r/Wedeservebetter

I haven't had a checkup since, like, childhood and I'm 30 now. There's so many things "wrong" with me that could be any sort of deficiency and/or thyroid something (genetic), not to mention ugly stuff like body hair and ugly red spots that are either genetic (mom has them) or hormonal (mom's hormones are bad and mine probably are too) and it's so ????

I know for one the options are either gonna be birth control or diet for anything that isn't like, supplements. Because healthcare sucks for women and we just bandaid things half the time which is fine and works for some! And diet now is moot with everything being infected in the USA...

But like, I don't care about fertility, I care about feeling good and looking better, especially with peri on the horizon. So that's already a point against me and against a doctor listening to me. And then, since I haven't gone to the doctor, it's time for an internal exam!! YAY!! and the fact I'd be there for hormonal issues means pap smear!! YAY!! and schedule a mammogram!!! WOO!! i want blood panels bro my physical body is fine and if it wasn't that's not your problem Mrs doctor lady

It's just so tiresome. I really want to see what's up with me and if I can get some relief even though it's minor stuff but the fact it'll just be focused on guilting me for not going to the doctor in ages and coercing me to strip and get looked at and poked and prodded and cranked open when I JUST WANNA KNOW IF MY IRON IS LOW OR MY THYROID IS MESSED UP ETC ETC. This isn't even bringing finances into consideration. Or the fact I don't have a man to take with me so the doc listens, even though I'd have chosen a woman!

And the way I'm not even close to the only person not seeking medical care for fear of them being perverts/bullies is insane...

Howdy! I’m a lowly FM PGY-1 so I apologize if I’m missing something obvious. But, I was reading the updated guidelines on Cervical Cancer screening and the potential for q5yr HPV self-swabs in those >30 y/o, and was curious how many of y’all have adapted this practice yet?

I feel like I’ve had attendings give slightly more pushback when I’ve asked for my WWE patients, but I feel like self swabs might honestly lead to higher compliance rates (e.g., what patient actually wants a Pap done in clinic vs. just self-swabbing). However, I’m also sure that clinician obtained Paps w/ cytology are more reliable periodt. Just wanted to gauge y’all’s thoughts! Thanks :)

(main part of my post isn’t about gynecology specifically, but further down is)
TW for CSA description

Man I fucking hate my life. After a lifetime of trauma and hardship, I’ve gotten better at not falling into pessimism, but holy fuck.

For context I’ve had scoliosis my entire life. Two curves, lumbar and thoracic. Have always been told it’s moderate - not mild, but not super severe. Must’ve inherited from my grandmother because she has the same, along with a bunch of other similar health issues. We caught it early, when I was about 10, and thankfully my family had a very knowledgeable doctor who treated it for 11 years. As a kid, my shoulders were so off balance that my hoodies would fall off one side of my body. For years now, my shoulders have been completely symmetrical. Just to give you an idea. He did a lot of good for me, outside of that one time he berated me in front of my abusive mother which made her fall into her manipulative bullshit after the appointment, but whatever. He helped my spine. 🫠

Last December, two days before my appointment with him (and after he rescheduled it 3 times), his receptionist calls me and says he’s not taking me as a patient anymore. No final appointment, no sorry, just done. Ok. I asked for a script for physical therapy and he forwarded that to me at least.

Been in PT since. My PTs are wonderful ladies, super knowledgeable about the nervous system and how my CPTSD impacts my body. That being said though, they’ve started to mention surgery a lot recently. I’m 22, and surgery is generally recommended below 30 as your body can adapt better, and with how pretty bad my scoliosis is, it could get a lot worse over time. Like start to crush my lungs, maybe. So it’s best if I do it now.

My previous doc, I believe, was under the mindset that we could at the very least maintain it and keep my quality of life without surgery. Which I appreciate. After my experiences, I already don’t see doctors in general, but especially none that push procedures.

Now I’m spiraling.

I’m a tattoo artist. I can’t imagine life without my job, but it can fuck up even the healthiest of bodies over time. My job is already limited due to my scoliosis. But if surgery goes badly then I may not be able to ever do it again. I’d have to take months off to recover. I’d have to go back and stay with my parents. Tattooing is the only thing that brings me true joy right now.

My mom had a spinal injury some years back that’s fucked up her life since. She almost died during the surgery when I was a teenager.

