and I was experiencing symptoms from the exposure.”
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4. “I keep having the same symptoms: constipation, left-sided abdominal pain, and nausea. The first gastroenterologist I saw told me it was anxiety and prescribed me an anti-anxiety medication. I spent the next 10 freaking years going to different doctors trying to get this sorted out, but that damn anxiety on my chart made them all dismiss me. I finally found a doctor who would give me a colonoscopy. Boom, neuroendocrine tumour. A big one. Grade 2. Thanks for nearly killing me, assholes. Luckily, it was a slow-growing version that didn’t spread, but it would have been a lot easier to remove if they’d gotten it out a decade earlier.”
5. “My mom had blinding pain in her abdomen one night, to the point that she had tunnel vision and was blacking out. She ended up in the ER, and the (male) doctor dismissed her and told her she was about to start her period. My dad drove her to another ER, and it turned out that her gallbladder had to be removed and that she had some kind of infection that nearly killed her. She likely would have died if she hadn’t gone to the second ER.”
6. “I went to the ER with severe abdominal pains, and the first thing the doctor asked me was if I was on my period. I told him that because of my birth control, I hadn’t had my period in 6 years at that point. He gave me a whole spiel about how birth control can cause cramping sometimes and blah blah blah. I was very adamant that it had nothing to do with my reproductive organs, especially since the pain was sitting right underneath my ribcage. He prodded my stomach with his hands, did a very weak physical exam, and chalked everything up to ‘anxiety and indigestion.’ I wound up leaving that hospital, going to one in the city next to mine, and getting properly tested. Turns out I had a severe case of pancreatitis, and my glucose levels were through the roof. I was hospitalized for 2 weeks. But hey, maybe it was just my period?”
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7. “My mom took me to the doctor when I was a teenager because I was sick often and was fainting. My mom wanted him to write a requisition for bloodwork so that I could get my iron tested. He refused to do so and instead wrote ‘Canada Food Guide’ on a prescription for me and implied I had an eating disorder, but not in an empathetic way. Anyways, my mom took me to a walk-in clinic where they happily sent me for bloodwork, and I was indeed severely anemic.”
8. “I was suffering from a condition that made me very weak and exhausted. I saw a male neurologist who told me that my condition couldn’t be that bad because he had other female patients whose husbands just carried them to the bathroom when they needed to. I said, ‘I don’t have a husband to carry me.’ Needless to say, I never went to see him again.”
Ana Blumenkron / Netflix / Everett Collection
9. “I collapsed in pain one night. I was throwing up, curled in a ball on the ground. I went to the emergency room (ER) and was in so much pain that I was crying when they took me for imaging. They told me there was nothing they could do and to follow up with a doctor ASAP. I went to a walk-in clinic the next day, and the doctor said it was OVULATION. Nope! Turns out it was a gallbladder infection.”
10. “A doctor told my parents I must have an eating disorder because I couldn’t stomach food for various stretches and was extremely nauseated. Nobody believed me about periodic bouts of severe pain. Turns out I had about 40 kidney stones across both kidneys and was only believed when I ended up in the ER due to a lodged massive stone that was blocking a ureter and required two surgeries to remove it and clear out my kidneys of the rest.”
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11. “I’ve had back pain for over 3 years, with the doctor dismissing me and saying I should lose weight, try yoga, and that it was caused by poor posture. Eventually, I convinced a new doctor to refer me for an MRI scan. I was diagnosed with thoracic ossification of the ligamentum flavum — the ligaments in my mid-back are turning into bone and pressing into my spinal fluid. It’s irreversible, with no preventative measures; the only option is surgery when it gets really bad (basically if I start to lose feeling in my genital area, which means the bone is pressing into my actual spinal cord). If left untreated, it can cause paralysis below the chest. Really don’t think yoga was going to help.”
12. “I had debilitating periods when I first hit puberty. We’re talking about pain so bad that I would throw up. A male doctor told me it was normal and to ‘just deal with it.’ He wouldn’t prescribe birth control to help regulate my hormones because I was 13 and he ‘didn’t want me having sex.’ Luckily, my mom called bullshit, and we saw a female doctor who prescribed me birth control to stop my periods. Years later, during an appendectomy, doctors discovered I was missing a right ovary and cramping so hard that it was sending menstrual blood into my abdomen. So that burning, nauseating pain? Yeah, that was my body digesting blood and viscera where none should have been.”
Angel Studios / Everett Collection
13. “The worst was probably the gynecologist who surprised me with an endometrial biopsy with no pain management and acted like I was being dramatic for reacting to the blinding pain.”
14. “I am 10 weeks postpartum and still dealing with excruciating pain due to a mistake a nurse made. After I delivered my baby, the nurse forgot to deflate the catheter balloon and ripped it out, tearing my urethra. I was like, ‘Ohhh, something really hurts.’ And the nurse was like, ‘Where?’ I told her it started after she took my catheter out. The nurse said, ‘Oh, you’re not feeling anything; you have an epidural!’ I was, indeed, feeling something. Since then, I’ve had to go back to the ER and see several specialists. The pain has been horrendous.”
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15. “I went to the college doctor, and he told me I was stressed about finals and should take a ton of ibuprofen. Spoiler alert: I had cancer.”
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16. “Excruciating lower back pain. It came on suddenly, with no identifiable trigger, and even the slightest movement would trigger a cascade of lower back muscle spasms. It was excruciating getting in the car to get to the doctor’s office, only to have her dismiss it as ‘probably a change from having children’ and nothing they could treat. No imaging was ordered. My youngest was 4 at the time. I ended up at the ER the next morning because it was getting worse, and I couldn’t get out of bed without panicking. It was a severely herniated disc in my lumbar spine. I’m still mad about this almost 2 years later. Just unbelievable.”
