May is Mental Health Awareness Month: Fight Like A Girl
At the beginning of 2010, I was a healthy, happy, creative, energetic, career-focused, wife and mom, Type A, go-getter whose only medical problems were seasonal allergies and dysmenorrhea. Ten years later, every aspect of my health was in shambles.
One of the most disheartening things I’ve learned in the past eleven years is how unfair the medical community is toward women. The research is solid. Women seeking medical help are not believed, not tested, not diagnosed, and not adequately treated in comparison to men. Women are far more likely to be labeled a hypochondriac or to be immediately written prescriptions for anxiety and/or depression. They are less likely to be prescribed pain medication than men – even with the exact same injury and treated by the exact same doctor. The Michigan pain laws and the corresponding prescription system are heavily biased against females. This has been a recurring theme in my story – including nearly dying from a Graves Disease induced heart attack after being told my problem was I needed a hobby. Let’s be real. No man would EVER be told that by their doctor.
https://www.heartandstroke.ca/articles/heart-disease-in-women-they-told-me-it-was-anxiety
Donna Jackson Nakazawa, one of the most widely respected experts on autoimmune diseases and demographic bias said this: “The average patient with autoimmune disease sees six doctors before attaining a correct diagnosis. Recent surveys conducted by the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association reveal that 45 percent of patients with autoimmune diseases have been labeled hypochondriacs in the earliest stages of their illnesses. Some of this, no doubt, has to do with the fact that 75 percent to 80 percent of autoimmune disease sufferers are women, who are more easily dismissed by the medical establishment when hard-to-diagnose symptoms arise. In half of all cases, women with autoimmune disease are told there is nothing wrong with them for an average of five years before receiving diagnosis and treatment. Patients — most especially women — are often left feeling both confused and marginalized, or worse, labeled as psychosomatic malingerers.”
That has been EXACTLY my experience!
I’ve laughingly said that if men had periods, there would be morphine drip poles at every work station and each man would get 5 paid sick days each month. I’m only half joking. Dysmenorrhea puts women at a huge disadvantage in the work force – both in missing days of work due to pain and also in general lost productivity while at work. Does anyone truly believe accommodations wouldn’t be made if males had pieces of uterine tissue falling out of them every 28 days? Well… in Michigan, a day of golf has zero sales tax. Tampons and pads – 6% sales tax. 36 states tax feminine hygiene products. This issue has been brought to our legislative committees year after year and never gets any further. My favorite comment by a male legislator regarding women in poverty being kept out of the workforce and girls out of school due to the cost of feminine hygiene products: Newspapers can be used as sanitary napkins. Yes, because every woman in poverty that I know has a newspaper subscription. And for real, what the freaking heck?
This article is infuriating… https://michigangolfjournal.com/dont-take-for-granted-this-game-we-love/
EBT cards (food stamps) cover potato chips, candy, pop, ice cream, birthday cakes… but not tampons. WIC does not include tampons and pads – even though its mission is to help women post-childbirth. Community food pantries can purchase in bulk with government subsidies. Feminine hygiene products are not available with this program. Female prisoners must purchase their own, at highly inflated prices. Or go without.
Providing basic supplies for women to use during menstruation is a human dignity issue.
There’s as much of a stigma attached to female reproductive health as there is to mental illness. And there is a lot of overlap. Over 50% of new mothers experience mild depression. Up to 15% of these women will develop a more severe and longer-lasting depression, called postpartum depression, after delivery. One in 1,000 women develop the more serious condition called postpartum psychosis.
75% of women with regular menstrual cycles state they have PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) when described as: anger, irritability, depression, and internal tension. 40% add the word severe. Around 8% have PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) – which is physical and psychological symptoms so debilitating that the woman cannot participate in normal daily life. I have been diagnosed with this. Yet… the topic is so taboo that it’s rarely talked about. Even less acknowledged is the disparity between men and women when it comes to sexual health. Doctors and Big Pharma will move heaven and earth to help men have functional sex lives. In some US states, and in some countries, courts have ruled that men in prison have the “right” to access both Viagra and pornography.
We’re all adults here. I was straight-up with my OBGYN about pelvic pain. Her answer – you have anxiety and that would be up to a different doctor to treat. No. Anxiety doesn’t cause crippling pain, cramping, and bleeding. I have severe endometriosis, cysts, fibroids, and a friable cervix. They have nothing to do with anxiety. I needed something for pain. I got a second opinion. OBGYN – we don’t treat pain related to sexuality. It’s typically caused by anxiety, which would be up to a psychiatrist to treat.
What’s at the heart of that? A long-standing societal view that a healthy sex life is just not something women talk about or should expect. True story – after several embarrassing appointments with my doctor with me trying to explain I needed help, I finally asked my husband to accompany me. He said with zero nervousness, “I like to have sex with my wife. She’s in pain. I want a solution.” Total truth, the doctor – who had ignored me numerous times -immediately wrote a prescription for 60 Vicodin and handed it to me. That, of course, was pre- opioid restrictions. The chances of a woman getting controlled substance pain meds or relaxants now for sex are exactly 0%. While sexual dysfunction is more common in women than in men, the FDA has approved 24 treatments for sexual dysfunction in men and ZERO for hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women.
This is extremely informative:
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4724459
It took awhile for me to figure this out. But I finally learned how to game the system. If I want to be taken seriously about my medical problems, I have to wear business clothes and relate to the doctor on a white-collar basis. If that doesn’t work, take my business-clothed husband with me, and stay silent while he mansplains the situation. That strategy has a perfect track record. Oddly, this is true even when my physician is female. I’ve specifically sought out female physicians. Even more oddly, nearly 100% of the time, when one of my female physicians is talking about one of my other specialists, she will use the pronoun “he,” automatically assuming the doctor is male. My neurologist, who is female, has a sign in her office that says, “If you need a refill, please let the doctor know before leaving so he can take care of it.” It’s an office used solely by her. Someone handwrote the letter S with a pen to make it she.
The most recent anecdotal example that is so typical that I wasn’t even surprised… We were going to Florida this last February. The way the days fell, we would be just arriving in Florida when my (extremely limited prescription) pain pills for dysmenorrhea would be due for refill. I had a pain clinic appointment that my husband wasn’t able to get to. I figured, no big deal. I had info on a pharmacy near where we would be staying. Or, the clinic could bump my prescription by less than a week. No. The doctor said both were illegal. I went round after round after round with the doctor as calmly and professionally as I was in my clothing choice – power dress, dress shoes, makeup, etc. Explained the situation. Is there any solution whatsoever? No. I finally started crying because I knew without those pills, I would end up in an emergency room. This reaction earned me a disdainful glare. I called my husband from the parking lot and told him what happened. In the hour it took me to get home, the prescription was filled and on the counter. I asked – how did this happen? My husband shrugged and said, “I called the clinic and said that my wife needs her prescription called in early because we’re going on vacation. A little while later the pharmacy called and said the prescription was ready.”
Awareness
Fight Like A Girl. But be sure to let a man do the talking.
Why won’t doctors believe women?
https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20180607/why-women-are-getting-misdiagnosed
Speaking the Truth...In Love 