hypergoomba:
words-writ-in-starlight:
spacebabenumber-25:
kaijuno:
kirawords:
timetotimeskip:
symphonicsadness:
celestial-cat-prince:
tikkunolamorgtfo:
proudly-pro-choice:
medievaldendrophile:
40yodater:
cobra-23:
40yodater:
cobra-23:
lesfemale:
leftiesneedrights:
lesfemale:
being a female means needing to see 10 different doctors to get a proper diagnosis because they always think you’re exaggerating and/or lying
define proper diagnosis. I mean, does that just mean the diagnosis you want?
no :) it means going to 10 different doctors who disbelieved your symptoms until the 11th found cysts on your ovaries :) which may mean infertility :) sit on a cactus :)
I call bullshit
Of course you do. Like the first 10 doctors. 😒
I call bullshit on the story. If you think you have an issue you should see a specialist not just your PCP.
Like the 4 “specialists” I saw for the crippling numbness in my face and legs I had for over a year while they told me it was “stress”? When it was finally found that I had scars on my brain and spine? Those “specialists” we’re male neurologist who wouldn’t give me an MRI because “women stress too much”. Go fuck yourself.
MY SPINE WAS BROKEN FOR 2 YEARS BECAUSE MY DOCTORS TOLD ME I JUST HAD BAD CRAMPS AND REFUSED TO TAKE XRAYS. FUCK YOU AND YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. WHEN WILL BOYS REALIZE THEIR EXPERIENCES ARENT STANDARD???? I ALSO LOVE THIS IDEA THAT YOU CAN JUST GO TO A SPECIALIST WHENEVER YOU WANT LOL IF OUR PCP DOESNT BELIEVE US WHEN WE TELL THEM OUR SYMPTOMS THEY ARENT GONNA REFER US TO A SPECIALIST YOU FUCKING MOLDY WALNUT
My parents began noticing something large in my throat, saw a specialist….Guess what? Told me to lose some weight..even though I wasn’t overweight. I would have my period for weeks at a time. Was told that it was teenage hormones and stress.
Two fucking years later I attempted suicide they ran a battery of tests as required and bam! They find out that I have untreated Hashimoto’s. The “thing” was a goiter. Possible symptoms of an untreated thyroid disease is the goiter, unexplained weight gain, and depression. All they had to do was test my blood, but they said young people don’t have thyroid problems. 😒
-Allie
Ten years ago, my mother—who is a pretty tough cookie—started feeling both ridiculously wired, anxious, and incredibly emotional. Every doctor she saw told her she was going through early menopause, even though she was still menstruating. Her health declined to point where she was barely sleeping, losing weight, and crying constantly, which was a huge red flag because my mother never cries. Finally, she went to see another doctor 2.5 hours away who referred her to an endocrinologist. And what did the endocrinologist say? He diagnosed her with one of the most advanced cases of Grave’s Disease he had even seen, and said if she had gone just a few more months without being treated, she could have FUCKING DIED.
Also, it turned out that her thyroid levels had been moving out of the normal range in a progressive pattern for years, but nobody bothered to look at her past test results until after the diagnosis. They would just do a test, see that it was “in the normal range” and leave it at that. She could have caught it before she even had symptoms, instead of basically being accused of having hysteria.
i had a brain aneurysm/hemorrhage ten years ago, doctors still tell me im faking my disability
BECAUSE YOU CAN TOTALLY FAKE LIMITED MOVEMENT OF THE LEFT SIDE
My sister had intercranial hypertension which was causing headaches, dizzy spells and loss of vision, and you know what the hospital told her? She was being a hysterical girl and making it up.
A few weeks later she spent roughly a month in hospital and had several lumbar punctures to relieve her RECORD HIGH spinal pressure that was causing so much strain on her brain and optic nerves she was being sent blind.
Everytime I see this post (and it’s been a good 5/6 times), it has different stories and experiences of women who have been horribly mistreated by doctors and it just blows my mind that this is so big. It’s absolutely disgusting how terribly women are treated in the medical world and something needs to be done about that.
my friend lea had back pain, then pain in her legs and feet, and then numbness. despite seeing 7 different doctors over 2 years, by the time they found the cancer it was inoperable. chemo and radiation didn’t work. the cancer spread. she died and left behind a 5 year old daughter.
A few years ago I would go through spells where I literally could not stand on my own and I couldn’t get out of bed. I would be freezing and too weak to eat. I would keep having heart palpitations as well. I got up the money to go to a clinic and they told me it was just stress and to basically just work on chilling out. I saved up money for a few weeks to do this and I pretty much get a “chill out” from them.
As time went on it got worse, most noticeably the heart palpitations were happening almost constantly. I went again to a different clinic and was told it was normal and that it was probably stress. They did no tests, and they told me it would “just go away”.