I’ve spent the past 5 years healing from other chronic illness (that doctors have loved to deny) and just this past month or two I’ve actually been able to return to semi-normalcy. Like I can actually do work 6 hours a day for the first time since I was 16. I finally started to get a glimpse of maybe not having to worry about my autoimmune issues caused by my trauma so much.

I’ve healed a lot from my trauma, but I still can’t imagine facing any sort of procedure where I have to take my clothes off or go under anesthesia again. I can’t even bring myself to get my fucking wisdom teeth removed because of it. All I can think about is being five years old, having urinary tract issues, and having whatever-it-was shoved up there against my protests. And then eight, having extremely horrible periods already and getting tested for PCOS, when this fuckass doctor at some renowned medical college digitally raped and assaulted me in front of my mother while my mother yells at me to shut the fuck up and stop crying.

I thought I had moved past this.

I guess I never will.

I don’t know what to do and my life is already falling apart right now. I know I don’t have to make a decision at this moment but it causes me panic whenever I think about it.

Fuck me. Fuck doctors. Fuck the medical establishment.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Two oncologists and a clinician from the Mayo Clinic came to this consensus around this time last year and I'm still reeling from it. After seemingly endless ER trips, blood work, CT scans, MRIs, a few transvaginal ultrasounds, and finally an abdominal ultrasound that led to a biopsy, the pain that had been plaguing me every day since April of last year finally had a name: hepatocellular adenoma.

To my disappointment (but certainly NOT to my surprise), these rare growths are most often found in women and are grossly underdiagnosed. Similar to mine, they're typically discovered incidentally on otherwise routine scans. Mine was discovered because my gastro ordered the ultrasound that identified it, not an OB/GYN. Suffice to say, this is a direct result of taking the pill as directed by my OB/GYN for well over a decade, as every doctor I've spoken to about this would echo. I don't think I have a malpractice suit on my hands or anything; birth control always comes with a pamphlet of warnings that I'm sure cover everyone's behind but my own.

Not only do I have even more medical trauma than before all of this, but this thing is *still* in my body. One oncologist wanted to experiment on me with a new machine... The odds weren't positive enough for me to proceed and I'm at peace with that decision. My second/current oncologist gave me 4 different options for treatment, 3 of which are non-invasive. I'm being monitored and taken care of by his team which I'm incredibly grateful for.

My OB/GYN, however? Severely lacking in empathy. I called for months to speak with any one of the two doctors in the office. In June, they said their soonest appointment was in October. Sure, I'll wait months while my body figures out how to manage a period again (I was directed by this doc a few years back to skip the placebo week in order to avoid having a period at all rather than help me with pain management.)

All in all, after being on the pill for over 10 years and not having a period for nearly 3 of those years, I'm really struggling in finding the purpose in seeing an OB/GYN at all. My menstrual cycle is the same as it always was when I DID have a period: excruciatingly painful with heavy, abnormal bleeding for upwards of 10 days at a time. I pleaded with my old OB/GYN to explore other options for so long. I just began to plead with the new doctor I was recommended to. Neither are interested in any option other than non-hormonal birth control. Guess what? My oncologist doesn't want me to take any form of BC indefinitely.

So, I suppose I have to sit around with this tumor for a while. Also have to just "push through" ungodly menstrual cycles as if it's normal/expected of me as a woman.

Thanks for listening. <3

Of course he does. I had a consult with this guy and he has a popular YouTube channel. I was shocked to see he encourages women to have anal sex with men and claims it feels good to women. I’m furious I paid for this. This is a surgeon who repairs anal fissures and other tears which are excruciating. Mine is from straining, not anal sex. But I was disgusted to read his replies to comments on his videos saying it feels good for women. He sounded like he was a dead person on the phone too. I wonder if he watches tons of pornography. He has that monotone voice that a lot of porn viewing men have.

I am currently bawling my eyes out right now due to the past abuse at the hands of doctors. It has been so awful lately and I really don’t know if it’s accumulated stress. But I really wish coercion in the medical community especially around gynecological “care” was talked about. I would consider it rape and it’s awful that many people probably don’t even know they’ve been abused because it’s just so normal for doctors to treat us like shit. I hate that even though I have hard boundaries with not letting them touch me anymore, I still feel the rage and shame from allowing them to ever do it. I wish I listen to my gut when I felt uneasy or like something was off. I wish reports of this type of abuse was taken seriously. I wish being a woman wasn’t so violating and expected for us to be comfortable with be penetrated by strangers. It’s made me literally hate my anatomy. I’m sorry, this is just a rant.

