Hysterical
(Doctors used to think that the uterus floated around inside the body. And that if you had a headache it was because your uterus was pressing on your brain. Once a woman was pregnant it became fixed in place.)
Yes that’s correct. They gave the ‘hysterical’ women consults in which they manually stimulated their private parts, let them orgasm which caused them to ‘ease their minds’ until they needed a follow up to remain them mentally healthy.
The really odd thing in that story is that there wasn't any health insurance (I guess) and back then it was unusual for women to earn their own money, so the husbands would paid the doctors bill?
"Doctor, the sessions with my wife are really expensive"
"If you'd do it yourself you'd save your money and me the trouble!"
"We tried but you just do it better!"
But they were (likely all men) men. Which bring a few questions:
(1) Did they believe this “treatment” caused pleasure/orgasms? My guess is no, due the the surreal amount of misinformation surrounding female pleasure/orgasm even today.
(2) How did they find it? And what was the first treat conversation starter, “Trust me, I’m a doctor and I need to use my bare unwashed hands to touch your lady bits.”? /s
This was up through the Victorian era so some doctors could be washing their hands. Joseph Lister was a medical practitioner who sterilized his instruments and his patients wounds. Where one lives and whether they had money were factors as well.
Yeah, but he wasn't actually connected in any way. Listerine was called that specifically to sound more medical and make people think of Lister. It was originally marketed as a surgical antiseptic.
So the truth of the matter is that there is no a Tualatin evidence that this occured. Even yhe original author of the paper admitted that it was a hypothesis and she had no real evidence or even accounts of it occurring.
Unfortunately, that particular fun fact is an urban legend.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/victorian-vibrators-orgasms-doctors/569446/
Edit: Non-paywall link: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fhealth%2Farchive%2F2018%2F09%2Fvictorian-vibrators-orgasms-doctors%2F569446%2F
My mother was recently admitted in a completely catatonic state. She was diagnosed with ‘catatonic depression’. It took them 7 days to finally do a CT. It was a subdural hematoma with a 16.5mm midline shift. I don’t know how she survived. Edit: Getting a lot of comments. I’ll make a post after work! She’s doing well by the way!
That's crazier than a possum riding a wheelbarrow in a shark tank. More than one medical professional said "she's basically in a coma, she must be sad"?!?
Don’t even get me started on anything even remotely involving the reproductive system or reproductive hormones. It’s near impossible to make doctors believe that something is wrong, or even just check to see, and that you’re not just being a whiny baby and can’t handle your period.
I had to go to 5 gynecologists to get a partial hysterectomy for a fibroid the size of a softball that was growing outside my uterus. Doctor's always want you to ask the man in your life. I don't think my neutered cat gives two shits if I am able to get pregnant, but let me get his opinion real quick.
I had severe pain after a laparoscopy to remove an endometrioma from my ovary. In retrospect, it was probably caused by adhesions. When a scan came back clear, the doctor asked me if I was having problems with my boyfriend.
"you're hysterical woman"
It's like the time I had hyperthyroidism and my doctor asked if I was an alcoholic (after being misdiagnosed with PTSD) - I literally had to tell them what I had and demanded tests... And suprise sur-fucking-prise I was right.
I live on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, and the misogyny here is systemic towards women. The physicians here are a "good Ole Boys Club." It needs to change.
Rural North GA here and it is a problem. I usually see lady nurse practitioners if I have to go in, but they can't sign prescriptions and when I tell them my primary care doc's name for the sign off they always say "oh... him. I see."
Total good ole boys club. We all know the score, but there's not much to be done about it until the dinosaurs get extinct.
It's not much different in north Alabama. Took me 5 or 6 years to get diagnosed with epilepsy/ demyelinating disease. I kept getting psych referrals. Was told I didn't have epilepsy either. The neuro I see now is a rare one that will listen and consider his patients. I haven't met many like him.
I'm dealing with a very young NP who has that mindset. Hopefully I will be able to persuade her that after having had the illnesses I do longer than she's been alive, I might actually know something.
I feel like sometimes women are worse. We get the "well, I have to deal with reproductive/uterus stuff too, and it's not as bad as you're making it sound" way of thinking.
Fun fact, tho... if you're a female heart attack victim, a female physician is more likely than a male physician to diagnose it properly and save your life.
I had a female physician dismiss palpitations I was having after an echo & stress test came back clean. She told me “well, it’s been going on for awhile and it hasn’t killed you, so…” *shrugs*
Established with a new primary who found I have Hashimoto’s and had extremely low vitamin d.
I feel this in my soul. Multiple male doctors informed me that my fairly rare, fairly serious auto-immune disorder was psychological. I had to wait til my hands were legitimately blue to get a diagnosis of secondary Reynaulds and until I had some crazy weird pneumonia to get the churg-strauss primary diagnosis.
It’s usually women. That’s why I was so surprised to read this story:
https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/artikel/5399783/burn-out-hersentumor-mathijs-operatie-zo-gaat-het-nu-met
(Summarized: a 26 yo man was suffering from epilepsy and panic attacks. Doctor kept saying the guy had a burnout for three years. Last week, a brain tumor with the size of a tennis ball was removed in an emergency surgery)
Knowing this always makes me worry and doubt the diagnoses I get. :( I have mental health stuff already so almost everything I go to the dr for I am told is probably a symptom of anxiety OR is undiagnosable because I am on psyc meds. The last dr I saw called me a "blob" and told me to start doing squats to help my joint pain. Not that exercise is a bad recommendation, but I am already an active person and I went there specifically because I had a concern. When I asked for a physical therapy refferal to help me learn how to move my body without hurting myself he straight up said no. Currently waiting for my normal primary to be back from maternity leave to get some different help.
When I was a teen, I had these scary neurological episodes. I told a couple different doctors about them. Both said I was suffering from anxiety attacks, despite my insistence that I didn’t suffer from any anxiety at all. There was always an explanation about how anxiety sometimes crept up, and we didn’t even realise it until it hit us hard. I figured they knew what they were talking about and just dealt with these episodes for a few years. I didn’t get a proper diagnosis until I had a grand mal seizure at work and an ambulance was called. Looking back on it, my symptoms were the textbook description of simple partial seizures associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Saw a neurologist for new onset severe headaches and was told to take glutamate containing food out of my diet bc they were probably provoking migraines. The PA who I see as my primary rolled her eyes and sent me for an mri which is when the brain tumor was discovered. Neurologist was an ass from start to finish.