Two weeks later I ended up collapsing going down some stairs, and at the hospital it was discovered that I had such severe anemia that my heart could barely keep up with trying to get enough oxygen to my body. I had developed left ventricular hypertrophy (my heart muscle is too big) and because of them ignoring me and dismissing me I’m at a much higher risk of heart attacks and stroke now.
I went to the doctor with severe intermittent pain in my upper right stomach area that was so bad I had to miss school. Despite the fact that my period has been on a regular 3 month cycle for years, and I still had two months left until my period, my doctor told me it was period related cramps and or indigestion. 2 months later I’m in the hospital getting my gallbladder removed. It was so obstructed that there was gangrene developing my my system.
So…everyone who’s given me shit for that one post (about medicine and equal treatment and shit) can just read this because I’m sick of defending my case.
i know this post is already long but here’s a pretty good article about how gender bias in medicine is quite literally killing women. it focuses a lot on heart attacks but it applies to all areas of medicine
(Source: mcdyke, via lupinatic)
delirieuse:
smallercomfort:
words-writ-in-starlight:
fempunkandkittens:
officialaphnetherlands:
ancientnorthmartian:
“Doctors who spent years studying the human body”
Do you mean doctors who spent years learning about abled white cis men’s bodies
do you know anything about the world besides what you read on tumblr
Okay but this is true?? Shut up with your bullshit, the medical industry for a very very long time has used the able bodied white cis male as their standard and that has very real healthcare consequences for a lot of people.
Do you know why most women don’t know when they’re having heart attacks? Why heart attacks kill more women than men? Because symptoms of a heart attack are different for women and the ones that doctors usually recognize and publicize are the symptoms experienced by men. Do you know why it’s so difficult for Black and Brown people to get diagnosed if they have skin cancer? Because doctors have been taught to recognize it on white people. People of size are constantly told that their problems are entirely because of their weight and doctors don’t even bother to look beyond that to be sure that’s the case. So those people have medical conditions go undiagnosed properly for years, and die in the process. Fuck, even just the fact that people think it’s okay to charge women more for healthcare because “they have extra parts” (?????) is indicative of the way the male body has been considered the standard for fucking ever. And the healthcare needs of disabled people or trans people? Forget about it.
OP is 1000% right. The medical industry has used the able cis white male body as their standard of care for CENTURIES and that has real consequences for the rest of us today. It’s getting better but it’s not where it should be. So fuck off with your snarky commentary, you’re wrong. The healthcare industry is not equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, women, PoC, trans people, people of size, etc. and that’s in large part due to the fact that the established body of medical knowledge was created by studying able, cis, white male bodies almost exclusively.
Hey there folks, speaking as a trained EMT and a pre-med student, I can confirm that the above person is approximately 7000% accurate. In my EMT training, I would repeatedly ask ‘’but what if my patent is a woman” or “what is my patient is a person of color” and at first all I got was shock. Then I got confused bumbling. I got some answers–basic symptoms of a heart attack in women, how to recognize cyanosis in someone of color, the basics of how to work with an autistic patient or someone who for whatever reason can’t communicate well with you. In fact, EMTs and other EMS workers are getting a lot better at learning the differences between the health care for a person of color or someone disabled. We were even told that we would need to ask our patients for their biological sex (I know, I’m really sorry, I know that there are people who find this intensely uncomfortable or even harmful, but there are real medical reasons for this and most decent EMTs will use whatever pronouns you ask them to). But most if not all of the answers we were given about women were directly related to gynecological issues. The guys teaching me? They were good guys. Nice. Funny. Smart. Devoted to caring for patients. Impassioned about protecting people, especially women and teenaged girls, from assault. Largely not sexist toward me or their coworkers. Hell, they were even smart enough to say “listen, boys, the women in this class have a higher pain tolerance than you, they just do, and as a rule if a women says their pain is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, assume it’s somewhere around an 8” when a kid laughed during the gyno unit. But they just didn’t know what to say when I asked “so if you’re supposed to palpate the patient’s chest, what do you do if your patient’s a triple-D” or when I asked “so if your patient gets menstrual migraines, how do you know if this headache is a stroke or not.” They had never been taught. This is a real problem, one that many medical professionals work hard to remedy once they start practicing. But this is not bullshit. At all. The standard patient is a cis white guy with no disabilities or chronic illnesses. It’s a huge fucking problem and I’m going to need you to step down with your bullshit, there, friend.
This is an issue with mental health too, where people of color (black and Hispanic people especially) are less likely to be taken seriously with mental issues, and where community outreach for these groups is very very different from the kinds of programs that might be effective for white people.
