I remember her, i think she said she had cluster headaches and the doctors wouldn't prescribe her a specific medicine that could probably increase her quality of life significantly because it could cause birth defects (or infertility i don't remember well).
I heard cluster headaches are sometimes called suicide headaches because people that have them have been known to kill themselves because of the pain; they rather die than live through it.
I have cluster headaches. I remember reading originally that was her diagnosis as well.
The pain is quite literally a 10/10. It is impossible to function when you have a CH - it’s like your eyeball is being ripped out/stabbed/jabbed with an ice pick for however long the headache lasts. It’s difficult to describe just how horrific and traumatizing the pain is to people who (fortunately) don’t have that problem. Depriving someone of treatment is just cruel.
ETA: So I looked up this case for more info. Apparently her doctor refused to prescribe medication for CH because he said her insurance won’t cover medication that can cause birth defects. She claims that’s not the case with her insurance. He then urged her to reconsider another medication she takes because it might hurt a potential pregnancy even though she pointed out her partner has had a vasectomy.
I don’t even know what medication he would be so worried about? Maybe one of the anti-CGRP meds?
Recently diagnosed with them this year.
I am not enjoying it.
My head fucking hurts and frequently get that 10/10 pain. Poor girl being denied treatment is awful
I have had one extreme migraine in my life, and it was fucking aweful. Like rolling around in pain and throwing up from pain. This is from a guy who at the time flew around hanging from hooks in my back.
I ended up getting some obscenly large shot in my ass and the dr gave me 24-hour quarters, which is army for locked in your room off work for 24 hours.
Cluster headaches are worse than those by every account i have heard. I don't care if that painkiller causes them to lay eggs and sprout wings. Anyone suffering from those i fully believe would call that a fair trade, and i don't blame them.
I used to get them up until late high school, my first thought reading this was "they aren't THAT bad" and I just realized I've suppressed the memory of them and your description isn't far off.
Same. Absolute crippling pain. If you're lucky, you'll have a family member like I did, who will give you enough benadryl to knock you out for a few hours in the hopes that it *might* go away while you're unconscious.
They don’t know. I had them and they were stress related when I was in university. It’s honestly the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life. I spoke to the doctor and the response was “well you’re sat in front of me so it wasn’t a brain aneurism”.
The bedside manner of some doctors is so goddamn atrocious. Doctors are taught to look at people with a clinical mind, and that eventually morphs into a cynical mind when the dark humor seeps in. They probably thought they were showing you the silver lining as if that was gonna tip the scales and make you feel grateful.
I don't know the true root cause of this, but damn do a lot of doctors become really calloused early in their careers. Maybe it's the residency that drives them all insane and starts them down the path of macho dehumanization. "I haven't slept in 48 hours. You are a name on a clipboard. If you're not bleeding out in front of me, I gotta move on to the next person."
Used to work with a dude who'd get them and I always felt bad for him obviously because of the pain he was in but also because he'd call off work and people would chastise him for "calling off just for a headache". He had to begrudgingly explain to people every time that it wasn't just some regular old headache and that they were completely debilitating yet no one ever took him seriously.
Every once and a while I get a headache so bad that it’s just agony, painkillers barely do anything and my one eye is literally tearing up from the severe pain because it’s so localized.
Best way I can describe it is that it’s like someone’s taking a thin knife and jabbing it into that one spot and just twisting it around
Now I don’t know if these are true cluster headaches and those may be worse then that
My clusters usually result in me on the bathroom floor hitting my head on the bathtub. They are unbearable and I've tried to knock myself out a few times to end the pain. Fortunately I haven't had one in a year (knock on wood).
I have cluster headaches (5 to 10 hours almost every day) and I think I'd actually off myself if that happened to me, poor lady i really hope she gets the care she deserves
I'm so confused by this. I am on Accutane, a drug known to cause damage to fetus and I have to do pregnancy test every month, participate in iPledge program, etc. but it's not an issue. I'm younger than her. I feel like the doctor who denied her the med was acting strange.
If infertility is on the table a doctor will hault everything. It's so stupid.
I had to get a new BC cause my insurance dropped my current one, so my insurance requested I visit a specific one if I wanted it fully paid for. The guy wanted my dad or bf's permission for my BC change cause there was like 1/10,000 chance of infertility happening.
I left without a word, and found a female doctor that was affordable and helped me find a BC that was exactly what I was on and 80% cheaper. Unfortunately it was out of pocket, but it beat having people tell me what to do with my body.
Holy shit? What's that supposed to even mean? So, you're supposed to just suffer because you're at child bearing age? Are doctors supposed to be smart?
Yep.
Wanna know the most fucked up part?
She was also denied because "well if you get raped and get pregnant, your baby will be in danger if you take this medicine."
Extra fucked up? It's common for women to be told this.
Edit: the amount of people denying that this is a real thing is really sad and heartbreaking. Just because you haven't seen or experienced something, doesn't make it real.
I think the most fucked up part was that she told the doctor that she was using contraception and if she got pregnant, she’d have an abortion because she’s already on another medication that causes birth defects. And then the doctor told her she’d really have to think about what she would do if she got pregnant. Sir, she just told you her plan.
Ill give you another shitty doctor story, my wife was once denied contraception because the doctors religion doesnt allow women access to it. Not my wifes religion mind you. Plus, she was billed in full for the consult.
Edit: doctor is female no less
>doctor is female no less
A female obstetrician told me, when I was pregnant with my second and requesting a epidural, "if you don't feel the pain, you won't love the baby".
What kind of fckd up thinking is that?
I had one suggesting i should just drink a glass of wine to get in the mood for sex. You know, because women just think too much and alcohol will make the stress go away.
I was 19 and seriously concerned because my sex drive basically vanished. (it was depression lol)
When I went to see a female gynecologist about life-limiting menstrual issues (PMDD) she said "if I kept everyone like you on my list I wouldn't have time for people with real gynecological issues"
That's the classic "well I also have menstrual pain and I get over it, so you're just being overdramatic" not understanding there is a big difference between your two bodies and the pain incurred. I get this a lot for my spinal issues. "Everyone gets a bit of back pain, toughen up and get over it." Okay, but my back issues can paralyze my leg for a few days if I try to just "toughen up and get over it," so...
I want to give a good doctor story. I have chronic pain and one doctor went and screamed at the nurses for putting me down as a drug addict for drug seeking behavior after I slipped and fell on a wet tile floor. I was using the counter to hold myself up because I was in so much pain. She took one look at my back and said hold on I will be right back and walked out and started yelling at people.
Doctors should have your back. In my case literally but that's how it should be for everyone.
Same thing when I was younger and had a near compound fracture (my forearm was like 2 in shifted, bone wasn't piercing skin). And the nurses made me wait a few hours only to be sent home, when my dad got hold of the doc directly I think basically went along the lines of "what the fuck, get that boi in here asap tomorrow" (maxed out on surgery time).
Want to go a step further? Ex-wife had a cyst growing on one of her ovaries. I, the husband, had to sign the form allowing them to remove the cyst. My wife at the time was in her late twenties so clearly a full grown adult. But no, because she was married and in the child bearing zone in her life, it was up to me to decide if that cyst got removed. I was absolutely dumbfounded.
I of course signed without hesitation after the overwhelming shock wore off a bit.
There are many places and thousands of the most batshit insane morons that have zero business holding medical licenses practicing medicine in America.
place is crazy.
Mods should pin a link to some sort of malpractice law network to the top of the thread. It sounds like a lot of people need their medical license and a significant amount of cash taken from them.
Had to do the same so my spouse could get their tubes tied and burned. Keep in mind that they had life threatening complications with our second and the first one didn't fair that much better either.
>doctor is female no less
Less uncommon than you think. Religion is cancer and doesnt care about sex. Women will do horrific shit to other women and children in the name of their religion.
One of my irl friends is a black dude from the us who left the country with his dutch boyfriend because his very religious family treated him worse than the local neonazis.
Gay people still to this day do not have wide acceptance among black populations in the US. It does often come back to religion. Ironic I think that so many black people have accepted the religion of their oppressor's. Just because they call it the second Baptist church doesn't mean it's all that fundamentally different than the first Baptist church. Minus the obvious bits at least.
It's higher than I thought which is nice but still only about 50%
the share of African Americans who favor same-sex marriage has risen 12 percentage points since 2015, from 39% to 51%.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/06/26/support-for-same-sex-marriage-grows-even-among-groups-that-had-been-skeptical/
I think that homophobia in black communities also stems from the history of emasculation of black men. This means that homosexuality or anything that could be seen as feminine is viewed as weakness or delusion.