17. “I was vomiting constantly, and the pain was so severe that I had to leave my job because I couldn’t stand for more than 15 minutes without being in tears. An orthopedic surgeon who attributed all my pain to a small, partially herniated disc said to me, ‘Maybe your pain tolerance just isn’t as high as you think it is.’ When my OB decided to finally do exploratory surgery, since nothing was showing up on the imaging, she had to immediately remove multiple parts of my reproductive system because I had severe endometriosis. But maybe my pain tolerance ‘just isn’t as high as I think it is’…”
18. “I was in the ER with a thunderclap headache. I knew it was beyond anything I had ever experienced, and my mother rushed me to the hospital when I lost control of my left arm. My dad had a stroke a couple of years before, so we were concerned it could be that, and we even made the doctors and nurses aware. I was taken in, put through triage, and given a room where every single doctor failed me. The attending doctor focused on my mental health because I couldn’t speak at this point. A psychiatrist came in shortly after, had my mom leave the room, and asked if I was being abused or if my period was giving me anxiety. (No to both.) I had a neurologist come shine a light in my eyes, then tell me to sit up and walk. I could not. Through all of this, they did nothing to investigate further with testing. Turns out, I DID have a stroke. I spent the next year navigating how to heal myself.”
19. “I had terrible pain in my hip that was affecting my ability to walk, sit, and sleep. I went to the doctor twice, and both times I was told it was a pulled muscle. The first doctor said I should ‘do more and walk it off,’ while the second doctor said ‘women have lower pain thresholds.’ After 3 months, I went back and insisted on an X-ray, which was reluctantly ordered. It turned out I needed a hip replacement at 36, and the ‘ball’ of my femur had worn down to a point.”
20. “A woman came into our ER with severe pelvic pain and weeks of bleeding. She said she had a history of endometriosis. It was in her chart, as she had been there before. My coworker triaged her and sent her back to the waiting room. I knew he couldn’t give her strong medications from triage — that requires a doctor — but he could have given her Tylenol, ibuprofen, or Zofran for the nausea. He gave her nothing. When I suggested it, he said, ‘She can deal with it.’ I said endometriosis is extremely painful. He said something to the effect of the patient being a ‘drama queen.’ We fought for a while, then I got so frustrated with him that I stormed out. He ended up transferring to another unit.”
21. “I tore a muscle in my shoulder. The doctor was moving my arm to check things out, and I teared up instantly. You know that shock of pain that makes your eyes water automatically? That. Not sobbing or crying. Just watery eyes. He literally asked, ‘Are you crying because it hurts, or because you are emotional?’ I yelled, ‘Because it hurts!’ Like, FOR REAL?”
22. “A male urgent care doctor told me I was ‘fine’ when I came in with severe abdominal pain. He claimed I was suffering from gastritis. Fast-forward 12 hours, and I was in emergency surgery getting an appendectomy for a burst appendix. I vomited directly in the anesthesiologist’s face — like, directly. The best part is that I was a bartender at the time, and I ran into that same doctor at the club months later. He asked me if I was feeling better, and I got to tell him what happened. He didn’t come back to the bar I was working at after that.”
Cohen Media Group / Everett Collection
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23. “I went to urgent care with an irregular heartbeat, dizziness, and swollen ankles. I was worried about my heart. The doctor laughed at me and said I was too young for heart problems. He said I must have sprained both my ankles, which was why they were swollen. Turns out, I had a severe electrolyte imbalance, and I was, in fact, having problems with my heart. It’s fucking ridiculous out here.”
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24. “I was getting sharp, buckling pains in my chest for years. I was told they were panic attacks. I explained that they happened during typical daily activities, like reaching for a glass or running a bath. I was told it was subconscious anxiety. Years later, I found out that, due to breaking my ribs multiple times, they became so weak that they could barely see them on an X-ray.”
Unified Pictures / Everett Collection
25. “I had seven ulcers in my duodenum. They tried to say it was my period. No, sir. I literally thought I was dying. But thanks for the Percocet prescription and for telling the scope clinic that I didn’t need to be examined.”
—WGiK
26. “I became pregnant and quickly developed sharp, one-sided pelvic pain and coffee-ground bleeding. I posted about it on Reddit, and a few other women warned me that it sounded like an ectopic pregnancy. So I went to my OB-GYN’s office and asked, ‘Could this be an ectopic pregnancy?’ He laughed me off and told me there was nothing wrong with my baby and that I needed to stop being so anxious. A few days later, I went to the ER, where the ER doctor rolled his eyes at me when I brought up my concerns about an ectopic pregnancy and mumbled, ‘It’s probably just a UTI.’ Guess who was back at that same ER 3 weeks later, having emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy?”
—Moal
27. “It’s funny how any pain below the waist is ‘obviously period pain,’ even if it deviates wildly from the 32 years of experience I have with said period pain. I said it was probably a broken rib…which, shockingly, was indeed broken. It was almost as if I was familiar with that pain because it was my third such fracture.”
28. “My gynecologist told me my severe pain was ‘in my head.’ The next time it happened, I sat in their office and said I wouldn’t leave until they addressed it. They gave me an ultrasound and found I’d had a 5 cm cyst on my ovary that ruptured that morning.”
29. And finally: “While I was losing sight, wobbling on my feet, and slurring my speech to a neurologist, I was told it was a migraine. It was a stroke!”
What about you? Have you ever been completely ignored or made to feel ridiculous by a medical professional…just for being a woman? Have you been told “it’s all in your head,” that it’s “just your period,” or that “you need to lose weight”? No matter your story, I want to hear it. Share your experiences in the comments or through the anonymous form below:
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The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-800-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.
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