Autism is rarely diagnosed in women because the symptoms doctors look for are all specific to men. Doctors used to blame depression and other mental illnesses in women on a misbehaving uterus, and it’s still a struggle for women to get their symptoms taken seriously enough to merit proper treatment.
Mental health for LGBT people has a long history of being an oppressive shitshow, given how long it took the medical community to stop pathologizing sexuality and gender identity. (Conversion therapy is still legal!)
As well as autism rarely being diagnosed in women, it’s also harder for a person of colour to be diagnosed, as it’s perceived as being a middle-class+ white man’s disease.
And! We didn’t know how large the clitoris was until THE NINETIES because no-one thought it was worth investigating. Thanks to a female researcher in Melbourne, Australia, we know that it’s roughly a wishbone shape, and has two ‘legs’ that extend down under the labia majora.
(I am proud of my memory as I read this in a book five years ago, but here’s a link. The researcher’s name is Helen O’Connell.)
(Source: archive48, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
dinascully:
fabulousworkinprogress:
lilystarlace:
homojabi:
Seriously though, the easiest way to piss off a rich person is to own something expensive as a poor person—they literally think that they’re the only people who deserve nice things and will argue that you deserve to starve and die for it.
Three times in my life, my mom has saved up for 6-13 months to make big purchases for me.
The first, once she heard about the ps3 coming out, she starting saving. By the time my birthday rolled around, almost a year after it came out, she had bought it for me. The second time, she bought me a flat screen 30" tv from a pawn shop as a graduation gift. She wanted me to be able to comfortably see the tv/play the game she got me while I was away for school instead of using our tiny tube tv. The third time is the most recent; she asked my brother to take her to the Air Force base and use her card to buy a ps4 for me so that they could use his military discount. It was my christmas present just after the system came out.
I’ve had people from high school til now tell me that if I wanted to live or have money I’d sell all of my belongings. To wealthy people, poor people should look poor at all times. They should have bare studio apartments with blankets for a bed and wear rags and walk everywhere they go. I’m sure they’d prefer it if we didn’t have shoes too. Goodness forbid we do anything nice for ourselves or someone gives us a gift that we don’t immediately go sell. It’s infuriating and depressing all at once.
Shout out to everyone who has ever had this problem. Seriously. This just in, poor people can have nice things, we just tend to have them more rarely and without disposing of them until we absolutely have to. That luxury car is a hand-me-down, the Calvin Klein shirt is from a bin sale at Sam’s Club, and that TV was something we could only get in a tiny window of sales after Christmas, with money that had been given to us for the purpose of selecting a gift.
This shit happens fucking constantly.
God this is important and it’s also worth pointing out that THINGS…. are often affordable. phones are affordable at a discount with various plans from providers, electronics are on sale all the time, a ONE TIME purchase is often affordable.
what isn’t affordable: the rising costs of rent, the rising costs of food, car payments and car-fixing expenses if you can only afford to buy a cheap used car in the first place, a wardrobe nice enough to wear to a job interview and to the office every day after that, medical procedures and medicine if you live in the states and don’t have amazing insurance.
THINGS are often affordable. LIVING is barely affordable.
and by the way, having a smartphone and a computer is not even a luxury these days. you pretty much HAVE to have those for work/school/communication these days. they are basic necessities for anyone trying to get out of poverty.
OOOH THAT LAST ONE. YES.
Things are often doable. It’s the things that have to happen for life that cause issues. Do you know how much food costs? Rent? Utilities? Medical care? Wow, I am so angry, I’m gonna go fight everybody ever.
(via academicfeminist)
serenataimmortalevis:
sassyandpunk:
ireallyluvdogs:
witwitch:
lachatteestvivante:
just-shower-thoughts:
In the USA, it’s 100x cheaper to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance.
I don’t know if this is true or..
Like, having to pay for an ambulance that is taking you to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of distopian world is that?
It costs thousands of dollars to ride in an ambulance
In America some people with chronic health conditions like epilepsy literally have to wear medical IDs that say “don’t call an ambulance/911”. Some well-meaning person calling an ambulance for you will turn into a thousand (or couple thousand) dollars that YOU are on the hook for, even though you didn’t make the call. So, PSA: if you see someone having a seizure, look for a medical ID! You should only call an ambulance if: the person is elderly, pregnant, or the seizure lasts more than 4 minutes. Otherwise, wait for the seizure to pass, then ask the person if they want an ambulance when they regain consciousness.
wtf
However, just CALLING an ambulance is free.
If you’re in a situation where the severity of a situation is unknown, uncertain, or difficult to discern, it won’t cost anybody anything to call a paramedic and have them check.
YES THANK YOU. I know this is like the third time I’ve reblogged this, but this is pertinent: riding in an ambulance can cost you an arm and a leg, but calling an ambulance is free and you always have the right to send them packing without you inside.