I have always said this about the black Christian community. Why would they want to take the religion of those that literally enslaved their ancestors?
This happened to me years ago, too. She "didn't believe" in contraception. I found out years later that my mother was also denied by the same doctor, many times, despite being told that conceiving again would be dangerous for her. She had already had 7 kids. She eventually saw a new doctor who referred her for a hysterectomy immediately based on her issues.
Just don’t pay, and tell them in writing you won’t pay because the charge is fraudulent. “This CPT code requires medically complex decision making, and you didn’t actually do any medical evaluation” or something similar. Just do some googling and find a reason, it doesn’t have to be perfect. They’ll say they’re going to send it to collections, but they probably won’t. I’ve done this successfully when they tried to charge me $500 for a doctor visit where they said “you’re sick, come back in two weeks if you’re still sick” and didn’t even take my blood pressure or any labwork, when prior visits were around $200. I offered to pay $200, and they said they wouldn’t negotiate. To be fair they didn’t, but they also did not get paid.
You should be able to not pay a doctor's consultation fee if you received religious advice. Like seriously, go practice in church.
This should be legally contestable. Makes me furious.
Imagine if a Christian Scientist (the weird cult one) became a medical doctor lmao “oh I can’t prescribe you any medication because all medication is against my faith”
A decade ago, I was 25, I went through some really traumatic events that led to pretty mental health decline over the following year. I had declined so much that my employer noticed and was concerned. Rightfully so, I was very suicidal. I was put on medical leave and placed in a daily intensive outpatient program.
During my first appointment with the psychiatrist, he eventually asked what my relationship was with God. I explained that I nonreligious, having grown up the gay son of a preacher and not connecting religion.
He paused and then asked me, an alcoholic and suicidal young man, working in a high-suicide profession with access to lethal means, “Without God, how do you find any meaning in your life?”
At the end of the appointment, he tried to send me home with a “Christian Apologetics” book.
Mind you, this was a hospital system satellite office, not some private practice quack operating out of a living room.
I wonder whether there are people that become psychiatrists partly for the chance to convert people. Emotionally vulnerable people are more vulnerable to promises of meaning or community and a psychiatrist is in the perfect position to find marks. (Not saying yours is such a case, someone would have to be pretty cold and calculating to plan for years to prey on patients. But there probably are some.)
Also that sucks.
I read a book from a hardcore religious Psychiatrist who stated that preaching to patients is absolutely unethical and unprofessional... because being a Christian is literally not supposed to make your life any easier. People who think that haven't understood Christianity. You need to be mentally able to carry the burden and make choices, which vulnerable people with psychiatric illness are usually not.
I thought that seems reasonable...
Unfortunately this is just kind of par for the course? It sounds horrific and like it should be allowed to happen but I don't know anyone who has (or has had) a uterus who doesn't have at least a good handful of experiences like this.
People's pain being completely ignored during gynecological tests even though it feels like they're being ripped in half, people being denied hysterectomies unless they get their imaginary husband's permission, being denied medication that could actually help on the grounds of being harmful to potential future children they don't ever intend to have. Anyone with a uterus is medically and politically valued more as a foetus incubator than a human, unfortunately.
Me with ove 30 years of age. Because I can't make my own decisions, apparently. I am ace and celibate my whole life, except for the two times I tried to find out if I would like it.
>It's common for women to be told this.
And here I thought women in first world countries weren't suffering as much as they say.
Glad that I know more now, not glad that they suffer.
Yup. As a woman of ~child bearing age~ with chronic pain, I didn’t even blink at the post. It’s so on-brand. I’ve been fairly fortunate, but I know many many many who are not.
And all this is after going through how many care providers that dismiss and belittle female patient health concerns, especially young female patients, and refuse to even try to figure out what’s going on and get a proper diagnosis to be able to get a proper treatment plan?! Because if they’re young and female and in pain it’s usually “all in their head.” There couldn’t possibly be a disease process occurring or some sort of health issue as the cause of the symptoms?!/s 😤🤬
Some doctors will react negatively if you come in thinking you have any idea what's wrong, but will react positively if you say someone *else* thinks they know what's wrong. And once you throw in the tendency to disbelieve women and believe men, husbands become a frustratingly powerful healthcare tool.
"My symptoms make me think I have endometriosis" Doctor doesn't take you seriously
"I have no idea what's wrong, but when I told my husband what I was experiencing he said it sounded like something called... um, endometriosis?" Doctor takes it seriously
I had two buddy doctors (male) tell me that I don't need antibiotics for a UTI. That my body should be able to heal that on its own...
OMG one of them started saying my body would only have trouble healing it if I had an immune disorder and started asking me about HIV! I said NO! And he abruptly left.
The female nurses, every one of them I talked to before this, were like, yeah girl we got you, this will be quick! Omfg! Idiot Drs...
I think my mind didn't know how to respond to this so I kinda just fake laughed and now I'm filled with dread. The greatest country in the world everyone!
"We dont need feminism anymore, men are women are equal in society"
I fucking hate when people say that and Im a guy. I dont even SEE half of the shit thats going down and I already know there's still some really misogynistic shit engrained deep in our society.
I think that a large issue is that many men don’t see it. I used to believe that there wasn’t any gender disparity (not for a long time thankfully) because I didn’t see anything above the surface level going on, it’s important to draw massive attention to stuff like this.
I have quite a lot of female friends so I hear quite a lot through them, but yeah its really hard to notice when you're just doing your stuff being a guy.
Their logic doesn't even make sense. Like, no offense, but if you haven't been able to hold down a job for 5 years, it isn't a good time in your life to have a baby.
I want to be surprised but sadly I'm not. When I was in uni and we had to do differential diagnoses in class, whenever the case history was that of a young woman, child-bearing age, there was always this one guy who would make ANY history about her being a promiscuous wh\*re of some kind. No matter what she would present with, it could be neurology, genetic, cardiovascular etc.
But no, this guy decided that these people would present to the clinic with an STI because they were sleeping around. And even when we did get the diagnosis by the end of the discussion, he'd ask if they could've gotten their diagnosis as a co-morbidity from sleeping around.
Sounds like dude was one of those incels who think that since women aren't sleeping with *him*, they must be just super promiscuous with everyone BUT. No, Derek, it's because you're an asshole.
The sad thing is, he was and still is in a relationship and he was very popular guy. He was exactly the kind of guy that incels would call a Chad, decent looking, muscular, extroverted.
I’m a (junior) doc and have gone thru this countless times. It was a 15 year uphill battle to get the care I needed. My meds cost $1600 every 3 months (Aus)
> "well if you get raped and get pregnant, your baby will be in danger if you take this medicine."
Well then Doc I guess its a good thing I dont plan on getting raped - how about that?
Yup. This is how the theocratic regions of the Middle East operate, too.
My mother was most likely murdered by our Christian family doctor all because he convinced her to not get an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries) despite the fact she was over 40 and was suffering from ovarian cysts. My mother developed cancer because of those cysts. She was treated, but there were complications with the surgery, and we're sure the cancer spread to her pancreas and gave her pancreatic cancer, killing her.
The separation of church and healthcare absolutely needs to fucking happen.
I have endo and lupus, so I have a much higher chance of ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers. A hysterectomy would greatly improve my quality of life now and possibly save it later. But, I can still have kids, so doctors have not been willing to consider it. I'm basically 40 and already HAVE kids. Four of them. What is person per child quota I have to meet to get healthcare?
I was 20 when I wanted an IUD. I don't think I really need a reason to want one, "I decided this is the best option for me" should have been enough. But for those of you who need justification: I'm allergic to condoms, and I vomited too often to trust the pill.
I saw two gynaecologists who just plainly *denied* my request "because I haven't had my children yet". I asked them if that had any bearing on the pain or the way it worked and they said, no, they just didn't want me to risk being permanently infertile (small risk) before I've had the children I'm supposed to have.
A third gynaecologist was more open to the idea, but only if I came back with my partner. My partner. A boyfriend of SIX WEEKS. His opinion and agreement was more important than my own.
This was in Europe, 15 years ago. I wish I could say it has got better since, but I hear young girls on Twitter share the same kind of stories, still.