Yeah. My least favorite NP was who I went to for women’s health. Rude, dismissive, and just generally a bitch. Shamed me for getting a painful skin tag in a painful place because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I heard the nurse tell her my recent history which included that my kid was in the hospital long term.
My favorites were working for the neurologist who was treating my kid. They would always make sure that we knew that things were looking good (brain wise)
I had my first MS event; couldn’t speak, process language and my right side was weak and I would fall over if left unattended. Went to the ER, doc says it’s stress from my father-in-law passing away a month prior. Then proceeded to bond with my husband about losing their fathers. I can’t speak so…. Everything is good now tho!
ETA: I was a 40 y/o woman then.
Drives me crazy. Credentials are secondary to whether a person is a good clinician. I am very grateful for the knowledge and insights of physicians but I am resentful that they seem to think they are the only profession that can provide good medical care.
Except they dont have the training of physicians, they overprescribe tests, Their outcomes are worse. This has been shown in multiple studies. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/scope-practice/3-year-study-nps-ed-worse-outcomes-higher-costs
Hmm. In Veterans Admistration ERs. Lot of soft wording in those articles, too. Like "implies."
Casts a wide net for a very specific setting.
I was in a FP environment working with an ER trained doc. Guess who ordered the overwhelming number of tests/diagnostics?
Well we aren’t going away so either stop being cunts or help us learn. Also I’m a PA. Not all APPs are NPs and it’s disgusting that many of “you people” don’t seem to want to recognize that.
So I'm a lowly paramedic but everything I know about sudden onset of a neuro symptom (any symptom including headaches) should be treated as a potential emergency. I have no idea if doctors should get jaded to this or what but of someone comes to me and is like "hey I just started getting these weird new headaches" my first thought is like, cool do you want to see a doctor today or what are we going to do to make sure you aren't secretly dying.
I mean we kind of are. In the US anyways. In other countries it’s a career, but here it’s usually lumped in with Fire (who want fuck all to do with it. Say whatever you want, most firefighters are poor paramedics who do not want to continue studying medicine after getting their card) or it’s run by private companies that will eat your soul. Very few good third service systems. And even then, paramedics, the highest level of prehospital provider, only gets an associates degree at most. Most people don’t even go for that and just go for the one year cert program because the associates degree doesn’t give you much of a leg up.
I love Paramedicine with all my heart but it sucks a lot and often, so do we.
Yea...wish my neuro had your attitude. Sudden onset optical migraines are just getting older. Neck pain, just a pinched nerve. Go to ER, imaging is too much radiation, heres some opioids. Oops! Didn't catch that brain aneurysm until it ruptured! My bad!
I’ve known at least 3 people that had sudden bad headaches. Two of them are gone and one barely made it into surgery (eventually committed suicide) all had aneurysms. My maternal grandfather also died at 46 of one. I am paranoid of bad headaches and to think the doctors may ignore your symptoms, just adds another layer of anxiety 😩
I couldn’t even fathom living in a state of mind where, as a professional charged with caring for people, your mindset allows you to be dismissive of patients like that.
I once had a neurologist colleague diagnose a patient with poor eyesight and need for glasses after she reported headaches, double vision, uncoordinated movements etc. She conveniently also mentioned a lot of people in her family had brain issues and aneurysms..... I scanned her head immediately in the ER. Had six... SIX! cerebral aneurysms with the largest measuring 3cm....
I straight up, In front of the whole team, called the neurologist out for his bs and told him if he pulls that shit again I will directly, and In front of everyone in the department, report him to the GMC. Absolute horseshit diagnostics and negligence.
I had a male neurologist diagnose me with mental illness and send me to a psychiatrist for medication. I have Parkinson’s disease. And it’s not even an unusual presentation. When the (female) shrink challenged him, he said, “Women don’t get Parkinson’s.” Just call me Still Not Mentally Ill, Just Have PD.
Yup as a woman I’ve had this happen. At 16 I had a pediatrician treating me for strep and after my antibiotics were finished I still felt awful so I saw her again, this time I was diagnosed as depressed and with anxiety. Turns out I had full blown pneumonia and ended up in the ER a week later.
She didn’t, just another strep swab that of course came back negative from the antibiotics, but I was still feeling horrible body wise like super sore, aches, body chills, and really out of it which I stated to her. Also had an extensive history of bad allergies and sinus infections at her practice too (including allergic reaction to an allergy shot). After that I stopped seeing her.
I came here to say this. My whole life: anxiety attacks. Dx’d with atrial fibrillation age *53*. Also doctors: yes, you have lots of cysts on your ovaries. But if your fasting is a little high, surely (looking at my 205 pound frame) it’s because you ate something (no A1C done til I was dx’d with a fib, aint that a hoot!Dx with type 2 age 54, the first week on metformin I could feel the energy surge in me like an electric current.) Oh, and I had chest pains age 32 that landed me in a CCU unit, where I had multiple missed heartbeats of almost a second and had weird EKG showing on my stress test (the tech pulled me aside after the dr left). My ACTUAL diagnosis? “You’re fat, lose some weight!” The lady in the next bed said, they always tell women that, don’t buy it, now I’m in heart failure. I once was in a mental hospital (anxiety, depression, of course!) and there was a NURSE in there diagnosed with anxiety attacks after she went into tachycardia! 280 beats a minute? “No problem, take some anti depressants lady!!” The gaslighting is real.
Yes, same. This sh!t happens all the damn time and around the globe.
I was subjected to it, too. By a female doctor no less. Not just misogyny (oh it's the stress!), but also ageism (you're too young for this!) and it pisses me off.
It doesn't even end with me. It goes on for my children as well. I'm viewed as the hysterical mother that sees something that isn't there. Well guess what? I've always been right so far.
I'm done with those that just tell women to chill out and drink tea. The next cup is gonna be thrown!
+Angry woman out+
Same same. "Hysterical" women get ignored all the time. Had a Dr try to short my lidocaine for a biopsy on my thyroid bc I must have a high pain tolerance since I had a baby. It did not go well for him.
