I highly recommend the podcast "The Retrievals" from Serial Productions. It is about women who underwent egg retrievals at Yale Fertility Center and reported agonizing pain during the surgery and after. They were all dismissed--until it was discovered that a nurse had been stealing the fentanyl they should have received for pain management.
As someone who only realised I have chronic pain in my early thirties, because I believed 'chronic' meant constant and didn't know that only having four to seven pain free days a month is not, in fact, usual, this kind of thing always hits me.
Last fall I had a double whammy of pneumonia and shingles. The shingles wasn't all that bad, but the coughing from the pneumonia was debilitating and I ended up at urgent care because of excruciating pain on my left side. They said it was the shingles. I said it's not the shingles. The shingles are on my back. This feels like a cracked or broken rib. They said impossible, gave me some ibuprofen and sent me on my way. I was in severe pain for the next 6 weeks. The shingles was gone after 4.
In Jan 2023, I had to have a CT scan for something unrelated and guess what they found? The residual signs of a cracked rib on my left side. Oh. And these were women doctors.
All of this...times 1000 if you're fat. I've had weight loss mentioned when going in for UTI, bronchitis and unexplained abdominal pain. The great thing about MyChart is being able to see the doctor's notes which list BMI as the first note regardless of the reason for a visit.
I went in for a routine procedure and had a bad reaction to the prep. I did NOT feel okay, and everyone I talked to, at intake, the nurse, the doctor, all treated me like I was just whining. I kept thinking, how to I get these people to understand that I wouldn't be saying this if it weren't a problem? I knew I had to stay calm and be a "good patient" or they'd take me even less seriously, so I stuck to the medical FACTS including the fact that I did not feel okay and this did not feel normal. It wasn't until I had what they called a "seizure" (I fainted and my faint included convulsions, apparently; I wouldn't know, I was blacked out!) that THEN they took me seriously -- by canceling my procedure and making me PROVE that I'm not epileptic so I wouldn't lose my driver's license. Now they want to me to come back. I'm not going back. I'll find a doctor that listens when I say I feel weak, nauseous, dizzy prior to an operation, thanks. I later learned that my parents' family doctor had the same reaction prior to the same procedure, but SHE went into the place and grabbed them by the collars and said I AM A DOCTOR AND YOU NEED TO GET AN IV IN ME RIGHT NOW OR I WILL FAINT. That worked.
My wife's gall bladder was pretty much exploding and she was in the worst pain I'd ever seen her suffer in over twenty years of marriage -- but the doctor who saw her insisted she just needed antacids and to "lie down". It took several days of insane pain and multiple consultations before she was admitted to hospital, at which point they rushed her into surgery to remove the gall bladder. The doctors said it was one of the worst gall bladder cases they'd ever seen -- but she'd been dismissed by multiple doctors. We're both still furious about this, several years later!
A Story About Pain
I highly recommend the podcast "The Retrievals" from Serial Productions. It is about women who underwent egg retrievals at Yale Fertility Center and reported agonizing pain during the surgery and after. They were all dismissed--until it was discovered that a nurse had been stealing the fentanyl they should have received for pain management.
As someone who only realised I have chronic pain in my early thirties, because I believed 'chronic' meant constant and didn't know that only having four to seven pain free days a month is not, in fact, usual, this kind of thing always hits me.
Last fall I had a double whammy of pneumonia and shingles. The shingles wasn't all that bad, but the coughing from the pneumonia was debilitating and I ended up at urgent care because of excruciating pain on my left side. They said it was the shingles. I said it's not the shingles. The shingles are on my back. This feels like a cracked or broken rib. They said impossible, gave me some ibuprofen and sent me on my way. I was in severe pain for the next 6 weeks. The shingles was gone after 4.
In Jan 2023, I had to have a CT scan for something unrelated and guess what they found? The residual signs of a cracked rib on my left side. Oh. And these were women doctors.
All of this...times 1000 if you're fat. I've had weight loss mentioned when going in for UTI, bronchitis and unexplained abdominal pain. The great thing about MyChart is being able to see the doctor's notes which list BMI as the first note regardless of the reason for a visit.
I went in for a routine procedure and had a bad reaction to the prep. I did NOT feel okay, and everyone I talked to, at intake, the nurse, the doctor, all treated me like I was just whining. I kept thinking, how to I get these people to understand that I wouldn't be saying this if it weren't a problem? I knew I had to stay calm and be a "good patient" or they'd take me even less seriously, so I stuck to the medical FACTS including the fact that I did not feel okay and this did not feel normal. It wasn't until I had what they called a "seizure" (I fainted and my faint included convulsions, apparently; I wouldn't know, I was blacked out!) that THEN they took me seriously -- by canceling my procedure and making me PROVE that I'm not epileptic so I wouldn't lose my driver's license. Now they want to me to come back. I'm not going back. I'll find a doctor that listens when I say I feel weak, nauseous, dizzy prior to an operation, thanks. I later learned that my parents' family doctor had the same reaction prior to the same procedure, but SHE went into the place and grabbed them by the collars and said I AM A DOCTOR AND YOU NEED TO GET AN IV IN ME RIGHT NOW OR I WILL FAINT. That worked.
My wife's gall bladder was pretty much exploding and she was in the worst pain I'd ever seen her suffer in over twenty years of marriage -- but the doctor who saw her insisted she just needed antacids and to "lie down". It took several days of insane pain and multiple consultations before she was admitted to hospital, at which point they rushed her into surgery to remove the gall bladder. The doctors said it was one of the worst gall bladder cases they'd ever seen -- but she'd been dismissed by multiple doctors. We're both still furious about this, several years later!
Yes!!!! A doctor once told a friend she didn’t need help because she’d put on earrings.
OH how I feel this. Not enough hearts in the world for this one.
So sorry for your experience, Aubrey, and thank you for shining a light on this issue that affects too many of us!!!
All of this!
Jesus. When does this shitshow end or even improve?
infuriating!