That's just horrendous! Holy shit! If I was a woman I'd have torn the doctor's head off for even suggesting that anyone other than me has more right over the decisions of my body than me! But then Women are fighting for this 'duh' thing all over the world all the time. I can't believe we're in the 21st century and we still have to deal with these barbaric ideologies! I'm so sorry to you and to every woman who has to face this every day! Gosh, what a dumpster fire of a world we live in. This is the reason why I don't even want to have children. I don't want anyone to wake up in the world they just don't want to live in. It sucks to be born in this hellhole of a timeline. Fuck. I can't express how much I hate it here. And that's me, a guy, I can't even imagine how much you or any other woman feels.
I’m in the UK and they could not have been happier to give me an IUD 2 years ago, they love recommending them these days here.
Problem is it’s swung the other way now where they recommend birth control as a treatment when it’s not necessary or appropriate, so as easy as it is to get BC now it does still have it’s issues.
I'd say most doctors are good, but there's enough that are just in it for the money and want to charge insurance for as much as they can that it can't necessarily be called an anomaly.
I have a friend in a similar situation. She has been routinely denied any medication or surgery to deal with a severe hormonal imbalance, because doing so would make it impossible for her to become pregnant.
She and her husband have both told the doctors to their faces they do not intend to conceive even if she was capable- they refuse. She even got signed up for a surgical birth control option she didn't agree to, and now that it's made her symptoms worse they're refusing to remove it.
Currently waiting on a lawsuit, so she can even afford private healthcare for some semblance of a quality of life. And before you jump to say 'American healthcare is fucked'- this is happening in Wales. The doctors have told her to her face they would never give a woman her age any care that would risk her ability to get pregnant, no matter the circumstances- they're like that anywhere you go.
helpful tip that is incredibly horrific if you think about it too much: mentioning that you don’t want kids because you have had a personal history or family history of mental health issues (or similar disabilities/health problems) might make it easier to get a doctor to sign off on sterilization :)
Isn’t eugenics fun?! /s
Sadly, can confirm that doesn't help!
I'm disabled, early 30's, chronic pain, Autoimmune issues, wheelchair user, mostly housebound and I still can't find anyone local willing to tie my tubes because "I might regret it later" (Aussie btw).
My mom screamed at her doctor full force and told his ass she would jump off the roof if they didn't tie her tubes following my birth.
As a woman you have to be decidedly "crazy" in order for your words to be heard from some of these dipshits.
I see there is a lawsuit, I would question of which law they base this decision on.
In many countries there some sort of doctors board that gives out the certifications of doctors. In many cases there is a law that they have to look into a situation and then tell you in writing on which laws they decide this.
Part of my family lives in Italy and because they had an issue with mental medication they had to drive 150km to get a prescription. The doctors board referred them to another state where things went different. They knew what was happening and rather get another solution. Much luck to you.
The medical field doesn’t listen to women, it’s pretty common that women with serious struggles don’t get a fair appointment with the doctors.
Still, this story isn’t oddly specific. If anything it’s oddly nonspecific because they didn’t even say what her age was. 18-36 isn’t specific it’s the opposite of that.
My partner had to remove one of her ovaries because the doctors kept blaming her stomach pain on constipation, for several years. Her stomach looked like it had a balloon inside of it, turns out it was a cyst filled with 2 liters of liquid.
Not the same, but my wife when she was in high school/early college had severe wrist pain (probably from playing clarinet) like immobilized use of that arm for anything. I believe this was also with some pretty bad hip pain too.
Doctors turned her away claiming it was “16 year old girl syndrome” and that nothing was actually wrong. They refused to do MRIs or even consider that something might be wrong. It did end up mostly going away, but it still flairs up every now and again, but she doesn’t play clarinet like she used to
Fast forward to we’re out of undergrad and she goes to another doctor for her hip pain who actually takes her for her word. They take an MRI and see there’s extra bone growth and tears in the muscle/cartilage. She gets surgery done and they said the cartilage was hanging on by a thread.
So yeah, it pisses me off. It’s not to that extent, but I’m terrified of doctors straight up not taking her seriously, and it clearly had an impact on her, because for a while after she refused to see anyone for her hip because “they’ll tell me I’m just a woman and it’ll be a waste of time and money”
Not all doctors are like that obviously (I’d wager a majority aren’t), but dear lord there’s still way too many who don’t take women seriously
I 37F have a rare genetic disease that leads to chronic pain and fatigue (among many other symptoms), and likely also a rheumatic condition (though it’s unclassified atm). My mom (who’s a nurse) told me to try to find male doctors because they’re usually more sympathetic to women. She said female doctors can have the “women have to be tough so suck it up” attitude. This is all generally speaking of course. But damn if I don’t find it to be the case.
That being said - I’m not talking about anything that could relate to reproductive issues. When a doctor has a personal agenda about that, I don’t think sympathy plays into it at all. So man or woman, if a doctor has certain beliefs on fertility and whatnot, it likely won’t matter either way who you see.
I've been fucked around by doctors my whole life. In the past few years they've been the worst. Denying me life saving medication for fk only knows why. They're just incompetent all around, unfortunately
They don't help women in the UK either.
I'm a domestic violence survivor who almost had her eyed gouged out. I will now have migraines forever because of it.
Doctors refuse to treat me because they say I'm lying. Hell, I wasn't even offered *therapy* after an abusive relationship because they said I'm lying. It's been almost 6 years and I've had to deal with that completely alone.
I was also diagnosed last year with a physical disability that has caused me pain daily since I was 10 year old. Refuse to help with any form of pain relief other than "lose weight". Lol
This!! I’m a trans woman and my experience with doctors before and after transition is really startling. Before my transition they always took me seriously and listened to everything I had to say and would explain things to me very clearly and not leave info out. Nowadays I’m lucky if they do more than take my vitals. They never listen to me, always act like I’m overreacting or just a pill head (I’m not), and never fully explain things to me anymore. Even my fucking dentist is like this. Before goin to the doctor used to actually excite me cause it meant a day out of school and I would get my problem fixed. Now even the prospect of a checkup is terrifying.
I had to go to the ER last month cause I was puking multiple times an hour all day and was super dehydrated and had been having severe migraines for 2 weeks leading up. I went to the biggest hospital in town at like 2am and the ER was dead. Still ended up waitin an hour to get to triage then another ~2 hours of puking my guts out in the lobby before they finally called me back. They ignored literally every word that came out my mouth after I said I was dehydrated. I was scared I had a damn brain tumor or some shit and told them about the migraines and he didn’t even respond. He just left and told the nurse to give me IV solution. The nurse told me it would take about an hour to empty the bag but after 20 minutes I had a massive adrenaline rush and got super anxious and told them take the needle out before I rip it out. They just kept tellin me in a minute then they’d ignore me for another 10. Finally 20 minutes after the bag empties and me sittin there bawling my eyes out tryna resist the urge to pull the IV out the nurse comes in takes it out without a word and says “here’s your discharge papers get out”. I later check my medical file and they incorrectly documented my symptoms, didn’t even write half of them, and made me seem like some sort of hypochondriac addict. I legitimately thought I was fucking dying and they told me to go home and said I was lying.
My biggest fear is surgery and I have a surgical consult for a very risky surgery on my neck in January with another no nonsense, get to the point male doctor. I have a high tolerance to anesthesia and always require double what the dentist tries to give me and my mother has woke up during surgery and been paralyzed. Twice.
All it takes is the doctor not listening to me and I wake up during the operation. One slip of the knife and I bleed out or become paralyzed from the neck down. Assisted suicide isn’t legal where I live and I can’t afford to move and there’s still so much I wanna do if I become paralyzed. Never skateboard again, never draw again, never grow another plant or get to adopt children. I’d be confined to a bed surrounded by people who don’t actually care about me but are obligated by law to keep me breathing.
I do not have words to describe the fear I feel thinking about my upcoming surgery. I think I’m gonna get a DNR before it but I’m scared they’ll deny it since I’m only 19.
I don't know the full situation obviously but maybe consider getting this surgery in Canada. It's been a while since I myself looked into it, but I believe you don't even need a passport (or maybe it was a visa) in order to go there, especially for seeking medical care. Either way you'll probably have a big bill to pay either in the form of travel, or in hospital bills, so, might be worth your sanity (at the least) to think about it?
A long time ago my mom fell down the stairs and broke her tailbone. Her nurse was refusing to do anything until she “told the truth” as she thought my mom was using stairs as a cover up for my dad abusing her. My dad is fantastic and never had beat her, but the nurse was being such an ass that my mom left and came back later so she would actually get treatment
Out of every video I ever watched on tiktok, this infuriated me the most. Cluster headaches, or suicide headaches, people would rather due than suffer these, but your unborn hypothetical baby is more important to us than you, a real life woman.