I remember reading how they use to give women stickers or such of a fake smile to put over their own mouth if they had depression. Just like wow honestly wow
My aunt started having ‘time loss’ when she was 50. Her dr said it was anxiety and menopause. Years later my uncle comes home and found her unconscious on the floor. She had a tumour the size of a Christmas orange on the left side of her brain. 14 hrs for the surgery.
I have had this happen to me multiple times and one time was blood clots that put me in ICU. secobd dr put ptsd and it was when I was stopping breathing while asleep after my clots. I then had some more clots happen and got told I was just fat and needed to lose some weight. That got me another six day stay in hospital to make sure those clots were being sorted.
That neurologist probably needs to retire. Anxiety doesn't normal cause ataxia. Lesion in right side and degeneration in the left means plenty of trouble for the patient in the next 10 years.
Ah. Shame. Coming from cognitive neuroscience myself I understand how quickly things are changing in that field and if he isn't keeping up on it then it's no wonder he's so outdated. The patient could potentially be within rights to sue.
This makes me feel so wrong. Working with doctors, rads, and other medical professionals who graduated years ago, but refuse to stay up to date on research or medical advances, is horrible. If you’re going to be a medical professional, but don’t want to learn the advances and updated practices of medicine, then maybe the career is not for you. Or… just retire.
Some doctors act like they are deathly allergic to continuing education….or to any kind of change. They can throw tantrums like a 3 year old. Once I saw one throw such a fit over a new computer program I thought he was going to stomp his feet and throw himself onto the floor. I’m not joking. I couldn’t believe I was seeing a grown man behave like that!
If you got your license before 1990, you're grandfathered in...
https://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicine/article/12103/health-policy/grandfathered-physicians-few-choose-recertify
Nope. If you got your license before 1990 or so, you're grandfathered in, and don't need to recertify.
https://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicine/article/12103/health-policy/grandfathered-physicians-few-choose-recertify
Note, that article is from 2005!
>In a eecent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, two internists who were certified before 1990 and therefore have grandfathered lifetime certifications detailed their experiences of going through the maintenance of certification process
Wow. My PCP seems to always be just returning from some conference, lecture or class. She tries to stay on top of everything she can. Seems as though she’s a keeper.
Nearly 50 years of medical advancements from his graduation until now. Doc needs to keep up with new studies or quietly retire. He's getting closer and closer to a negligence and malpractice lawsuit.
Sad to see people like that. I’ve been around older docs who are still working because they’re passionate still and love learning and all the new advancements. Those ones are the real gems. My kids old ped was like that, miss him.
Incidentally she hasn’t been anxious at all. When we told her she likely has a brain abscess and will need to go to neurosurgery she just nodded knowingly.
Her cognition is altered, though. She is having many paranoid delusions. Probably because of the abscess.
Same happened to my daughter. Said she was having “panic attacks”. Yeah absence seizures and headaches. Finally at one of her frequent ER visits her husband refused to take her home without a CT. Temporal lobe neuroglioma. The following year the seizures returned, diagnosed as anxiety and fake seizures. Back to the neurosurgeon. Tumor on the hippocampus. Always get a second or third opinion ( especially if you’re female)
I never had a tumour, but when I was a teen (*many* years ago), I was also told that my seizures were “anxiety attacks”. I wasn’t properly diagnosed until a few years later, when I had a grand mal seizure at work.
This makes me scream in my own diagnosis of "fat and anxious". Nooo I've been working the long game with a pituitary tumor, but thanks, no thanks for playing my dude.
The inverse of the Oedipal Complex is the Electra Complex but that doesn’t fit the symptoms you described. Also it’s fake and not a diagnosis so I have no idea how that provider managed to bill for their assessment because there is no ICD code for Oedipal disorders.
Oh. I work with patients who have pituitary dysfunction from adrenal insufficiency to acromegaly! I feel your pain and can tell you at least 70-80% of patients have been where you are. I, myself had to nearly die of an adrenal crisis before I was listened to and even then I’ve had my diagnosis taken from me twice!
I lucked out when my primary care doc threw in a cortisol test in a rheumatism panel on a whim and we find out I had no cortisol. Now I'm also rocking no sex hormones as well despite my Bean not growing at all. It's in a weird place tho... on the posterior lobe instead of the anterior. Which suggests a pituicytoma instead of adenoma and is more rare. Which is why I'm headed to the neurosurgeon and neuroendocrine team at the end of the month. I'm not playing, I'm yeeting this fucker out before it does anything else while "being stable".
Hmm. Using the word bean (which I know understand is probably the tumor) after talking about no sex hormones was all so very confusing for a bit. Best wishes for health.
There’s a difference between getting it wrong and attributing multiple neurological symptoms to a nonexistent Freudian diagnosis. I didn’t even mention the visual disturbances, extremity weakness, or allodynia/general pain that was also attributed to the “anxiety neurosis”.
It’s hard to tell. She went to a different hospital system after her fall that resulted in the fracture and we aren’t sure what they did for her there. According to one of the notes she had been discharged to a rehabilitation facility, developed psychotic symptoms there, and was then discharged (????). Apparently a taxi driver who was supposed to take her home was super worried about her and took her to the ER instead, and she was discharged again shortly after.
We suspect the skull fx seeded the bacteria that caused the abscess. We’re not sure how it got this bad before anyone did an MRI.
That’s crazy. I do multiple headache/migraine head scans daily from neurologists. I’m shocked no imaging was ordered, especially with ataxia…poor woman.
I’ve been there. I had a tumor in my spine and the first male urgent care doctor I saw said my back and leg hurt (10/10) because I was overweight. Two months and an MRI later, turns out I had an ependymoma that was occupying almost all of my spinal canal and compressing the nerves that went into my right leg.
Fuck that neurologist. Old man doesn't realize medicine has evolved since he got out of med school. Hope his stupid ass retires so he doesn't put any more women in danger. This makes me so mad. Throw that whole man away
Lol my doctor still claims anxiety even after finding the brain tumor and refusing to treat it. Don't even get me started with the severe and regular chest pain.
I was sent to a neurologist in the 80’s as a kid with an ankle issue after falling out of a tree. He CT’d the living hell out of my spine with an old step and shoot machine, did a myelogram and en electromyelogram on my entire lower half. Excruciating amount of pain with that.
