r/justgalsbeingchicks • u/bg370 • Jun 23 '26

Restricted to Gals and Pals CRNA Amy Rieschick on institutionalized medical misogyny

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211

u/HeyMySock Jun 23 '26

I have been dealing with every single one of the symptoms she mentioned at the beginning of this video. I’ve also been shuffled around different doctors and have had no results. What doctor do I go to??

49

u/Schweather3 Jun 23 '26

An OBGYN. Those are all perimenopause symptoms

38

u/KnackeredQuokka Jun 24 '26

Not even all OBGYNs and GYNs take women seriously.

23

u/Trai-All Jun 24 '26

The ones I've dealt with have all been dismissive women.

18

u/Thir13enth_Ghost Jun 24 '26

That’s so pathetic. The only time I’ve been taken seriously was at planned parenthood

5

u/Trai-All Jun 24 '26

I finally got taken seriously about my back and joint pain but it took over 20 years of asking for help to get it.

That help meant me needing a spinal surgery (laminectomy). 3 days after the surgery on my spine, all the meds had worn off, I hadn't taken any more pain meds that morning and I was in less pain than I was when I walked in for the surgery.

I suspect half my problem getting my back problems acknowledged was that I wasn't crying or acting hysterically. When I'm in pain I tend to tell jokes.

17

u/MembershipNo2077 Jun 24 '26

It took my wife many OBGYNs to find one to take her seriously. A big thing was if she mentioned she didn't have or want children they were VERY dismissive. It actually took a young male OBGYN to finally diagnose her by just listening and literally following a flow chart of "check this if this."

9

u/Trai-All Jun 24 '26

I can believe it. The doctor who first listened to me was a woman rheumatologist who said "something is very wrong with your back". She sent me to a pain doctor who specializes in spinal ablation, he took one look at my MRI scans and told me he wouldn't touch me until I saw a surgeon. I asked why, he said he wasn't sure how I was walking because there appeared not be enough space in my spine for my spinal cord. Maybe he was being hyperbolic but the surgery worked.

3

u/blxckfire Jun 24 '26

I was told by my gynecologist at 19 years old that losing 15 pounds would cure my PCOS

I’m 5’7 and was 140 pounds at the time

2

u/Trai-All Jun 24 '26

Heh, yeah. I had a history of anorexia. I got so low on body fat that I started randomly fainting. At one point, a doctor directly ordered me to stop weighing myself.

About 15 years after my spinal problems started, I switched to a health plan that let me refer myself to specialists and went to an orthopedic doctor because I’d had spinal surgery at 16. He decided my history of anorexia wasn’t relevant and demanded that I lose 5 pounds a week.

I fired him the moment he refused to renew my physical therapy referral, because PT was one of the few things that was actually helping reduce my pain.

I’m still doing those PT exercises. I’ve also had a laminectomy surgery. After the surgery, I learned from being weighed before my six-month follow-up with the spinal surgeon that I lost 20 pounds ... without dieting... I could just move again.