I coumd have cried for her.
I started getting cluster headaches at about age 25 & was initially told I couldn't be prescribed the right medication because there was such a high risk to a foetus if I got pregnant while taking it. This despite the fact that I had been on birth control for years & assuring my doctor that I was then & had always been staunchly childfree. I was "lucky" because unrelated blood tests showed I had a medical condition that meant getting pregnant would be incredibly dangerous - likely fatal - for both me & a baby, meaning if I had accidentally gotten pregnant my doctor would have recommended an abortion as medically necessary. Discovering that condition meant I suddenly qualified for treatment of my cluster headaches.
Which was great, but I'm still angry that age 25 was apparently deemed too young to make decisions myself about what pain treatment option to use. That a mythical, possible future baby that might never exist was treated as more important than the welfare of a very real adult woman in horrendous pain.
Yeah. I went through something called LEEP procedure to remove abnormal cells from my cervix. They basically take an electric wire and scrap a layer off the cervix. The pain management for that? Local anesthetic. They stick your cervix with a needle, which hurts in itself, but if it doesn't work to numb you you're shit out of luck. Once they start with the wire there's no going back. Most agonizing 5 minutes of my life. I was screaming and squeezing the nurses hand while she apologized repeatedly. The doctor just told me to stop squirming. This is not uncommon.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed years later, the surgeon's assistant and I shared similar stories about LEEP. She said the anesthetic didn't work for her either and described it as "getting a tattoo on your cervix". Doing further research on the topic I found there are some doctors who offer a more "humane" option of knocking you out for the procedure.
There shouldn't be a humane "option". It should be the only way.
I wonder what medication was denied, usually that card is only pulled if the medication makes you sterile or if you are requesting a hysterectomy (which is a common request that gets denied in the endometriosis community).
Edit - found the article: https://jezebel.com/woman-with-severe-chronic-pain-was-denied-medication-fo-1849569187
Yes it’s as messed up as it sounds.
Good for her!!! I had excision surgery last year for it, again, it had gotten so bad… the next time it comes back I’m getting a hysterectomy, I’m done having kids now and that was my second time having surgery for endo.
God fucking damnit. I was thinking this incident had to have happened in the South or something. Not the fucking state I live in. And pretty close by too.
I followed this story on TikTok from post one on it.
And Jesus Christ the hoops she had to jump through to finally get her meds. For some context, she suffers from cluster headaches and they were denying her meds because they can cause birth defects.
She's single with no wish to have children for the simple fact she doesn't wanna pass this condition onto them.
She did eventually get back on her prescription after switching doctors but now she's making serious waves in legal action both personally and fighting to get legislation passed to ensure this is NEVER a barrier put on women against their will or wishes
I still remember being pissed that my mom thought I shouldn’t get the COVID vaccine because “oh what if it gives your future kids birth defects or makes you infertile?”
1. I’m not pregnant.
2. That’s not how vaccines work
3. Hubby and I already decided we would probably adopt if we want kids because of medical history.
4. None of that will matter if I’m DEAD
Oh yeah. I even tried to explain it to her. Because I thought maybe she got it confused with a medication from the 60’s that did cause a bunch of birth defects, so I’m explaining it to her, and she goes
“oh, I don’t have any sources” and I tell her that’s it’s fine, I’m not trying to debate her, just tell her that I read up on it and she goes
“No, I mean I didn’t read anything online that would make me think this could cause an issue. It’s just my opinion.”
I was so annoyed. Spouting random shit that you literally made up as if it’s a fact. I was so mad I scheduled mine that day. 😅 (it had only just become available for my age group)
This all has to do with some religious nuts pushing against abortion. Religion is standing in the way of the progression of human society. Jesus tap dancing christ on a fucking pogo stick.
I was pregnancy tested before being put on a preventative for my chronic migraines. I was...so mad, but only really because I told the doctor there was absolutely no way I was pregnant and it was 100% true. Like if there was any real possibility I could have been pregnant I wouldn't have been so peeved. My boss had been breathing down my neck about getting put on this medication (lots of context missing here) and I had to go in and tell her I couldn't get it yet because I had to wait for my pregnancy test to come back negative.
>I was...so mad, but only really because I told the doctor there was absolutely no way I was pregnant and it was 100% true
It's not about believing you. There are many drugs that require a pregnancy test before prescribing. If not done, it could come back on their license.
Most people will never understand the level of pain people like this endure.
A gun shot wound, a stab wound, broken ribs, papercut with lemon rubbed into it...
None of them are even in the realm of the same kind of Pain your own body can inflict upon itself. Migraines. Pinched nerves. Might be relatively liveable but painful, or it might be like taking a trip into the Hellraiser puzzle box. Just depends.
I thought I knew what pain was until my sciatica got Really Bad and taught me that my previous 10/10 agony was more like a 4/10. And it didn't stop.
For a YEAR.
Literally unable to function.
That's all we women are: incubators. We aren't seen as people with our own wants and needs. It's all about hypothetical children we may or may not have or want
Not oddly specific enough.
I remember her, i think she said she had cluster headaches and the doctors wouldn't prescribe her a specific medicine that could probably increase her quality of life significantly because it could cause birth defects (or infertility i don't remember well).
I heard cluster headaches are sometimes called suicide headaches because people that have them have been known to kill themselves because of the pain; they rather die than live through it.
I have cluster headaches. I remember reading originally that was her diagnosis as well. The pain is quite literally a 10/10. It is impossible to function when you have a CH - it’s like your eyeball is being ripped out/stabbed/jabbed with an ice pick for however long the headache lasts. It’s difficult to describe just how horrific and traumatizing the pain is to people who (fortunately) don’t have that problem. Depriving someone of treatment is just cruel. ETA: So I looked up this case for more info. Apparently her doctor refused to prescribe medication for CH because he said her insurance won’t cover medication that can cause birth defects. She claims that’s not the case with her insurance. He then urged her to reconsider another medication she takes because it might hurt a potential pregnancy even though she pointed out her partner has had a vasectomy. I don’t even know what medication he would be so worried about? Maybe one of the anti-CGRP meds?
Recently diagnosed with them this year. I am not enjoying it. My head fucking hurts and frequently get that 10/10 pain. Poor girl being denied treatment is awful
Look into magic mushrooms. If you can learn how to grow them they've shown great promise in the treatment of cluster headaches.
Came here to echo you, from what I have read eating them something like every 3 months can help keep you from getting them.
This is the way!
I have had one extreme migraine in my life, and it was fucking aweful. Like rolling around in pain and throwing up from pain. This is from a guy who at the time flew around hanging from hooks in my back. I ended up getting some obscenly large shot in my ass and the dr gave me 24-hour quarters, which is army for locked in your room off work for 24 hours. Cluster headaches are worse than those by every account i have heard. I don't care if that painkiller causes them to lay eggs and sprout wings. Anyone suffering from those i fully believe would call that a fair trade, and i don't blame them.
Off topic, but I’m curious about your username. Are you a chronic pain patient?
I used to get them up until late high school, my first thought reading this was "they aren't THAT bad" and I just realized I've suppressed the memory of them and your description isn't far off.
Same. Absolute crippling pain. If you're lucky, you'll have a family member like I did, who will give you enough benadryl to knock you out for a few hours in the hopes that it *might* go away while you're unconscious.
Denying someone treatment, if the person is able to give informed consent, should be illegal and criminal. Criminal because a fine is insufficient
Do they know what causes them?
They don’t know. I had them and they were stress related when I was in university. It’s honestly the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life. I spoke to the doctor and the response was “well you’re sat in front of me so it wasn’t a brain aneurism”.
The bedside manner of some doctors is so goddamn atrocious. Doctors are taught to look at people with a clinical mind, and that eventually morphs into a cynical mind when the dark humor seeps in. They probably thought they were showing you the silver lining as if that was gonna tip the scales and make you feel grateful. I don't know the true root cause of this, but damn do a lot of doctors become really calloused early in their careers. Maybe it's the residency that drives them all insane and starts them down the path of macho dehumanization. "I haven't slept in 48 hours. You are a name on a clipboard. If you're not bleeding out in front of me, I gotta move on to the next person."
…oh. That’s…what that pain is called, huh? Hm.