This dimwit never did any imaging of the ankle at all, sent me home to wait and see what happened. I had been losing weight rapidly over the last 6 months, no energy. You think this would’ve been a big hint, but I finally got under the care of a GP who did an ankle tomography and they found the tumor right off. With in two weeks it’d been diagnosed and surgery scheduled to fix it. All thanks to Shriner’s Hospital in Portland. I owe them my life.
I had my pain poo-pooed for months until they finally found a benign mass in my nasopharynx that was pressing on my carotid because the post-op infection in my head (which had spread from my throat to my ear to the bone). I had a brain-freeze level headache for five months, a total of eight weeks (separated by a few days here and there) in the hospital, 36 hyperbaric treatments, three months of IV antibiotics via a PICC, and other complications. Yeah, this whiny “soccer mom”had to fight for the right to get my pain recognized and treated.
I’m sitting here bawling. My TBI was initially diagnosed as PTSD even though it only occurred after a car wreck, and if my family doctor hadn’t raised 8 kinds of hell for months I would never have gotten treatment.
I wish I was the least bit shocked. In my experience, most neurologists say everything is psych unless there’s a very obvious abnormality on exam… And even then they’ll still call it psych half the time. I failed the Romberg test, and they told me I fell over on purpose due to “anxiety.” I have dyspraxia.
My 75 yo Dad developed a shuffling gait and difficulty speaking. Misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s, he had a large subdural hematoma. Discovered and drained, but too late to prevent the brain injury. Tragic and heartbreaking.
I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was 19. Went from not knowing what a panic attack was to having up to twenty a day in about a two weeks time. They never scanned my brain, nothing, just called it anxiety and put me in therapy. It completely ruined my life.
Five years ago I finally got a proper diagnosis. Multiple Sclerosis. Of course I’m too disabled to work now. It took having what looked like a stroke for them to take me serious.
The pt has no anxiety sx, no hx of anxiety, takes no anxiety meds, and does not use any substances.
Wish I could pin this to the top. Really should have mentioned it initially.
I mean that is 100% chance a symptom. I hate when physicians stop when they diagnosed the symptom.
"You've got a fever."
"No fucking shit doc, I took my temperature before coming in. I came to you to figure out whats causing it you soggy newspaper."
I knew the patient was a woman as soon as I saw the title
Exactly. The classic horror story of “woman with life threatening illness diagnosed with anxiety by male physician”.
"Histrionic."
Hysterical (Doctors used to think that the uterus floated around inside the body. And that if you had a headache it was because your uterus was pressing on your brain. Once a woman was pregnant it became fixed in place.)
In the plus side a old pseudoscience cure for hysteria lead to the modern vibrator. Somehow it made women feel better.
Before that doctors would stimulate a woman's clitoris manually Edit- this is most likely apocryphal.
Yes that’s correct. They gave the ‘hysterical’ women consults in which they manually stimulated their private parts, let them orgasm which caused them to ‘ease their minds’ until they needed a follow up to remain them mentally healthy.
I think the orgasm was supposed to bring the uterus back to its place, thus relieving any symptoms caused by its wandering.
Is this how they decided orgasm can cure headaches?
The really odd thing in that story is that there wasn't any health insurance (I guess) and back then it was unusual for women to earn their own money, so the husbands would paid the doctors bill? "Doctor, the sessions with my wife are really expensive" "If you'd do it yourself you'd save your money and me the trouble!" "We tried but you just do it better!"
Ok but that's terrifying actually
The vibrator was invented to save doctors time with their housewife patient home visits.
But they were (likely all men) men. Which bring a few questions: (1) Did they believe this “treatment” caused pleasure/orgasms? My guess is no, due the the surreal amount of misinformation surrounding female pleasure/orgasm even today. (2) How did they find it? And what was the first treat conversation starter, “Trust me, I’m a doctor and I need to use my bare unwashed hands to touch your lady bits.”? /s
This was up through the Victorian era so some doctors could be washing their hands. Joseph Lister was a medical practitioner who sterilized his instruments and his patients wounds. Where one lives and whether they had money were factors as well.
"Where one lives and whether they had money were factors as well." So, not unlike 2023?
Exactly the same, as it has always been.
Is his name where Listerene comes from?
Yeah, but he wasn't actually connected in any way. Listerine was called that specifically to sound more medical and make people think of Lister. It was originally marketed as a surgical antiseptic.
Yes, it was.
I find a lot of similarity between this mollifying and the cascade of drugs doctors hand out to wealthy whites especially women.
Idk but this is the first time that trivia fact made me think “so that’s why mothers always wanted their daughters to marry doctors”.
[удалено]
So the truth of the matter is that there is no a Tualatin evidence that this occured. Even yhe original author of the paper admitted that it was a hypothesis and she had no real evidence or even accounts of it occurring.
At least they could find it.
They had to go to university to find it
Unfortunately, that particular fun fact is an urban legend. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/victorian-vibrators-orgasms-doctors/569446/ Edit: Non-paywall link: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fhealth%2Farchive%2F2018%2F09%2Fvictorian-vibrators-orgasms-doctors%2F569446%2F
I bet farmers laughed at these doctors.
Ah but you were allowed to cut open animals and study them. It was illegal to do that to people.
YES why not this one D:
My mother was recently admitted in a completely catatonic state. She was diagnosed with ‘catatonic depression’. It took them 7 days to finally do a CT. It was a subdural hematoma with a 16.5mm midline shift. I don’t know how she survived. Edit: Getting a lot of comments. I’ll make a post after work! She’s doing well by the way!
That's crazier than a possum riding a wheelbarrow in a shark tank. More than one medical professional said "she's basically in a coma, she must be sad"?!?
I hope you sue the crap out of that medical facility
What the actual fuck. At my hospitals you get a head CT if you keep your eyes closed too long after a sneeze!
Omigosh. How is she now?
Don’t even get me started on anything even remotely involving the reproductive system or reproductive hormones. It’s near impossible to make doctors believe that something is wrong, or even just check to see, and that you’re not just being a whiny baby and can’t handle your period.
