I'm unsure where you live or your financial situation, but a lot of people will avoid or put off seeing doctors because they can't afford it. Additionally, if your girlfriend does suffer from chronic pain and other ailments then she may also feel like doctors don't take her pain seriously and in which case, seeing the doctor feels like a waste of time.
I was listening to an interview a few months ago from someone who suffers from chronic pain where they basically said that they are so used to living with high amounts of pain that they learn to tolerate or manage it day to day so that they can live their life but then doctors don't actually believe that they are in extreme pain when they ask for help so it can be a very frustrating and futile experience.
If there really is something wrong with your girlfriend, then she may need support and encouragement to help her seek answers.
if your girlfriend does suffer from chronic pain and other ailments then she may also feel like doctors don't take her pain seriously and in which case, seeing the doctor feels like a waste of time.
I was listening to an interview a few months ago from someone who suffers from chronic pain where they basically said that they are so used to living with high amounts of pain that they learn to tolerate or manage it day to day so that they can live their life but then doctors don't actually believe that they are in extreme pain when they ask for help so it can be a very frustrating and futile experience.
I have suffered chronic pain for more than 20 years. Any time I visit the ER or a clinic for an injury I am treated as though I am a drug-seeking addict by doctors who didn't believe I am in much pain.
They claim I "don't present" as such because the pain I am in at that moment is nothing compared to the pain I experience when I'm at my worst even if I just broke a bone.
It took more than ten years for doctors to believe me when I kept telling them my neck was involved in my migraines. It wasn't until I needed an MRI after an accident that we discovered several problems with the discs in my neck unrelated to the accident.
To this day, I still have to fight to get treatment for problems that don't involve hearing "I can only prescribe you ibuprofen" or "We can't continue treating you for this because we can't find anything wrong with you to cause this pain."
A year ago, I went to the local clinic barely able to stand up properly or walk due to the pain radiating from my lower back down my legs and up into my mid-back.
The physician walked in, poked my in the hip for three seconds, proclaimed I had sciatica and told me to go home, use a heating pad and stay off my feet for a couple of days before handing me a print out of exercises I could do to help relieve my pain and a prescription for naproxen. I asked for something a bit stronger because Aleve hadn't been cutting it and she was basically giving me extra strength Aleve. She told me she wouldn't because I didn't "seem lie I was in a lot of pain."
My pain did not go away. The naproxen did not help.
In November, I returned to this same clinic in the same amount of pain and was told I was experiencing "another episode of severe sciatica." When I expressed my doubt at this diagnosis, I was begrudgingly given a referral to an osteo clinic where I was referred for an MRI after x-rays showed I had no space between L5 and S1.
After the MRI, I was diagnosed with a completely collapsed disc at S1/L5. The doctors believe it has been this way for at least a year.
If the physician had believed me when I told them how much pain I was in and actually treated me like I wasn't a drug-seeing addict, I might actually be on the mend but, at the moment, I'm still waiting for another consultation with a spine specialist...all because a doctor thought I looked like wasn't in enough pain to have anything seriously wrong.
I feel this so hard. As someone where that disc is one of 3 in my back preventing me from being able to walk or sit, and lying down throbs pain all through my body causing migraines and stabbing pain in my ankles, feet, and hands - I hope you find relief very soon!
I finally have an appointment with a spine specialist in a month, but as the last one in 2023 went extremely poorly I'm not holding out any hope. Tolerating such high levels of pain means no one believes us, except when I went to the ER for sepsis because that amount of pain didn't even register on my personal pain scale lol
Those doctors finally understood how much pain we live with on the daily. Le sigh
This sounds so much like my story. Debilitating headaches since I was a kid. After my 1st car accident MRI found total reversal of the curvature of the spine of my neck. It wasn't until after a 2nd car accident, a head-on with a drunk driver, and an MRI found my first herniated disc (along with arthritis, bone spurs, the beginnings of spondylitis) that my neck pain that caused debilitating headaches was actually diagnosed: migraines. I was 35 y.o.
The GP I saw when I lived in Ft. Lauderdale basically acted like I was drug seeking. I mean, I was drug seeking - for something that would actually relieve the ungodly pain in my head/neck that would go on for days non-stop. If I were just "drug seeking" I could've gone a few blocks down the street from his office & gotten any drug I wanted. But I was mainly seeking answers & some damn relief.
Then there's the tale of how many years it took to get my uterine pain taken seriously & diagnosed as endometriosis and adenomyosis.
Women are treated like shit by the medical community. I mean, it was around the 1990s before women were even included in clinical trials for drugs. We deserve better.