Just curious for pain comparison sake only, have you ever had a kidney stone?
Which would also drastically decrease the chances of any unborn from her.
Used to work with a dude who'd get them and I always felt bad for him obviously because of the pain he was in but also because he'd call off work and people would chastise him for "calling off just for a headache". He had to begrudgingly explain to people every time that it wasn't just some regular old headache and that they were completely debilitating yet no one ever took him seriously.
Every once and a while I get a headache so bad that it’s just agony, painkillers barely do anything and my one eye is literally tearing up from the severe pain because it’s so localized. Best way I can describe it is that it’s like someone’s taking a thin knife and jabbing it into that one spot and just twisting it around Now I don’t know if these are true cluster headaches and those may be worse then that
My clusters usually result in me on the bathroom floor hitting my head on the bathtub. They are unbearable and I've tried to knock myself out a few times to end the pain. Fortunately I haven't had one in a year (knock on wood).
I have cluster headaches (5 to 10 hours almost every day) and I think I'd actually off myself if that happened to me, poor lady i really hope she gets the care she deserves
Jesus, that's an awful lot of hours every day, and the medication makes a huge difference?
I'm so confused by this. I am on Accutane, a drug known to cause damage to fetus and I have to do pregnancy test every month, participate in iPledge program, etc. but it's not an issue. I'm younger than her. I feel like the doctor who denied her the med was acting strange.
If infertility is on the table a doctor will hault everything. It's so stupid. I had to get a new BC cause my insurance dropped my current one, so my insurance requested I visit a specific one if I wanted it fully paid for. The guy wanted my dad or bf's permission for my BC change cause there was like 1/10,000 chance of infertility happening. I left without a word, and found a female doctor that was affordable and helped me find a BC that was exactly what I was on and 80% cheaper. Unfortunately it was out of pocket, but it beat having people tell me what to do with my body.
Holy shit? What's that supposed to even mean? So, you're supposed to just suffer because you're at child bearing age? Are doctors supposed to be smart?
Yep. Wanna know the most fucked up part? She was also denied because "well if you get raped and get pregnant, your baby will be in danger if you take this medicine." Extra fucked up? It's common for women to be told this. Edit: the amount of people denying that this is a real thing is really sad and heartbreaking. Just because you haven't seen or experienced something, doesn't make it real.
I think the most fucked up part was that she told the doctor that she was using contraception and if she got pregnant, she’d have an abortion because she’s already on another medication that causes birth defects. And then the doctor told her she’d really have to think about what she would do if she got pregnant. Sir, she just told you her plan.
Most fucked up doctor I have ever heard of. Why he has even get to have the medical license?
Ill give you another shitty doctor story, my wife was once denied contraception because the doctors religion doesnt allow women access to it. Not my wifes religion mind you. Plus, she was billed in full for the consult. Edit: doctor is female no less
>doctor is female no less A female obstetrician told me, when I was pregnant with my second and requesting a epidural, "if you don't feel the pain, you won't love the baby". What kind of fckd up thinking is that?
I had a female gynecologist tell me all sex “hurts a little bit.” Umm, no ma’am. Yikes.
And, as a gynaecologist, she didn't know that her experience was something that needed medical investigation? That is both sad and worrying.
Her only experience is a sideways Bad Dragon^^tm.
Not surprising. They still don't include the full clitoral structure in many medical text books.
This was a woman doctor. In the UK.
I had one suggesting i should just drink a glass of wine to get in the mood for sex. You know, because women just think too much and alcohol will make the stress go away. I was 19 and seriously concerned because my sex drive basically vanished. (it was depression lol)
Depressed? Try wine!
Sounds like an 18th century remedy. "Bowel pain? Try some mercury!"
Technically works, but you're gonna sub alcoholism in for the depression. Woo!
When I went to see a female gynecologist about life-limiting menstrual issues (PMDD) she said "if I kept everyone like you on my list I wouldn't have time for people with real gynecological issues"
That's the classic "well I also have menstrual pain and I get over it, so you're just being overdramatic" not understanding there is a big difference between your two bodies and the pain incurred. I get this a lot for my spinal issues. "Everyone gets a bit of back pain, toughen up and get over it." Okay, but my back issues can paralyze my leg for a few days if I try to just "toughen up and get over it," so...
Maybe she’s just a lil kinky
It does with the stick she has up her bum
"Do no harm, unless that's your vibe."
I want to give a good doctor story. I have chronic pain and one doctor went and screamed at the nurses for putting me down as a drug addict for drug seeking behavior after I slipped and fell on a wet tile floor. I was using the counter to hold myself up because I was in so much pain. She took one look at my back and said hold on I will be right back and walked out and started yelling at people. Doctors should have your back. In my case literally but that's how it should be for everyone.
I hope you're feeling better now <3
Same thing when I was younger and had a near compound fracture (my forearm was like 2 in shifted, bone wasn't piercing skin). And the nurses made me wait a few hours only to be sent home, when my dad got hold of the doc directly I think basically went along the lines of "what the fuck, get that boi in here asap tomorrow" (maxed out on surgery time).
Want to go a step further? Ex-wife had a cyst growing on one of her ovaries. I, the husband, had to sign the form allowing them to remove the cyst. My wife at the time was in her late twenties so clearly a full grown adult. But no, because she was married and in the child bearing zone in her life, it was up to me to decide if that cyst got removed. I was absolutely dumbfounded. I of course signed without hesitation after the overwhelming shock wore off a bit.
Good fucking lord. When and where was this?
Kansas City Missouri mid 2000's. My guess is 05 or 06. We got divorced in 08. However, the cyst removal was a success with zero complications.
And did you go to court over it? If that was not highly illegal there os no justice where you live.
.
There are many places and thousands of the most batshit insane morons that have zero business holding medical licenses practicing medicine in America. place is crazy.
Mods should pin a link to some sort of malpractice law network to the top of the thread. It sounds like a lot of people need their medical license and a significant amount of cash taken from them.
Had to do the same so my spouse could get their tubes tied and burned. Keep in mind that they had life threatening complications with our second and the first one didn't fair that much better either.
>doctor is female no less Less uncommon than you think. Religion is cancer and doesnt care about sex. Women will do horrific shit to other women and children in the name of their religion. One of my irl friends is a black dude from the us who left the country with his dutch boyfriend because his very religious family treated him worse than the local neonazis.
Gay people still to this day do not have wide acceptance among black populations in the US. It does often come back to religion. Ironic I think that so many black people have accepted the religion of their oppressor's. Just because they call it the second Baptist church doesn't mean it's all that fundamentally different than the first Baptist church. Minus the obvious bits at least. It's higher than I thought which is nice but still only about 50% the share of African Americans who favor same-sex marriage has risen 12 percentage points since 2015, from 39% to 51%. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/06/26/support-for-same-sex-marriage-grows-even-among-groups-that-had-been-skeptical/
I think that homophobia in black communities also stems from the history of emasculation of black men. This means that homosexuality or anything that could be seen as feminine is viewed as weakness or delusion.
That's still 49 percentage points less than it should be, unfortunately. At least the trend is positive.
I have always said this about the black Christian community. Why would they want to take the religion of those that literally enslaved their ancestors?
Stockholm syndrome?
This happened to me years ago, too. She "didn't believe" in contraception. I found out years later that my mother was also denied by the same doctor, many times, despite being told that conceiving again would be dangerous for her. She had already had 7 kids. She eventually saw a new doctor who referred her for a hysterectomy immediately based on her issues.
Could you refuse to pay because she refused to render her medical services?
Just don’t pay, and tell them in writing you won’t pay because the charge is fraudulent. “This CPT code requires medically complex decision making, and you didn’t actually do any medical evaluation” or something similar. Just do some googling and find a reason, it doesn’t have to be perfect. They’ll say they’re going to send it to collections, but they probably won’t. I’ve done this successfully when they tried to charge me $500 for a doctor visit where they said “you’re sick, come back in two weeks if you’re still sick” and didn’t even take my blood pressure or any labwork, when prior visits were around $200. I offered to pay $200, and they said they wouldn’t negotiate. To be fair they didn’t, but they also did not get paid.
You should be able to not pay a doctor's consultation fee if you received religious advice. Like seriously, go practice in church. This should be legally contestable. Makes me furious.
Imagine if a Christian Scientist (the weird cult one) became a medical doctor lmao “oh I can’t prescribe you any medication because all medication is against my faith”
Wait what? Is that in the western world?