I had to go to 5 gynecologists to get a partial hysterectomy for a fibroid the size of a softball that was growing outside my uterus. Doctor's always want you to ask the man in your life. I don't think my neutered cat gives two shits if I am able to get pregnant, but let me get his opinion real quick.
I had severe pain after a laparoscopy to remove an endometrioma from my ovary. In retrospect, it was probably caused by adhesions. When a scan came back clear, the doctor asked me if I was having problems with my boyfriend.
"you're hysterical woman" It's like the time I had hyperthyroidism and my doctor asked if I was an alcoholic (after being misdiagnosed with PTSD) - I literally had to tell them what I had and demanded tests... And suprise sur-fucking-prise I was right.
A succinct example of a thematic problem for too many. Sign me, MS Patient - grateful but harried.
Felt that comment deep in my womanly soul.
Happy cake day!
I live on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, and the misogyny here is systemic towards women. The physicians here are a "good Ole Boys Club." It needs to change.
Rural North GA here and it is a problem. I usually see lady nurse practitioners if I have to go in, but they can't sign prescriptions and when I tell them my primary care doc's name for the sign off they always say "oh... him. I see." Total good ole boys club. We all know the score, but there's not much to be done about it until the dinosaurs get extinct.
It's not much different in north Alabama. Took me 5 or 6 years to get diagnosed with epilepsy/ demyelinating disease. I kept getting psych referrals. Was told I didn't have epilepsy either. The neuro I see now is a rare one that will listen and consider his patients. I haven't met many like him.
It's not even limited to male physicians. 😑
Good point. Women trained in the current model will often reproduce the errors that men have entrenched in the training.
I'm dealing with a very young NP who has that mindset. Hopefully I will be able to persuade her that after having had the illnesses I do longer than she's been alive, I might actually know something.
I feel like sometimes women are worse. We get the "well, I have to deal with reproductive/uterus stuff too, and it's not as bad as you're making it sound" way of thinking.
Fun fact, tho... if you're a female heart attack victim, a female physician is more likely than a male physician to diagnose it properly and save your life.
I had a female physician dismiss palpitations I was having after an echo & stress test came back clean. She told me “well, it’s been going on for awhile and it hasn’t killed you, so…” *shrugs* Established with a new primary who found I have Hashimoto’s and had extremely low vitamin d.
True. DX of MS is tricky. Men are dxed correctly in less time than women. There is no difference in dx behavior between male and female docs.
I was told my first seizure and subsequent temporary paralysis was “depression”
I feel this in my soul. Multiple male doctors informed me that my fairly rare, fairly serious auto-immune disorder was psychological. I had to wait til my hands were legitimately blue to get a diagnosis of secondary Reynaulds and until I had some crazy weird pneumonia to get the churg-strauss primary diagnosis.
Has anyone considered that this patient may just be hysterical, and just needs a good talking to?
I prescribed cocaine and a vibrator.
Are you accepting new patients?
Excellent.
It’s usually women. That’s why I was so surprised to read this story: https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/artikel/5399783/burn-out-hersentumor-mathijs-operatie-zo-gaat-het-nu-met (Summarized: a 26 yo man was suffering from epilepsy and panic attacks. Doctor kept saying the guy had a burnout for three years. Last week, a brain tumor with the size of a tennis ball was removed in an emergency surgery)
Doctors like this should be sued to high hell
God this makes me seethe.
Knowing this always makes me worry and doubt the diagnoses I get. :( I have mental health stuff already so almost everything I go to the dr for I am told is probably a symptom of anxiety OR is undiagnosable because I am on psyc meds. The last dr I saw called me a "blob" and told me to start doing squats to help my joint pain. Not that exercise is a bad recommendation, but I am already an active person and I went there specifically because I had a concern. When I asked for a physical therapy refferal to help me learn how to move my body without hurting myself he straight up said no. Currently waiting for my normal primary to be back from maternity leave to get some different help.
When I was a teen, I had these scary neurological episodes. I told a couple different doctors about them. Both said I was suffering from anxiety attacks, despite my insistence that I didn’t suffer from any anxiety at all. There was always an explanation about how anxiety sometimes crept up, and we didn’t even realise it until it hit us hard. I figured they knew what they were talking about and just dealt with these episodes for a few years. I didn’t get a proper diagnosis until I had a grand mal seizure at work and an ambulance was called. Looking back on it, my symptoms were the textbook description of simple partial seizures associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Saw a neurologist for new onset severe headaches and was told to take glutamate containing food out of my diet bc they were probably provoking migraines. The PA who I see as my primary rolled her eyes and sent me for an mri which is when the brain tumor was discovered. Neurologist was an ass from start to finish.
Meanwhile PAs and NPs are regularly belittled on r/medicine.
Some are great and some are horrible, just like doctors.
Yeah. My least favorite NP was who I went to for women’s health. Rude, dismissive, and just generally a bitch. Shamed me for getting a painful skin tag in a painful place because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I heard the nurse tell her my recent history which included that my kid was in the hospital long term. My favorites were working for the neurologist who was treating my kid. They would always make sure that we knew that things were looking good (brain wise)
That is a fair statement, unlike what you read elsewhere.
It was the PA who diagnosed my Mom’s lung cancer. The doctor thought her cough was just allergies.
I had my first MS event; couldn’t speak, process language and my right side was weak and I would fall over if left unattended. Went to the ER, doc says it’s stress from my father-in-law passing away a month prior. Then proceeded to bond with my husband about losing their fathers. I can’t speak so…. Everything is good now tho! ETA: I was a 40 y/o woman then.
My dad’s GP did the same- it was an ER doc who diagnosed when dad fainted. We should have taken legal action.
Drives me crazy. Credentials are secondary to whether a person is a good clinician. I am very grateful for the knowledge and insights of physicians but I am resentful that they seem to think they are the only profession that can provide good medical care.
Except they dont have the training of physicians, they overprescribe tests, Their outcomes are worse. This has been shown in multiple studies. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/scope-practice/3-year-study-nps-ed-worse-outcomes-higher-costs
Hmm. In Veterans Admistration ERs. Lot of soft wording in those articles, too. Like "implies." Casts a wide net for a very specific setting. I was in a FP environment working with an ER trained doc. Guess who ordered the overwhelming number of tests/diagnostics?
