More than 1.5 million women in the UK are affected by the painful condition - but new study says NHS is failing them
Women with endometriosis who have endured years of excruciating pain are being “fobbed off” by doctors and told their symptoms are “all in their head”, leading them to give up seeking NHS treatment, new research has found.
A study carried out by academics at Manchester Metropolitan University found women with the disease felt “gaslit” by doctors due to their lack of understanding of the condition.
The paper, due to be published in the Journal of Health Communication later this month, also found that treatment was subject to a postcode lottery. Patients in rural areas reported travelling for hours to access a specialist with full training in the complex gynaecological condition.
Endometriosis is a painful condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows around other organs inside the abdomen. It affects 1.5 million women in the UK. The study looked at the experiences of treatment and diagnosis of 33 patients and revealed how doctors’ lack of understanding of the symptoms meant women often spent years in pain before their condition was diagnosed. During this period participants were told they were exaggerating their symptoms, or their pain was dismissed as psychological.
The is a very common problem. So common that many women seek out female doctors to get their endo properly diagnosed.
Has nothing to do with being “a casualty of war” for looking like they’re seeking pain meds. It has to do with a lack of education and understanding, particularly from older male doctors.
Interestingly, when I’ve happened upon threads (in r/twoX mostly) about this phenomenon, many women argued that female doctors were worse about this issue in particular — namely, gaslighting re: severity of pain.
The favored explanations were that female providers tended to relativize the pain described by a patient to the provider’s own experience whereas male providers had no personal experience and thus less reason to downplay, or that, while male doctors face the same pressure to under-prescribe pain medication, female doctors were more comfortable telling a patient that period pain was normal.
This is one of those causalities of the war against pain meds. Everyone is always suspected of lying about pain and wanting opioids if there’s no physical finding they can attribute to the pain
And poor understanding of women’s diseases. Most models in textbooks are based on men, and women’s health is considered a “specialty”.
Happens in countries that aren’t having issues with large numbers of people who are addicted to pain meds, as well as in counting with people who are.
These women aren’t “casualties of war”, they’re casualties of lazy doctors who refuse to make a correct diagnosis due to being ill informed about the changing prevalence of conditions in society (the epidemiology), and who want to ignore what patients are actually telling them.
Every country has issues with addiction, including pain meds. Addiction isn’t specific to the USA. And doctors are taught to be skeptical about overprescribing pain meds
Oh really, so why did you just happen to choose the US there? I hadn’t mentioned them, I don’t believe you had, and yet you’re insisting that addiction isn’t specific to the US.
I am pretty sure women have been told, “it’s all in your head” quite a lot longer than the war on pain meds has been a thing.
Nah this bias exists even in areas that aren’t related to pain meds.