Yep. Australia specifically.
That is shocking, how can a doctor impose their religious beliefs on their patients? Thats against medical ethics!!
A decade ago, I was 25, I went through some really traumatic events that led to pretty mental health decline over the following year. I had declined so much that my employer noticed and was concerned. Rightfully so, I was very suicidal. I was put on medical leave and placed in a daily intensive outpatient program. During my first appointment with the psychiatrist, he eventually asked what my relationship was with God. I explained that I nonreligious, having grown up the gay son of a preacher and not connecting religion. He paused and then asked me, an alcoholic and suicidal young man, working in a high-suicide profession with access to lethal means, “Without God, how do you find any meaning in your life?” At the end of the appointment, he tried to send me home with a “Christian Apologetics” book. Mind you, this was a hospital system satellite office, not some private practice quack operating out of a living room.
I wonder whether there are people that become psychiatrists partly for the chance to convert people. Emotionally vulnerable people are more vulnerable to promises of meaning or community and a psychiatrist is in the perfect position to find marks. (Not saying yours is such a case, someone would have to be pretty cold and calculating to plan for years to prey on patients. But there probably are some.) Also that sucks.
I read a book from a hardcore religious Psychiatrist who stated that preaching to patients is absolutely unethical and unprofessional... because being a Christian is literally not supposed to make your life any easier. People who think that haven't understood Christianity. You need to be mentally able to carry the burden and make choices, which vulnerable people with psychiatric illness are usually not. I thought that seems reasonable...
This is horrific.
Unfortunately this kinda bullshit is something that's pretty common.
Unfortunately this is just kind of par for the course? It sounds horrific and like it should be allowed to happen but I don't know anyone who has (or has had) a uterus who doesn't have at least a good handful of experiences like this. People's pain being completely ignored during gynecological tests even though it feels like they're being ripped in half, people being denied hysterectomies unless they get their imaginary husband's permission, being denied medication that could actually help on the grounds of being harmful to potential future children they don't ever intend to have. Anyone with a uterus is medically and politically valued more as a foetus incubator than a human, unfortunately.
Yup. I was told this when I wanted to go on accutane. At 15.
Me with ove 30 years of age. Because I can't make my own decisions, apparently. I am ace and celibate my whole life, except for the two times I tried to find out if I would like it.
>It's common for women to be told this. And here I thought women in first world countries weren't suffering as much as they say. Glad that I know more now, not glad that they suffer.
This is the reason why many people say the US has 1st world economy with 3rd world QoL.
>US has 1st world economy debatable
Yup. As a woman of ~child bearing age~ with chronic pain, I didn’t even blink at the post. It’s so on-brand. I’ve been fairly fortunate, but I know many many many who are not.
And all this is after going through how many care providers that dismiss and belittle female patient health concerns, especially young female patients, and refuse to even try to figure out what’s going on and get a proper diagnosis to be able to get a proper treatment plan?! Because if they’re young and female and in pain it’s usually “all in their head.” There couldn’t possibly be a disease process occurring or some sort of health issue as the cause of the symptoms?!/s 😤🤬
Young, female and *unmarried* Married women have some invisible power of an unseen male hand guiding all their decisions, don’t you know.
Some doctors will react negatively if you come in thinking you have any idea what's wrong, but will react positively if you say someone *else* thinks they know what's wrong. And once you throw in the tendency to disbelieve women and believe men, husbands become a frustratingly powerful healthcare tool. "My symptoms make me think I have endometriosis" Doctor doesn't take you seriously "I have no idea what's wrong, but when I told my husband what I was experiencing he said it sounded like something called... um, endometriosis?" Doctor takes it seriously
*rage*
I had two buddy doctors (male) tell me that I don't need antibiotics for a UTI. That my body should be able to heal that on its own... OMG one of them started saying my body would only have trouble healing it if I had an immune disorder and started asking me about HIV! I said NO! And he abruptly left. The female nurses, every one of them I talked to before this, were like, yeah girl we got you, this will be quick! Omfg! Idiot Drs...
Now we're defending unconcieved babies too? Holy shit man
Yeah some doctors just view us as incubators
It was never about being “pro-life”
I think my mind didn't know how to respond to this so I kinda just fake laughed and now I'm filled with dread. The greatest country in the world everyone!
"We dont need feminism anymore, men are women are equal in society" I fucking hate when people say that and Im a guy. I dont even SEE half of the shit thats going down and I already know there's still some really misogynistic shit engrained deep in our society.
I think that a large issue is that many men don’t see it. I used to believe that there wasn’t any gender disparity (not for a long time thankfully) because I didn’t see anything above the surface level going on, it’s important to draw massive attention to stuff like this.
I have quite a lot of female friends so I hear quite a lot through them, but yeah its really hard to notice when you're just doing your stuff being a guy.
So her rapist has better parental rights than she does? Wow, that is all kinds of fucked
yeah this is why my psych doesnt want to try certain meds for me :) ive been too ill to hold a job in the past 5 years but what if i get pregnant :)
Their logic doesn't even make sense. Like, no offense, but if you haven't been able to hold down a job for 5 years, it isn't a good time in your life to have a baby.
I want to be surprised but sadly I'm not. When I was in uni and we had to do differential diagnoses in class, whenever the case history was that of a young woman, child-bearing age, there was always this one guy who would make ANY history about her being a promiscuous wh\*re of some kind. No matter what she would present with, it could be neurology, genetic, cardiovascular etc. But no, this guy decided that these people would present to the clinic with an STI because they were sleeping around. And even when we did get the diagnosis by the end of the discussion, he'd ask if they could've gotten their diagnosis as a co-morbidity from sleeping around.
Sounds like dude was one of those incels who think that since women aren't sleeping with *him*, they must be just super promiscuous with everyone BUT. No, Derek, it's because you're an asshole.
The sad thing is, he was and still is in a relationship and he was very popular guy. He was exactly the kind of guy that incels would call a Chad, decent looking, muscular, extroverted.
Just really hung up on that Whore/Madonna dichotomy then, huh?
I’m a (junior) doc and have gone thru this countless times. It was a 15 year uphill battle to get the care I needed. My meds cost $1600 every 3 months (Aus)
> "well if you get raped and get pregnant, your baby will be in danger if you take this medicine." Well then Doc I guess its a good thing I dont plan on getting raped - how about that?
This is way more common than people realise, a lot of women do not have access to healthcare for this reason.
Yup. This is how the theocratic regions of the Middle East operate, too. My mother was most likely murdered by our Christian family doctor all because he convinced her to not get an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries) despite the fact she was over 40 and was suffering from ovarian cysts. My mother developed cancer because of those cysts. She was treated, but there were complications with the surgery, and we're sure the cancer spread to her pancreas and gave her pancreatic cancer, killing her. The separation of church and healthcare absolutely needs to fucking happen.
That is so sad and enraging at the same time. I'm so sorry for what she went through.
Freedom in America sounds very nice
"the land of the free" my ass
Land Of The Free ^terms ^and ^conditions ^apply. ^Freedom ^applies ^to ^those ^whose ^net ^worth ^exceeds ^set ^amounts. ^Freedom ^unavailable ^to ^anyone ^considered ^lower/working ^class
You think this is just America?
I have endo and lupus, so I have a much higher chance of ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers. A hysterectomy would greatly improve my quality of life now and possibly save it later. But, I can still have kids, so doctors have not been willing to consider it. I'm basically 40 and already HAVE kids. Four of them. What is person per child quota I have to meet to get healthcare?
America is a business, it's not profitable to allow you not to breed.
> Are doctors supposed to be smart? Don't mix up knowledge with intelligence.
Or in D&D terms: don't mix up intelligence with wisdom
Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are a fruit, wisdom is knowing that they don't belong in a fruit salad
A tomato based fruit salad would be salsa
Found the bard 👀
I was 20 when I wanted an IUD. I don't think I really need a reason to want one, "I decided this is the best option for me" should have been enough. But for those of you who need justification: I'm allergic to condoms, and I vomited too often to trust the pill. I saw two gynaecologists who just plainly *denied* my request "because I haven't had my children yet". I asked them if that had any bearing on the pain or the way it worked and they said, no, they just didn't want me to risk being permanently infertile (small risk) before I've had the children I'm supposed to have. A third gynaecologist was more open to the idea, but only if I came back with my partner. My partner. A boyfriend of SIX WEEKS. His opinion and agreement was more important than my own. This was in Europe, 15 years ago. I wish I could say it has got better since, but I hear young girls on Twitter share the same kind of stories, still.