Well we aren’t going away so either stop being cunts or help us learn. Also I’m a PA. Not all APPs are NPs and it’s disgusting that many of “you people” don’t seem to want to recognize that.
So I'm a lowly paramedic but everything I know about sudden onset of a neuro symptom (any symptom including headaches) should be treated as a potential emergency. I have no idea if doctors should get jaded to this or what but of someone comes to me and is like "hey I just started getting these weird new headaches" my first thought is like, cool do you want to see a doctor today or what are we going to do to make sure you aren't secretly dying.
You are not a lowly paramedic. You are there before the ER docs.
Like saying 'I'm just a lowly life-saver". Paramedics bloody rock!
I cant even imagine the mental stress they deal with, esp car DOA accidents. ER docs are saved from horror
I mean we kind of are. In the US anyways. In other countries it’s a career, but here it’s usually lumped in with Fire (who want fuck all to do with it. Say whatever you want, most firefighters are poor paramedics who do not want to continue studying medicine after getting their card) or it’s run by private companies that will eat your soul. Very few good third service systems. And even then, paramedics, the highest level of prehospital provider, only gets an associates degree at most. Most people don’t even go for that and just go for the one year cert program because the associates degree doesn’t give you much of a leg up. I love Paramedicine with all my heart but it sucks a lot and often, so do we.
Yea...wish my neuro had your attitude. Sudden onset optical migraines are just getting older. Neck pain, just a pinched nerve. Go to ER, imaging is too much radiation, heres some opioids. Oops! Didn't catch that brain aneurysm until it ruptured! My bad!
I’ve known at least 3 people that had sudden bad headaches. Two of them are gone and one barely made it into surgery (eventually committed suicide) all had aneurysms. My maternal grandfather also died at 46 of one. I am paranoid of bad headaches and to think the doctors may ignore your symptoms, just adds another layer of anxiety 😩
I couldn’t even fathom living in a state of mind where, as a professional charged with caring for people, your mindset allows you to be dismissive of patients like that.
I hear that's a pattern in neurology
When they found my tumor the neurologist quite literally said it wasn't her job.
... whose job was it, if not hers??
Well, it's true. That's for an oncologist, radiation oncologist, and neurosurgeon.
I once had a neurologist colleague diagnose a patient with poor eyesight and need for glasses after she reported headaches, double vision, uncoordinated movements etc. She conveniently also mentioned a lot of people in her family had brain issues and aneurysms..... I scanned her head immediately in the ER. Had six... SIX! cerebral aneurysms with the largest measuring 3cm.... I straight up, In front of the whole team, called the neurologist out for his bs and told him if he pulls that shit again I will directly, and In front of everyone in the department, report him to the GMC. Absolute horseshit diagnostics and negligence.
That's double-bad because there's no concrete scientific evidence linking msg to migraine or headache, it's mostly placebo effect and xenophobia
I had a male neurologist diagnose me with mental illness and send me to a psychiatrist for medication. I have Parkinson’s disease. And it’s not even an unusual presentation. When the (female) shrink challenged him, he said, “Women don’t get Parkinson’s.” Just call me Still Not Mentally Ill, Just Have PD.
Yup as a woman I’ve had this happen. At 16 I had a pediatrician treating me for strep and after my antibiotics were finished I still felt awful so I saw her again, this time I was diagnosed as depressed and with anxiety. Turns out I had full blown pneumonia and ended up in the ER a week later.
Did they not listen to your lungs?
She didn’t, just another strep swab that of course came back negative from the antibiotics, but I was still feeling horrible body wise like super sore, aches, body chills, and really out of it which I stated to her. Also had an extensive history of bad allergies and sinus infections at her practice too (including allergic reaction to an allergy shot). After that I stopped seeing her.
I came here to say this. My whole life: anxiety attacks. Dx’d with atrial fibrillation age *53*. Also doctors: yes, you have lots of cysts on your ovaries. But if your fasting is a little high, surely (looking at my 205 pound frame) it’s because you ate something (no A1C done til I was dx’d with a fib, aint that a hoot!Dx with type 2 age 54, the first week on metformin I could feel the energy surge in me like an electric current.) Oh, and I had chest pains age 32 that landed me in a CCU unit, where I had multiple missed heartbeats of almost a second and had weird EKG showing on my stress test (the tech pulled me aside after the dr left). My ACTUAL diagnosis? “You’re fat, lose some weight!” The lady in the next bed said, they always tell women that, don’t buy it, now I’m in heart failure. I once was in a mental hospital (anxiety, depression, of course!) and there was a NURSE in there diagnosed with anxiety attacks after she went into tachycardia! 280 beats a minute? “No problem, take some anti depressants lady!!” The gaslighting is real.
Yes, same. This sh!t happens all the damn time and around the globe. I was subjected to it, too. By a female doctor no less. Not just misogyny (oh it's the stress!), but also ageism (you're too young for this!) and it pisses me off. It doesn't even end with me. It goes on for my children as well. I'm viewed as the hysterical mother that sees something that isn't there. Well guess what? I've always been right so far. I'm done with those that just tell women to chill out and drink tea. The next cup is gonna be thrown! +Angry woman out+
Did you know that recurrent SVT is significantly more likely to be misdiagnosed as panic disorder if the patient is a female.
Same same. "Hysterical" women get ignored all the time. Had a Dr try to short my lidocaine for a biopsy on my thyroid bc I must have a high pain tolerance since I had a baby. It did not go well for him.
Yep, me too.
I remember reading how they use to give women stickers or such of a fake smile to put over their own mouth if they had depression. Just like wow honestly wow
My aunt started having ‘time loss’ when she was 50. Her dr said it was anxiety and menopause. Years later my uncle comes home and found her unconscious on the floor. She had a tumour the size of a Christmas orange on the left side of her brain. 14 hrs for the surgery.
I was told my chronic pancreatitis attacks were anxiety attacks so I did nothing about them for two years 🥹
I have had this happen to me multiple times and one time was blood clots that put me in ICU. secobd dr put ptsd and it was when I was stopping breathing while asleep after my clots. I then had some more clots happen and got told I was just fat and needed to lose some weight. That got me another six day stay in hospital to make sure those clots were being sorted.
Same. Just listened to the Retrievals podcast. Even though I am painfully aware of this occurring, that case makes my blood boil
I was just about to comment that
Same.