I am currently in a full blown ocd/anxiety spiral about getting a mammogram. I’m not one to go to the doctor hardly at all so anytime I do go, I get insane anxiety. My issue now is I don’t want a mammogram. I’m 46, not had one in 3 years, but my health anxiety is saying if you don’t go it’ll be bad. I don’t want to go. It is truly a vicious cycle. I check my breasts obsessively to the point they hurt. I don’t know if I can break out without going.
I also don’t think it’s fair that men aren’t pushed to have all these screenings and tests. I feel like my female parts are ticking time bombs and I don’t know if I can get these mammograms every single year!
Then I see things saying they cause harm so what do you do???
I know I’m not alone, I just feel like no one talks you through this. You just turn 40 and you’re thrown into the system.

'Medical sadism' attempts to justify the will to humiliate the patient by means of the constraints inherent in medical services. Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3351879/

Understand the concept:

Medical lunatics almost always have a hidden agenda. Health service providers may hide personal or subconscious malice behind claims of philanthropy, treatment necessity, or strict institutional authority.

Medical practitioners often unlawfully demand compliance, physical exposure, and a surrender of control (lack of informed consent, and similar). This is an example of abusing these boundaries. When you read your rights first, you can then immediately challenge that and ask why, what other options there are, etc.

Medical lunatics rationalize harm to manipulate, gaslight and mislead you. They reframe unpleasant or restrictive procedures as "for the patient's own good," even when the actual intent or subtext is more toward degradation, humiliation, sadism or control.

Defense against medical lunatics' sadism:

Learn the limits of medical lunatic's rights and duties to establish boundaries. As a patient, prevent unchecked medical lunatic's power by checking if the behavior is still exercising the law or not. Learn also professional ethics rules for medical practitioners. Use them as a guardrail against emotional and psychological exploitation. Report all violations you observe.

Your medical practitioner will not report himself/herself for violating ethics, patient rights, neglecting duties, or overstepping the boundaries and demanding something he can't. He won't report himself and his colleagues won't report him either. Only you can report him.

You make decisions that are best for your health, so you want A. Medical lunatics ignore you and want B. They know very well B is harmful and useless. They are crooked. You want A for your health. They want B for their sadistic pleasure.

Medical lunatics practice mainly politics. You're almost always in conflict over power and decision-making with them. That's why they don't want you to read anything medical, because you will learn your options and you will choose everything better than them.

Both you and a deranged medical lunatic are trying to influence each other, and you argue which decision will be made. When the decision is made entirely by a medical lunatic, it's almost guaranteed that it's harmful and useless. When the decision is made entirely by you, you have under control what's going to be written and what will be done with your body. That's the secret.

Unlike courts, medical practices aren't forced to create valid arguments with valid facts and valid applicable rules. Medical lunatics ignore facts, break rules, and abuse "case law" selectively in favor of their manipulation to dictate their own subjective opinions at any cost.

Almost every medical practitioner is a communist politician. A communist in a white coat manipulating facts against you may be committing fraudulent misrepresentation. If your knowledge of patient rights, medical lunatic's duties and ethics rules is weak, you have no rights because the communist will hoard all power. You can hold medical lunatics to legal standards, and force them to create valid arguments with valid facts, rules, and past cases, when you write a complaint. Your complaint must cite applicable rules, state the facts clearly, and create valid arguments that prove medical lunatics are in violation of the rules (ethical or legal statutes), or medical recommendations they should diagnose and treat by. Only you can hold them accountable. Start reporting them for fraud, abuse and waste.