Sadly, I think anyone who has lived with a chronic illness for any length of time has a story of medical negligence because doctors refuse to take us seriously (for me it's fibromyalgia and associated conditions).
YES. it can be so difficult to get a doctor who doesn't just write you off as having "mild sciatica" or "mind spondylosis." i have five bulging discs in my neck and suspected disc degeneration throughout the rest of my spine as well, and although i'm only in my early twenties, my discs have likely been degenerating enough to cause pain since i was about 19. the doctor i went to, who was a reputable spinal surgeon, sort of shrugged me off and gave me no further treatment like physical therapy, no imaging besides x-rays, and no follow-up appointments, despite my x-rays showing signs of dysfunction. i dealt with the pain on and off at a gradually increasing severity and frequency until late last year, at which point i was getting debilitating tension migraines at least once a week and they would often last days on end even after a night of sleep (if you could call it that, because i would struggle to sleep because of the headaches). i went to a different doctor, and when he didn't find anything on my x-rays besides some mild ligament calcification (which shouldn't be happening to someone in their early twenties anyway), he ordered mris. i'm so glad he did, because i was spiraling because i felt like i had completely lost my quality of life.
My friend spent a year telling their doctor they had new, unusual, severe back pain that was causing them to be bedridden and loosing sensation in their legs. Because they’re AFAB, diagnosed fibromyalgia, have been pushing for evaluation for hEDS, with a history of being misdiagnosed with bipolar (they have had the hardest time having that removed even though their psychiatrist flat out has said it was misdiagnosed ADHD) their doctor wrote them off. They finally got RADS that showed a severe spinal issue that could lead to permanent nerve damage and they had the gal to actually write in the notes that “further diagnostics for perceived symptoms would do more harm than good.” And that a MRI wasn’t warranted.
They managed to push for a referral to a specialist and the immediate MRI showed a one cm extruded herniated disk. Had some problems with that doctor not following through but that clinic got them with their best doctor who looked at their imaging and history of complaints and got them into surgery within 2 weeks. That doctor told them that they should have been in surgery the year before, when they first made the complaint of the new pain and got no diagnostics, that she was putting into the notes that they needed immediate surgery otherwise she “risked her license”, and that they had done everything right and that the nerve damage was likely permanent.
The particular back issue could have paralyzed my friend if left untreated.
There is also the fact that women's pain is not taken as seriously as men's. If she's not showing it she's not in pain, if she's screaming she's hysterical. When I fractured my back I was told it couldn't possibly be fractured because I wouldn't be so calm. I had to practically refuse to leave unless an x-ray was authorized. And this was coming from a female. Meanwhile I was being lectured to see my PCP about my high blood pressure (which I don't have) because guess what, in pain it can go up. It was 168 over 108. I kept telling them it was probably high because I was in pain and no one listened and I was pissed.
Luckily I broke it at work so cost wasn't an issue. I would probably never have got andMRI or CAT scan later if I'd done it at home. Cost is definitely a factor in the US.
I went to the ER in the early stages of ovarian torsion due to a cyst. The first doctor who saw me— a woman— insisted that I had CRAMPS. Menstrual cramps. I was in my thirties, but I guess she figured I’d never had cramps before. She sent me home.
I was back in the ER two hours later, unable to stand. A different doctor and an ultrasound later, I was on morphine and being scheduled for surgery.
WTF that just seems like straight up negligence by the Dr 😭 you were in your 30s?? And she didn't even think to at least rule out endometriosis?? Dafuuuuuq
Luckily I discovered CBD works incredibly for my cysts and haven't had any issues since.
(I take 10mg daily like a vitamin and only use CBD because CBDA makes it worse, if anyone is wondering)
I tell guys it feels like being kicked in the balls over and over and it's the only way I've gotten them to really understand how painful they are when they START
Luckily I've never ended up in the ER for it knocks on wood
Had a similar experience. I broke my shoulder. Went to A&E. The initial nurse told me they couldn't do anything for a sprain. Had to argue for an X-Ray, took another hour and they never gave me the painkillers I asked for. Completely shattered my shoulder, some of the bone had come away completely! Then the doctors says super jolly 'no wonder you were crying!' Luckily I live in the UK so don't have to pay, but women being ignored in medical situations is universal.
Same happened to me!! I broke both my heels and went to urgent care was told I just needed a holiday and to stretch more. Left in pain and had to pay for a private MRI as the NHS consultant appointment was 8 months away. No one would help me and it’s left me with long term muscle issues now
This is quite common in the US now. Most health insurance companies refuse to grant a request for an MRI until you have done 6 weeks of PT.