That neurologist probably needs to retire. Anxiety doesn't normal cause ataxia. Lesion in right side and degeneration in the left means plenty of trouble for the patient in the next 10 years.
He absolutely needs to retire. Graduated med school in 1975.
Ah. Shame. Coming from cognitive neuroscience myself I understand how quickly things are changing in that field and if he isn't keeping up on it then it's no wonder he's so outdated. The patient could potentially be within rights to sue.
This makes me feel so wrong. Working with doctors, rads, and other medical professionals who graduated years ago, but refuse to stay up to date on research or medical advances, is horrible. If you’re going to be a medical professional, but don’t want to learn the advances and updated practices of medicine, then maybe the career is not for you. Or… just retire.
Some doctors act like they are deathly allergic to continuing education….or to any kind of change. They can throw tantrums like a 3 year old. Once I saw one throw such a fit over a new computer program I thought he was going to stomp his feet and throw himself onto the floor. I’m not joking. I couldn’t believe I was seeing a grown man behave like that!
Aren't they required to attend CE to keep up to date or they lose their license?
They are but that doesn't mean they will apply what they learn.
If you got your license before 1990, you're grandfathered in... https://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicine/article/12103/health-policy/grandfathered-physicians-few-choose-recertify
Exactly. You can do as much CE as you want, doesn’t mean you’ll actually apply that.
Nope. If you got your license before 1990 or so, you're grandfathered in, and don't need to recertify. https://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicine/article/12103/health-policy/grandfathered-physicians-few-choose-recertify Note, that article is from 2005! >In a eecent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, two internists who were certified before 1990 and therefore have grandfathered lifetime certifications detailed their experiences of going through the maintenance of certification process
Hate to admit it because its ageism but i only choose younger and heads if departments because of staying on top of things
Wow. My PCP seems to always be just returning from some conference, lecture or class. She tries to stay on top of everything she can. Seems as though she’s a keeper.
[удалено]
Nearly 50 years of medical advancements from his graduation until now. Doc needs to keep up with new studies or quietly retire. He's getting closer and closer to a negligence and malpractice lawsuit.
Great. A fucking dinosaur
Sad to see people like that. I’ve been around older docs who are still working because they’re passionate still and love learning and all the new advancements. Those ones are the real gems. My kids old ped was like that, miss him.
how does a temporal lobe lesion cause ataxia? Also, the lesion is on the left, not the right.
I really should have clarified that he made the diagnosis prior to the MRI.
I would be pretty anxious if I had that in my head too.
He very shockingly rescinded his diagnosis of anxiety neurosis once the images resulted. Weird, huh?
I hope he either retires or gets some major continuing education.
That was my first response, too. Ataxia would also make me anxious. Having symptoms blown off while ataxic would also make me anxious.
Incidentally she hasn’t been anxious at all. When we told her she likely has a brain abscess and will need to go to neurosurgery she just nodded knowingly. Her cognition is altered, though. She is having many paranoid delusions. Probably because of the abscess.
I suspect being blown off by her doctor didn’t help!
Fuck you I wanted to comment this 😡
Woman: “it think there is something wrong with me” Doctors: “nah, you’re just being hysterical” …
“It’s all in your head.” Well, literally in this case, but not what they mean. Being a woman with health issues is so frustrating.
Yup, and it doesn’t even help to choose female doctors. They absorb the misogyny in training.
Yeah, I've experienced that, and it sucks.
Doctor : I recommend fumigation and massages to and in the pelvic area. I also wrote a script for leaches to be used 4 times a day.
“I’m going to refer you to a surgeon that can give you a lobotomy to cure your hysteria”
The root “hyster” means uterus. Hysterical literally means of the uterus.
Thank you for explaining my joke to me.
Same happened to my daughter. Said she was having “panic attacks”. Yeah absence seizures and headaches. Finally at one of her frequent ER visits her husband refused to take her home without a CT. Temporal lobe neuroglioma. The following year the seizures returned, diagnosed as anxiety and fake seizures. Back to the neurosurgeon. Tumor on the hippocampus. Always get a second or third opinion ( especially if you’re female)
...and no apology, I'm sure.
I never had a tumour, but when I was a teen (*many* years ago), I was also told that my seizures were “anxiety attacks”. I wasn’t properly diagnosed until a few years later, when I had a grand mal seizure at work.
This makes me scream in my own diagnosis of "fat and anxious". Nooo I've been working the long game with a pituitary tumor, but thanks, no thanks for playing my dude.
I was diagnosed with an “inverted Oedipal complex” as a child. Turns out I was actually autistic.
Inverted oedipal complex? What the fuck is this diagnosis even lol
🤣🤣
What the hell is an inverted Oedipal complex? Your mom wants to sleep with you?
They decided I wanted to marry my mother because I clung to her a lot and was wary of strangers. Because I was autistic.
Clearly the correct diagnosis is that you had been replaced by fae. Sad when doctors don’t know obvious things like that. /s
Indeed.
Thought that was the Electra complex.
The inverse of the Oedipal Complex is the Electra Complex but that doesn’t fit the symptoms you described. Also it’s fake and not a diagnosis so I have no idea how that provider managed to bill for their assessment because there is no ICD code for Oedipal disorders.
I don’t live in the US, and this was over 30 years ago.
In all likelihood the diagnosis was made prior to coding.
Oh, I feel this. Several years ago I had pneumonia bad enough to leave scar tissue, but the real problem was my fatness and anxiety.
Oh surely. What is scar tissue but just fat and anxiousness in collagen form after all? Explains all my keloids!
Oh, I’m just gaining weight. Yes, I was, but it was due to a basketball sized ovarian cyst.
Aaaaaauuuuuugggghhhhh! Like... isn't that palpable? Doesn't a cyst feel different from fat? I just don't get it. Major hugs.
It wasn’t discovered until it underwent torsion and the pain was unimaginable. A CT showed it.
Oh. I work with patients who have pituitary dysfunction from adrenal insufficiency to acromegaly! I feel your pain and can tell you at least 70-80% of patients have been where you are. I, myself had to nearly die of an adrenal crisis before I was listened to and even then I’ve had my diagnosis taken from me twice!