I want to start off by saying I am disabled and I have severe medical trauma related to OBGYNs and an IUD that has permanently damaged by bladder and pelvic floor causing me constant pain and urinary frequency. Since that whole debacle which lasted years as providers even in the ER would literally deny taking it out because “yes it’s causing cysts but will eventually stop causing you pain so we won’t take it out yet.” Until I just began to deal with the enormous pain and bleeds until it caused the dysfunction and OAB, I have not had a Pap smear. I asked my regular doctor if this was really bad since it’s been causing me constant anxiety for years because I will not go back. I can’t put myself through it. My pelvic pain is too much and no treatments have worked. Every exam is painful and triggering and invasive and retraumatizing. The emotional and intellectual pain I feel knowing that our world has just accepted this as the norm has taken the light from my eyes to say the least. But she said that the time frame for when you’re supposed to get it has increased to 5 years and now I’m at the 6 year mark. I was under the impression it was an absolute medical necessity but after reading some of these posts I want to clarify this. Since it seems like it is specific to abnormal cervical cells and serves no other purpose, and if I did have that type of cancer, they would investigate in other ways? Part of my problem is being able to communicate effectively and process info when it comes to my health so I’m just hoping someone can help me understand this because I’m not interested in sticking anything inside myself ever again. For background, I’m 30 and haven’t been sexually active in years which has largely damaged my relationship with my partner and body. I also don’t have periods because I take the pill continuously to avoid them because my periods are so painful and send me into a spiral. Is this something I should be pushing myself to “heal” and complete for medical necessity or is this as stupid as I always suspected it is and not important? Thanks in advance.

I don’t quite know whether or not this is the sub for this post, but I saw that you guys deal with sexual and medical related trauma here so I thought this was best and I’m desperate for someone else to tell me what this was. I don’t have anyone else to share this with if I’m overreacting.

I have to get ECGS done yearly as part of my health routine, so I’ve had many in my life and I know how they go and what to expect during them. I had my yearly this week and it went very differently and I can’t shake the gross feeling I have from it.

Usually, someone else comes in with me. I decided this time it would be fine to go in alone. The nurse asked what I wanted to do, gown, different shirt, or my regular clothes and I just panicked and said gown. She said to take my top and bra off and put the opening in the front. Okay. I did tie together the knots on the gown. I know they’ll usually just go under the gown to place the stickers. She did not do that. She undid the knots without asking or telling me what she was going to do and exposed my chest entirely for too long as she also touched my breast multiple times (which was NOT in the way of the sticker placements) to set it up. I don’t know if I’m just being sensitive from past experiences but I was basically frozen when she was doing this and couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I can just feel a phantom touch on my body since then and just a general grossness. I can’t tell anyone and have it be reported if it’s just nothing. But it’s never felt like that before.

I’ve been reading up and I know sometimes they need to move breast tissue with the back of their hand but NO ONE has ever done this to me before and like I said, usually I have someone accompanying me into the room. What was this? Am I overreacting? Why do I feel so bad about this? Am I just being triggered from past assault, and nothing malicious happened?

I went to the gyno for a routine check up this morning. I read on the website of my insurance company that in my country, after the first two pap smears that are done a year apart, if the results are good, it is recommended to do a pap smear every three years. I was mentally prepared for just an abdominal ultrasound and a talk about my cycle. But the doctor (whom i have never met before, my usual doctor didn't have appointments available until september) said that a pap smear is done every year. I'm not good at arguing with authorities so i consented. My usual doctor uses the pediatric speculum for my paps without issues, it usually only hurts a little. This doctor did use the pediatric speculum so i thought it would be okay. It wasn't. I don't know whether she was unnecessarily rough with the speculum or what, but it hurt a lot and i kept saying ouch, she readjusted the speculum and it hurt even more. I can't imagine how excruciating it would be with a standard speculum. It was very triggering because i have childhood gynecological trauma from painful procedures done with no pain relief. I took a bunch of benzodiazepines this morning so i stayed calm, but now i need to scream. I'm angry that i let her talk me into doing the pap smear and i'm angry that healthcare for people with vaginas is so invasive and barbaric. All the articles talking about pap smears being "noninvasive" and "painless" are lying. I didn't even register the cervix scraping because the speculum hurt so bad.

Update: i checked the website of the ministry of healthcare in my country and the website of my insurance company and both say that if the first two pap smears, which are done a year apart, are normal, then the next pap smear is three years after the second. So i was lied to by my gynecologist and also by an online gynecology helpline. I am furious. I will print those guidelines and bring them with me next time.

I’m trying to figure out if a phone call I just had with a male nurse trying to input a referral was him just being an idiot, or actually combative. This is just an example and obviously not what I was asking him, but the conversation was like this:

Me: could you pass me the red pen?
Him: the blue pen?
Me: the red pen
Him: the purple pen?
Me: red
Him: the green pen?
Me: . . . Red one
Him: yellow one?
Me: Red…
Him: . . . black?

Eventually he went “oh. Red.” Then hung up.