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
lifeguardinthesharktank:
charlie-xavier-or-professor-x:
murphystopheles:
sassyandpunk:
ireallyluvdogs:
witwitch:
lachatteestvivante:
just-shower-thoughts:
In the USA, it’s 100x cheaper to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance.
I don’t know if this is true or..
Like, having to pay for an ambulance that is taking you to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of distopian world is that?
It costs thousands of dollars to ride in an ambulance
In America some people with chronic health conditions like epilepsy literally have to wear medical IDs that say “don’t call an ambulance/911”. Some well-meaning person calling an ambulance for you will turn into a thousand (or couple thousand) dollars that YOU are on the hook for, even though you didn’t make the call. So, PSA: if you see someone having a seizure, look for a medical ID! You should only call an ambulance if: the person is elderly, pregnant, or the seizure lasts more than 4 minutes. Otherwise, wait for the seizure to pass, then ask the person if they want an ambulance when they regain consciousness.
wtf
And people are against health care reform.
Hell I’m gonna just call an uber now whenever shit hits the fan
It depends where you are and if your ambulance agency is public or private. My fire department which runs EMS doesn’t charge the individual for rides. It’s funded by the tax payers of my town. 95% of us are volunteers, myself included.
I remember working a job on my FD ambulance with a patient freaking out because she needed to go to the ER and didn’t have the money to pay for the ambulance ride. One of the medics assured her that we don’t charge, we’re a service to the community. Just like you don’t have to pay for firemen to come put out a fire.
Now we also have private ambulances which mostly do non-emergent medical transports between facilities. Hospital discharges to nursing homes and things like that. Those get pricy a few thousand per ride depending on the mileage. We have to get signatures from our patients basically giving our company permission to bill their insurance for the ride. The fucked up part is that a ride from the hospital to a nursing home less than one mile away racks up close to a grand.
TL:DR public ambulances don’t charge, they do it through taxes. Privates do because it’s all about money. FDs and Vollys do it because we love it and for the love of god please call an ambulance if your friend passes out from drinking too much because they are actively dying.
^^ Yes thanks, particularly that last bit. Better broke and alive than dead.
charlie-xavier-or-professor-x:
murphystopheles:
sassyandpunk:
ireallyluvdogs:
witwitch:
lachatteestvivante:
just-shower-thoughts:
In the USA, it’s 100x cheaper to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance.
I don’t know if this is true or..
Like, having to pay for an ambulance that is taking you to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of distopian world is that?
It costs thousands of dollars to ride in an ambulance
In America some people with chronic health conditions like epilepsy literally have to wear medical IDs that say “don’t call an ambulance/911”. Some well-meaning person calling an ambulance for you will turn into a thousand (or couple thousand) dollars that YOU are on the hook for, even though you didn’t make the call. So, PSA: if you see someone having a seizure, look for a medical ID! You should only call an ambulance if: the person is elderly, pregnant, or the seizure lasts more than 4 minutes. Otherwise, wait for the seizure to pass, then ask the person if they want an ambulance when they regain consciousness.
wtf
And people are against health care reform.
Hell I’m gonna just call an uber now whenever shit hits the fan
(via yea-lets-do-this-shit)
fandomsandfeminism:
a-little-bi-furious:
senpaimami:
reallyfuckinglame:
senpaimami:
just a friendly reminder that undocumented immigrants are allowed to donate organs but arent allowed to recieve transplants
they don’t pay taxes??? they’re not citizens??? why is this a negative post??? pay taxes and be a productive member of society and then you will have the operations and health benefits every other tax payer/citizen has???? like what???? I hate this website!!!!!
Oh, but we do pay taxes.
Oh, and we are productive members of society.
We only pick the food that you and every American fucking eats.
And even if they didn’t do all those things for American society, they have a right to life like every other citizen, it’s a truly revolting society that happily takes organ donations from a group of people it will not gilife-saving donated organs to based on some arbitrary system of human worth and “productivity”. People shouldn’t have to literally die because they are not “useful” to society, if we actually did follow that logic in society we’d be killing most of our rich for just coasting through life but you all know why we’re not targeting them.
Seriously. Even ignoring how inaccurate the idea that undocumented works “aren’t productive” and “don’t contribute” to society is.
How fucked up is it that there are people who think you need to “contribute enough to society” to be worthy of life saving medical procedures?
(Source: redsatinsheets, via academicfeminist)
c-maj:
“biological sex is a social construct” doesn’t mean “chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, and genitalia don’t exist”. it means “these exist, but assigning roles, labels, and expectations to certain combinations of these characteristics is a social construct, and an unnecessary and pointless (actually harmful) one at that”.
(Source: hypermxbile, via academicfeminist)