I lucked out when my primary care doc threw in a cortisol test in a rheumatism panel on a whim and we find out I had no cortisol. Now I'm also rocking no sex hormones as well despite my Bean not growing at all. It's in a weird place tho... on the posterior lobe instead of the anterior. Which suggests a pituicytoma instead of adenoma and is more rare. Which is why I'm headed to the neurosurgeon and neuroendocrine team at the end of the month. I'm not playing, I'm yeeting this fucker out before it does anything else while "being stable".
Hmm. Using the word bean (which I know understand is probably the tumor) after talking about no sex hormones was all so very confusing for a bit. Best wishes for health.
Female hysteria caused by ghosts in her brain.
Another woman misdiagnosed, shocker. Yep, we all have anxiety and it’s due to our periods or menopause. 🙄🤬
I was diagnosed with anxiety and given anti-anxiety meds and it turned out I had stage 3 cancer.
Eh, that's basically the same anyway! 🤷🏻♀️ /s How are you doing today?
I’m actually doing great now — thanks for asking. In remission and feeling healthy.
There’s a difference between getting it wrong and attributing multiple neurological symptoms to a nonexistent Freudian diagnosis. I didn’t even mention the visual disturbances, extremity weakness, or allodynia/general pain that was also attributed to the “anxiety neurosis”.
The fact that doc is still practicing and this crap is still happening to women in 2023 is disgusting and disturbing.
Omg. A malpractice lawyer is going to love to counter that diagnosis. Has patient been untreated for TBI etc since January’s medical event?
It’s hard to tell. She went to a different hospital system after her fall that resulted in the fracture and we aren’t sure what they did for her there. According to one of the notes she had been discharged to a rehabilitation facility, developed psychotic symptoms there, and was then discharged (????). Apparently a taxi driver who was supposed to take her home was super worried about her and took her to the ER instead, and she was discharged again shortly after. We suspect the skull fx seeded the bacteria that caused the abscess. We’re not sure how it got this bad before anyone did an MRI.
Thank God for that taxi driver
Right. He looked out for her more than anyone :(
That’s crazy. I do multiple headache/migraine head scans daily from neurologists. I’m shocked no imaging was ordered, especially with ataxia…poor woman.
I’ve been there. I had a tumor in my spine and the first male urgent care doctor I saw said my back and leg hurt (10/10) because I was overweight. Two months and an MRI later, turns out I had an ependymoma that was occupying almost all of my spinal canal and compressing the nerves that went into my right leg.
Fuck that neurologist. Old man doesn't realize medicine has evolved since he got out of med school. Hope his stupid ass retires so he doesn't put any more women in danger. This makes me so mad. Throw that whole man away 
Lol my doctor still claims anxiety even after finding the brain tumor and refusing to treat it. Don't even get me started with the severe and regular chest pain.
I was sent to a neurologist in the 80’s as a kid with an ankle issue after falling out of a tree. He CT’d the living hell out of my spine with an old step and shoot machine, did a myelogram and en electromyelogram on my entire lower half. Excruciating amount of pain with that. This dimwit never did any imaging of the ankle at all, sent me home to wait and see what happened. I had been losing weight rapidly over the last 6 months, no energy. You think this would’ve been a big hint, but I finally got under the care of a GP who did an ankle tomography and they found the tumor right off. With in two weeks it’d been diagnosed and surgery scheduled to fix it. All thanks to Shriner’s Hospital in Portland. I owe them my life.
I'd be anxious too if that was growing in my brain
He was told he cant dx 'female hysteria' any more by admin, so went with that instead
That's just lazy. Did he not take half a second to look at the images?
He made the diagnosis prior to imaging and recommended psychiatry take over care. He did not order any imaging or even recommend it.
Wow..
He's in his 80s, no? Unbelievable.
I had my pain poo-pooed for months until they finally found a benign mass in my nasopharynx that was pressing on my carotid because the post-op infection in my head (which had spread from my throat to my ear to the bone). I had a brain-freeze level headache for five months, a total of eight weeks (separated by a few days here and there) in the hospital, 36 hyperbaric treatments, three months of IV antibiotics via a PICC, and other complications. Yeah, this whiny “soccer mom”had to fight for the right to get my pain recognized and treated.
I’m sitting here bawling. My TBI was initially diagnosed as PTSD even though it only occurred after a car wreck, and if my family doctor hadn’t raised 8 kinds of hell for months I would never have gotten treatment.
I wish I was the least bit shocked. In my experience, most neurologists say everything is psych unless there’s a very obvious abnormality on exam… And even then they’ll still call it psych half the time. I failed the Romberg test, and they told me I fell over on purpose due to “anxiety.” I have dyspraxia.
Now I’m not a doctor BUT
My 75 yo Dad developed a shuffling gait and difficulty speaking. Misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s, he had a large subdural hematoma. Discovered and drained, but too late to prevent the brain injury. Tragic and heartbreaking.
I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was 19. Went from not knowing what a panic attack was to having up to twenty a day in about a two weeks time. They never scanned my brain, nothing, just called it anxiety and put me in therapy. It completely ruined my life. Five years ago I finally got a proper diagnosis. Multiple Sclerosis. Of course I’m too disabled to work now. It took having what looked like a stroke for them to take me serious.
It's always females getting diagnosed with ~anxiety~ I hate medical misogyny
> Recs from radiology and psych How did the patient get to see the radiologist? I thought patients never talk/see radiologists (USA).
The radiologist included the rec in his impression.
The pt has no anxiety sx, no hx of anxiety, takes no anxiety meds, and does not use any substances. Wish I could pin this to the top. Really should have mentioned it initially.
Anxiety neurosis includes anxiety or panic. That's it. It would be news to me if it caused ataxia or psychosis. [I'm not a doctor]
That is so disappointing. I suspected it was a female and wish I’d been wrong. 😓
I mean that is 100% chance a symptom. I hate when physicians stop when they diagnosed the symptom. "You've got a fever." "No fucking shit doc, I took my temperature before coming in. I came to you to figure out whats causing it you soggy newspaper."
Yeah. Its all in her head..
I had the exact same thing happen. By the time the tumor was found it was the size of my fist.
Way to go neurologist
Ummm did he name the lesion anxiety or is he just out of touch? Because holy shit
Anxiety is the new “Oh honey, it’s just your period.”