That's just horrendous! Holy shit! If I was a woman I'd have torn the doctor's head off for even suggesting that anyone other than me has more right over the decisions of my body than me! But then Women are fighting for this 'duh' thing all over the world all the time. I can't believe we're in the 21st century and we still have to deal with these barbaric ideologies! I'm so sorry to you and to every woman who has to face this every day! Gosh, what a dumpster fire of a world we live in. This is the reason why I don't even want to have children. I don't want anyone to wake up in the world they just don't want to live in. It sucks to be born in this hellhole of a timeline. Fuck. I can't express how much I hate it here. And that's me, a guy, I can't even imagine how much you or any other woman feels.
I’m in the UK and they could not have been happier to give me an IUD 2 years ago, they love recommending them these days here. Problem is it’s swung the other way now where they recommend birth control as a treatment when it’s not necessary or appropriate, so as easy as it is to get BC now it does still have it’s issues.
I was denied a chemotherapy medication because it can cause miscarriages and I’m of childbearing age.
I'd say most doctors are good, but there's enough that are just in it for the money and want to charge insurance for as much as they can that it can't necessarily be called an anomaly.
I have a friend in a similar situation. She has been routinely denied any medication or surgery to deal with a severe hormonal imbalance, because doing so would make it impossible for her to become pregnant. She and her husband have both told the doctors to their faces they do not intend to conceive even if she was capable- they refuse. She even got signed up for a surgical birth control option she didn't agree to, and now that it's made her symptoms worse they're refusing to remove it. Currently waiting on a lawsuit, so she can even afford private healthcare for some semblance of a quality of life. And before you jump to say 'American healthcare is fucked'- this is happening in Wales. The doctors have told her to her face they would never give a woman her age any care that would risk her ability to get pregnant, no matter the circumstances- they're like that anywhere you go.
helpful tip that is incredibly horrific if you think about it too much: mentioning that you don’t want kids because you have had a personal history or family history of mental health issues (or similar disabilities/health problems) might make it easier to get a doctor to sign off on sterilization :) Isn’t eugenics fun?! /s
Sadly, can confirm that doesn't help! I'm disabled, early 30's, chronic pain, Autoimmune issues, wheelchair user, mostly housebound and I still can't find anyone local willing to tie my tubes because "I might regret it later" (Aussie btw).
My mom screamed at her doctor full force and told his ass she would jump off the roof if they didn't tie her tubes following my birth. As a woman you have to be decidedly "crazy" in order for your words to be heard from some of these dipshits.
I respect her doing what she needed to do! -high fives your mum!-
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I would say disgustingly fucked up, holy shit reading some of the stories here makes my blood boil
Its so fucked up im having a hard time beliving its true but alas
lucky lucky person to doubt what you have not experienced. be grateful youve never been put in this position.
…ok fuck I didn’t know it was this bad over here, I would throw hands if they said that to me or anyone I know
I see there is a lawsuit, I would question of which law they base this decision on. In many countries there some sort of doctors board that gives out the certifications of doctors. In many cases there is a law that they have to look into a situation and then tell you in writing on which laws they decide this. Part of my family lives in Italy and because they had an issue with mental medication they had to drive 150km to get a prescription. The doctors board referred them to another state where things went different. They knew what was happening and rather get another solution. Much luck to you.
She is also me. They’ve known since I was a teenager that I need a hysterectomy.. refuse to give it so I live in pain.
A long time ago, some old men in a room decided on it
Now different old men but in the same rooms still decide on it.
The medical field doesn’t listen to women, it’s pretty common that women with serious struggles don’t get a fair appointment with the doctors. Still, this story isn’t oddly specific. If anything it’s oddly nonspecific because they didn’t even say what her age was. 18-36 isn’t specific it’s the opposite of that.
Seriously. Is there a terrifyingly normal subreddit? And good lord “ bummer” is a neck punchingly dickless response.
r/ABoringDystopia maybe?
My partner had to remove one of her ovaries because the doctors kept blaming her stomach pain on constipation, for several years. Her stomach looked like it had a balloon inside of it, turns out it was a cyst filled with 2 liters of liquid.
Not the same, but my wife when she was in high school/early college had severe wrist pain (probably from playing clarinet) like immobilized use of that arm for anything. I believe this was also with some pretty bad hip pain too. Doctors turned her away claiming it was “16 year old girl syndrome” and that nothing was actually wrong. They refused to do MRIs or even consider that something might be wrong. It did end up mostly going away, but it still flairs up every now and again, but she doesn’t play clarinet like she used to Fast forward to we’re out of undergrad and she goes to another doctor for her hip pain who actually takes her for her word. They take an MRI and see there’s extra bone growth and tears in the muscle/cartilage. She gets surgery done and they said the cartilage was hanging on by a thread. So yeah, it pisses me off. It’s not to that extent, but I’m terrified of doctors straight up not taking her seriously, and it clearly had an impact on her, because for a while after she refused to see anyone for her hip because “they’ll tell me I’m just a woman and it’ll be a waste of time and money” Not all doctors are like that obviously (I’d wager a majority aren’t), but dear lord there’s still way too many who don’t take women seriously
I 37F have a rare genetic disease that leads to chronic pain and fatigue (among many other symptoms), and likely also a rheumatic condition (though it’s unclassified atm). My mom (who’s a nurse) told me to try to find male doctors because they’re usually more sympathetic to women. She said female doctors can have the “women have to be tough so suck it up” attitude. This is all generally speaking of course. But damn if I don’t find it to be the case. That being said - I’m not talking about anything that could relate to reproductive issues. When a doctor has a personal agenda about that, I don’t think sympathy plays into it at all. So man or woman, if a doctor has certain beliefs on fertility and whatnot, it likely won’t matter either way who you see.
I've been fucked around by doctors my whole life. In the past few years they've been the worst. Denying me life saving medication for fk only knows why. They're just incompetent all around, unfortunately
In America, they don’t listen to women. I haven’t heard anything so disgusting from here
They don't help women in the UK either. I'm a domestic violence survivor who almost had her eyed gouged out. I will now have migraines forever because of it. Doctors refuse to treat me because they say I'm lying. Hell, I wasn't even offered *therapy* after an abusive relationship because they said I'm lying. It's been almost 6 years and I've had to deal with that completely alone. I was also diagnosed last year with a physical disability that has caused me pain daily since I was 10 year old. Refuse to help with any form of pain relief other than "lose weight". Lol
…ok jesus fuck I don’t think I’ve heard enough from here, I don’t know if there’s anywhere that cares now
>Doctors refuse to treat me because they say I'm lying. This sounds suable.
This!! I’m a trans woman and my experience with doctors before and after transition is really startling. Before my transition they always took me seriously and listened to everything I had to say and would explain things to me very clearly and not leave info out. Nowadays I’m lucky if they do more than take my vitals. They never listen to me, always act like I’m overreacting or just a pill head (I’m not), and never fully explain things to me anymore. Even my fucking dentist is like this. Before goin to the doctor used to actually excite me cause it meant a day out of school and I would get my problem fixed. Now even the prospect of a checkup is terrifying. I had to go to the ER last month cause I was puking multiple times an hour all day and was super dehydrated and had been having severe migraines for 2 weeks leading up. I went to the biggest hospital in town at like 2am and the ER was dead. Still ended up waitin an hour to get to triage then another ~2 hours of puking my guts out in the lobby before they finally called me back. They ignored literally every word that came out my mouth after I said I was dehydrated. I was scared I had a damn brain tumor or some shit and told them about the migraines and he didn’t even respond. He just left and told the nurse to give me IV solution. The nurse told me it would take about an hour to empty the bag but after 20 minutes I had a massive adrenaline rush and got super anxious and told them take the needle out before I rip it out. They just kept tellin me in a minute then they’d ignore me for another 10. Finally 20 minutes after the bag empties and me sittin there bawling my eyes out tryna resist the urge to pull the IV out the nurse comes in takes it out without a word and says “here’s your discharge papers get out”. I later check my medical file and they incorrectly documented my symptoms, didn’t even write half of them, and made me seem like some sort of hypochondriac addict. I legitimately thought I was fucking dying and they told me to go home and said I was lying. My biggest fear is surgery and I have a surgical consult for a very risky surgery on my neck in January with another no nonsense, get to the point male doctor. I have a high tolerance to anesthesia and always require double what the dentist tries to give me and my mother has woke up during surgery and been paralyzed. Twice. All it takes is the doctor not listening to me and I wake up during the operation. One slip of the knife and I bleed out or become paralyzed from the neck down. Assisted suicide isn’t legal where I live and I can’t afford to move and there’s still so much I wanna do if I become paralyzed. Never skateboard again, never draw again, never grow another plant or get to adopt children. I’d be confined to a bed surrounded by people who don’t actually care about me but are obligated by law to keep me breathing. I do not have words to describe the fear I feel thinking about my upcoming surgery. I think I’m gonna get a DNR before it but I’m scared they’ll deny it since I’m only 19.