Of course the comments were full of women commenting and the doctor did NOT want to have that. It was over 1000+ comments of women asking about what pain management is given, sharing their traumatic experience with the procedure and basically saying how barbaric it is. Of course there was no response from said doctor and the video went poof. I can tell because my comment from Tiktok is grayed out which is a sign that you were either blocked or the whole vid was deleted. I’m not even surprised. Even on the internet, we as women can’t even bring up our concerns.

When I was a kid, maybe 7 years old, I went to the doctor because I probably had a uti. I remember my parents telling me I was gonna have to pee into a cup and that alone felt terrifying to me, so when this male doctor performs a pelvic exam on me I was shocked to say the least. I honestly can’t remember much from this experience but what I do remember is him shoving a q-tip into my urethra to gather a sample.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve just constructed this whole scenario in my head, it feels so incredibly unlikely for it to have actually happened. Idk that’s the whole post I guess, it’s crazy to be 25 years old and finally grasping the severity of this. Or is this common? Is this just the way to check for uti’s in young girls? It’s not like I can get access to my journal entries from almost 20 years ago, so I guess I’ll never know

I guess this is mostly a vent but also a personal experience. I am so fucking sick of this. I’ve had chronic pelvic pain since 2016. I started actively seeking medical attention in 2018. At my first appointment, they insisted I had an STD. I’d been with the same partner for years and neither of us had been unfaithful, but what do I know. Unsurprisingly, the tests came back negative.

Over the next several years, I received:

-Several more STD tests
-Several rounds of treatment for yeast infections I didn’t have
-A diagnosis of interstitial cystitis, despite none of the treatments or elimination diets helping my pain
-One ultrasound that only looked at my bladder
-A diagnosis of pudendal neuralgia
-Nerve blocks that did absolutely nothing
-Countless lectures that I just needed to go on birth control, change my diet, or relax

I did all the things they told me to do. I’ve had doctors, nurses, and techs tell me I shouldn’t be feeling the pain I was describing. I’ve had people imply I was exaggerating. I’ve been told that because they couldn’t find anything wrong, I must just have a low pain tolerance.

I actually have an extremely high pain tolerance and absolutely no desire to make a show out of being in pain. Hearing that repeatedly is incredibly invalidating.

I’ve cried so many times over this. Eventually I just accepted that I was always going to be in pain and maybe there wasn’t an explanation, I’m just supremely unlucky. Something must be wrong with me, or I was somehow doing something to cause this.

This year I got a new gynecologist. At my annual in July, I offhandedly mentioned the pelvic pain. I’d mostly given up trying to solve it about two years ago. She asked if I had ever been evaluated for endometriosis.

What do ya know, I sure fucking haven’t. She sent me for a transvaginal ultrasound. I have a 9 cm uterine fibroid. Nine fucking centimeters. Roughly the size of a small grapefruit. The phrase my gynecologist used was “a baby’s head.”

After YEARS of being told endless amounts of bullshit and essentially accepting that maybe I was just unusually sensitive to pain, there has been a massive fucking fibroid growing on my uterus. I’m relieved to finally have an answer. But I am so very, very fucking angry.

Surgery is scheduled for the end of this month. As part of the process, I needed an endometrial biopsy. I reached out the morning of the procedure specifically asking about pain management because my uterus is already extremely angry all the time. I’m in constant pain. At my annual, I could barely tolerate the speculum. I was told it would be fine and that I would experience “light cramping and spotting.”

The pain was so excruciating I almost passed out. Yes, the actual biopsy is brief. I understand not wanting to make a huge production out of a procedure that takes such a short amount of time. But holy fucking shit. I have never felt pain like that in my life.

I was uncontrollably yelling. I almost crushed every bone in my partner’s hand. It surpassed the pain of slipping a lumbar disc last summer. My reaction was so bad, the doctor said she would have to knock me out if they need another sample. All that after I had specifically asked about pain management beforehand.

I am so fucking sick of this.

I’m sick of having a uterus. I’m sick of being told what I’m feeling “shouldn’t” hurt. I’m sick of the assumption that if a doctor can’t immediately find the cause, the problem must be my perception of the pain rather than the possibility that they haven’t found the cause yet.

For years, I was made to feel like I was exaggerating pain that turned out to have a very real, very physical explanation. Even after finally finding it, when I told them I was worried that another uterine procedure would be extremely painful, I was dismissed again.

I am so fucking tired of having to prove myself.