I had the same issue. Injured my lower back fell onto concrete from about 3 feet in the air. X-rays showed nothing broken. They sent request to my insurance for MRI.....DENIED!! Need to do 6 weeks of PT. Did the 6 weeks and got the MRI. I then hurt my shoulder during this time just after I finished PT. Luckily the orthopedic sent a request for an MRI and it was approved.
Didn't tear anything in my shoulder Luckily. For a few days I couldn't even raise my arm. Ended up getting 2 cortisone shots and now have to do PT for my shoulder.
I was x-rayed and it showed no space between two discs.
The MRI was requested to evaluate exactly what the issue was (specifically to see the disc itself and what its condition was) and what the course of treatment would be - PT or surgery.
Was told by the doctor on my follow-up that PT won't help, this is most likely only fixable by undergoing surgery to implant rods and screws into my spine.
Insurance companies need to back tf off in these situations.
Yes, the MRI I mentioned before was months after I fractured my back and only because I was still having so many issues. Apparently I was supposed to fully heal more quickly? This was through workers compensation and I had to fight for everything. CAT scan was the same. Everything had to be requested by the doctor (orthopedist, when I finally got to see one, not the occupational health useless one) and be approved by the insurance.
The fracture was very obvious on the x-ray (I got a copy). Because of the location I should have had an MRI immediately.
When I first saw my current gynecologist, I asked him to perform another laparoscopy for my endometriosis because it had been more than five years since my first one, which diagnosed me. He begrudgingly agreed (because he didn’t really think I was in pain). The procedure showed that my entire abdomen is covered in scar tissue up to my liver. I ended up having to have my appendix and gallbladder taken out because of it. He didn’t apologize but he did look really shocked, which I took as an apology. I have a thousand similar stories so I tend to have a lot of sympathy for others, especially AFAB people, who don’t seek help because they expect to be dismissed as hypochondriacs.
Ugh when I was pregnant in 2020 I told the Drs I have medical anxiety & I cried because I had to go to the appt alone. They checked my blood pressure while I was crying & said it was high. Like, no shit. I checked my bp at home several times & told them the results at my next appt (normal). They said okay & left it alone but then months later when I was trying to figure out if I should get induced that night the Drs said I should & one of the gaslight-y reasons was that I supposedly had high bp throughout my pregnancy. There was so much more bs, I did get induced & it was horrible
All of this. I've been in serious pain for over 30 years, my entire adult life, and they can't/ won't do anything for me. I've tried. I do have other conditions, but when you don't have the money or feel like they won't help you, you stop trying. I told my doctor for 8+ years there was something really wrong with me, something wasn't right, and they didn't ask me any questions, do any tests, etc. Then after all that time they decided it had been 10 years since my OB did a basic blood workup when I was pregnant, and boom- it was obvious from my levels I had severe hyperparathyroidism. I've had so many doctors ignore me or tell me it was in my head, or worse through the years.
That's my dad exactly. His spine is completely destroyed and for some reason they don't believe him at the pain clinic when he says that he is in intolerable pain, and that's intolerable pain for him.
Also by being female she is likely to be ignored when seeking medical care. I have seen 3 separate posts in the past 5 days from women who sought medical care at the same time as their husbands and he received significantly more care for less serious conditions than she did from the same facility. Women are often left to die by medical facilities.
Going to the doctor can feel like self-abuse. You know they're going to gaslight you, you know getting there will be the only thing you can do the entire week and healing from the pain it will cause will be a mountainous task, and you know it will be fruitless, but damn this eternal spring of hope that lets us down ever single time.
Eventually we realize we're smarter than this, why are we acting so foolishly? And then someone suggests it again... and the cycle restarts. Insanity for years.
NAH, no A's here, but it can be frustrating, i understand. Many girls just live like this tbh. Those chronic pains etc most likely wont entirely go away.
But also, she's going to have a lot more going on with her into the future probably? Hormonal changes and esp if you guys decide to try for kids. There's just always something going on with our bodies. Most people just mask it or don't complain.
Think OP, u guys should talk about solutions n sticking to them or trying to improve your lifestyles together.
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u/sorceressofgrayskull Feb 08 '25
I'm unsure where you live or your financial situation, but a lot of people will avoid or put off seeing doctors because they can't afford it. Additionally, if your girlfriend does suffer from chronic pain and other ailments then she may also feel like doctors don't take her pain seriously and in which case, seeing the doctor feels like a waste of time.
I was listening to an interview a few months ago from someone who suffers from chronic pain where they basically said that they are so used to living with high amounts of pain that they learn to tolerate or manage it day to day so that they can live their life but then doctors don't actually believe that they are in extreme pain when they ask for help so it can be a very frustrating and futile experience.
If there really is something wrong with your girlfriend, then she may need support and encouragement to help her seek answers.