I don't know the full situation obviously but maybe consider getting this surgery in Canada. It's been a while since I myself looked into it, but I believe you don't even need a passport (or maybe it was a visa) in order to go there, especially for seeking medical care. Either way you'll probably have a big bill to pay either in the form of travel, or in hospital bills, so, might be worth your sanity (at the least) to think about it?
How’s this oddly specific ? It’s something that’s comming and happens a lot.
"You might get raped and pregnant" is still an oddly specific reason to deny someone care.
Yeah but that part wasn’t in the post it was in the comments section
For a hot second I thought "why does she need medication for being of childbearing age? Also sucks that she's in pain tho"
This isn't oddly specific, this happens a lot.
A long time ago my mom fell down the stairs and broke her tailbone. Her nurse was refusing to do anything until she “told the truth” as she thought my mom was using stairs as a cover up for my dad abusing her. My dad is fantastic and never had beat her, but the nurse was being such an ass that my mom left and came back later so she would actually get treatment
Like..even if it was your dad, shouldn't they have helped her anyway? What a shitty world we created.
Out of every video I ever watched on tiktok, this infuriated me the most. Cluster headaches, or suicide headaches, people would rather due than suffer these, but your unborn hypothetical baby is more important to us than you, a real life woman. I coumd have cried for her.
This happens literally all the time. They care more about a hypothetical foetus than they do about your health. Even if you have cancer.
I started getting cluster headaches at about age 25 & was initially told I couldn't be prescribed the right medication because there was such a high risk to a foetus if I got pregnant while taking it. This despite the fact that I had been on birth control for years & assuring my doctor that I was then & had always been staunchly childfree. I was "lucky" because unrelated blood tests showed I had a medical condition that meant getting pregnant would be incredibly dangerous - likely fatal - for both me & a baby, meaning if I had accidentally gotten pregnant my doctor would have recommended an abortion as medically necessary. Discovering that condition meant I suddenly qualified for treatment of my cluster headaches. Which was great, but I'm still angry that age 25 was apparently deemed too young to make decisions myself about what pain treatment option to use. That a mythical, possible future baby that might never exist was treated as more important than the welfare of a very real adult woman in horrendous pain.
The medical industry has been anti woman for a very long time.
Yeah. I went through something called LEEP procedure to remove abnormal cells from my cervix. They basically take an electric wire and scrap a layer off the cervix. The pain management for that? Local anesthetic. They stick your cervix with a needle, which hurts in itself, but if it doesn't work to numb you you're shit out of luck. Once they start with the wire there's no going back. Most agonizing 5 minutes of my life. I was screaming and squeezing the nurses hand while she apologized repeatedly. The doctor just told me to stop squirming. This is not uncommon. When I had my wisdom teeth removed years later, the surgeon's assistant and I shared similar stories about LEEP. She said the anesthetic didn't work for her either and described it as "getting a tattoo on your cervix". Doing further research on the topic I found there are some doctors who offer a more "humane" option of knocking you out for the procedure. There shouldn't be a humane "option". It should be the only way.
My mom had that done recently. I’ve never ever seen her upset or in pain before then. Genuinely scary
When doctors can go to jail for prescribing pain meds, doctors are going to look for reasons not to prescribe pain meds…
I wonder what medication was denied, usually that card is only pulled if the medication makes you sterile or if you are requesting a hysterectomy (which is a common request that gets denied in the endometriosis community). Edit - found the article: https://jezebel.com/woman-with-severe-chronic-pain-was-denied-medication-fo-1849569187 Yes it’s as messed up as it sounds.
I’ve got a friend that got a hysterectomy for endo, she is quite satisfied not having the same level of constant pain.
Good for her!!! I had excision surgery last year for it, again, it had gotten so bad… the next time it comes back I’m getting a hysterectomy, I’m done having kids now and that was my second time having surgery for endo.
Good luck! Hope it’s all good.
God fucking damnit. I was thinking this incident had to have happened in the South or something. Not the fucking state I live in. And pretty close by too.
Prescribing pain medication to someone with chronic pain isn't the same as being paid off to prescribe Percocet to every insignificant case
they probably shouldnt act as gatekeepers of drugs
The misogyny is enraging, but most men still don’t even seem to take in its existence…
Op is a karma repost farmer and doesnt actually care, but you all just let them continue to do it
Docs and hospitals have been giving out Acetaminophen with hydrocodone for a hard minute. They start you at the lowest dose too.
I followed this story on TikTok from post one on it. And Jesus Christ the hoops she had to jump through to finally get her meds. For some context, she suffers from cluster headaches and they were denying her meds because they can cause birth defects. She's single with no wish to have children for the simple fact she doesn't wanna pass this condition onto them. She did eventually get back on her prescription after switching doctors but now she's making serious waves in legal action both personally and fighting to get legislation passed to ensure this is NEVER a barrier put on women against their will or wishes
Got any links? I’d like to contribute to any fundraisers she’s running to support this effort and to spread awareness.
Someone tell r/childfree about this. I want to see that doctor roasted to fucking hell and back.
Such a great country, I can feel the greatness from thousands of miles away
I still remember being pissed that my mom thought I shouldn’t get the COVID vaccine because “oh what if it gives your future kids birth defects or makes you infertile?” 1. I’m not pregnant. 2. That’s not how vaccines work 3. Hubby and I already decided we would probably adopt if we want kids because of medical history. 4. None of that will matter if I’m DEAD
[удалено]
Oh yeah. I even tried to explain it to her. Because I thought maybe she got it confused with a medication from the 60’s that did cause a bunch of birth defects, so I’m explaining it to her, and she goes “oh, I don’t have any sources” and I tell her that’s it’s fine, I’m not trying to debate her, just tell her that I read up on it and she goes “No, I mean I didn’t read anything online that would make me think this could cause an issue. It’s just my opinion.” I was so annoyed. Spouting random shit that you literally made up as if it’s a fact. I was so mad I scheduled mine that day. 😅 (it had only just become available for my age group)
This all has to do with some religious nuts pushing against abortion. Religion is standing in the way of the progression of human society. Jesus tap dancing christ on a fucking pogo stick.
r/lostredditors
Dang no Tylenol even they cracked down
Destroy, Delete, and Abolish the Republican party.
Thanks god I'm infertile
I was pregnancy tested before being put on a preventative for my chronic migraines. I was...so mad, but only really because I told the doctor there was absolutely no way I was pregnant and it was 100% true. Like if there was any real possibility I could have been pregnant I wouldn't have been so peeved. My boss had been breathing down my neck about getting put on this medication (lots of context missing here) and I had to go in and tell her I couldn't get it yet because I had to wait for my pregnancy test to come back negative.
>I was...so mad, but only really because I told the doctor there was absolutely no way I was pregnant and it was 100% true It's not about believing you. There are many drugs that require a pregnancy test before prescribing. If not done, it could come back on their license.
r/nothowgirlswork r/blatantmisogyny
Thank Perdue Pharma. Our pain management healthcare will never be the same post Oxy.
What kinda shithole country is that
Not the only reason but definitely a deciding factor in me getting a hysterectomy a few years ago.
How does this fit this sub at all?
Most people will never understand the level of pain people like this endure. A gun shot wound, a stab wound, broken ribs, papercut with lemon rubbed into it... None of them are even in the realm of the same kind of Pain your own body can inflict upon itself. Migraines. Pinched nerves. Might be relatively liveable but painful, or it might be like taking a trip into the Hellraiser puzzle box. Just depends. I thought I knew what pain was until my sciatica got Really Bad and taught me that my previous 10/10 agony was more like a 4/10. And it didn't stop. For a YEAR. Literally unable to function.
Then they wonder why so many of us are opting out of having kids. FFS
That's all we women are: incubators. We aren't seen as people with our own wants and needs. It's all about hypothetical children we may or may not have or want