I often wonder how much of my different doctors reluctancy to take me seriously was because I was a woman.
I even had strong, caring, and compassionate female doctors – but still, society tells us too often that as women, we are freaking out for no reason. That my blood pressure was “a little high” and it must be because I was “anxious about being at the doctor” or “rushed to get there.”
From an article that I recently read:
“Women younger than 55 were SEVEN TIMES more likely to be misdiagnosed and turned away from the E.R. than their male counterparts.”
To the doctors over the years, my fatigue was never a medical issue – it was always that I “worked too much” or was “depressed” or was “too busy” or “not getting enough sleep” or “sleeping too much.”
The above article is about heart attacks, but still. (Undiagnosed sleep apnea can cause heart attacks and stroke…)
Do you think that you’ve been treated differently at the doctor because of your sex or gender identity?
