When a person—especially an adult, and especially a woman—says they feel pain or have symptoms that doctors cannot easily explain, it’s a terrible position to be in. Society’s default explanation appears to be that they’re “faking” for attention or pain meds, which adds mental distress and self-doubt to the physical pain.
I know there are scammers out there, but there’s also a lot about the human body and the environment it exists in that medicine has yet to discover/accurately pinpoint. People who are medical “zebras” and not horses deserve compassion.
(Sincerely, OK Seriously Why The Heck Are My Eyelids Randomly Swelling Up?)
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Empathy, sure. Even the ones that are genuinely malingering, because that’s not a fun way to cope with life.
I agree, also to a lesser extent same thing applies to medical distress thats explainable but by rare conditions that doctors dont typically know about.
The problem is that there is no way to actually measure pain. It’s a completely subjective experience. I wish there was an instrument that could measure pain and instantly show whether someone suffers or not, that would be revolutionary…
I was misdiagnosed when I was a teenager. I went to the doctor for over two years with severe headaches and dizziness…long story short, they told me I had depression. Nope, baseball sized brain tumor.
Nah. I don’t have a lot of patience for malingerers
I absolutely agree with you on all points (being a zebra myself) except I am curious why you think women deserve greater or special sympathy? Also why are we not paying as much attention to the pain of children? To me, this is a basic human thing for all people.
Mental health professional here, I work in liaison psychiatry for over a decade now . Somatoform Disorders and related illnesses have actually made me understand human suffering so much more. So many people unconsciously express distress through physical symptoms. Distress is subjective, first world and third world have equal individual stress. Where I work, wife-beating is not rare. Extended family and law enforcement will not help the abused housewife with 4 young kids. Is it surprising that all her joints ache everyday, she is exhausted all day at home and she cannot sleep?
My husband has an incredibly rare health condition called “Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome”. The symptoms almost exactly mimic “greensick” (too much pot) with one MAJOR exception. Weed HELPS him get better it doesn’t make him sicker.
My husband has “technically” never been officially diagnosed by a doctor but after he nearly died from kidney failure I knew I’d have to do it myself. It took me a long time, like 6 months of deep research, taking symptoms and finding what fit where. He now has an official diagnosis because I told all of his doctors what he has and it’s down now. But for almost a decade my husband was in extreme distress every day and all anyone would say is that he’s greensick or constipated.
I’ve been having heart issues for 2 years now.
I got kicked out of the ER 5 times when my issues first started because they thought I was on drugs. My drug test came back negative but they blamed it on some other drug that doesn’t show up on the test. I also asked for saline to help my heart rate and they said, “That’s weird that a drug addict is asking for saline.”
My doctor still doesn’t know what’s causing my issues. My EKG’s and ECHO’s have came back negative while my 3 holter monitors show that I have PVC, palpitations, and arrhythmia with other heart issues. He’s blaming it on stress and anxiety.
>and especially a woman
…some are more equal than others.
>When a person—especially an adult, and especially a woman—says they feel pain or have symptoms that doctors cannot easily explain, it’s a terrible position to be in.
This ain’t it.
I know in other replies you’re drastically re-wording it with “they’re more likely to be fobbed off” but that doesn’t really justify the commentary pasted above.
Feels just as terrible when it’s a guy. No individual has it worse just because it happens to their sex more often. It happens to both plenty, and it always sucks. Frequency of it happening across the sexes doesn’t really change the impact to the individual.
Here, look at it this way:
>When a person—especially an adult, and especially a woman—breaks a bone in their leg, it’s a terrible position to be in.
That doesn’t make sense, even if more women were to break the same bone, that has no bearing on how much the situation sucks.
Doesn’t really matter to the individual, it’s the same shitty position, the same problem.
It’s bad when either sex gets ignored or written up as as someone over-inflating their suffering.
Can’t that be the general rule without overlapping other social causes?
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I think this is not really an unpopular opinion.
I’m not trying to be some “not all men” guy…but why in the world did you specify that women with inexplicable pain deserve more sympathy?
This is the opposite of an unpopular opinion. It is a very common one, at least from what I can tell. Also, hard agree. Medical professionals should never assume that someone is faking something.
I’ve had a male friend tell me once that migraines are “hysterical bullshit. It’s just a headache.” I was quite annoyed by this, and I made it very clear that my extreme nausea and visual disturbances are very real, and not “just a headache.” He seemed to accept it, but deep down I knew I didn’t sway his opinion. Dick.
I agree cause those things sucks.
Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating. I have recently been diagnosed with epilepsy but had my first full blown seizure in front of a doctor at an ER. When I came out of it he asked me “what was that, why did you do that” and I was so confused. I was in the ER for a month and a half long migraine, not for seizures. Because they didn’t take me seriously, I went another year without medication and it devolved into worse attacks and now I’m maxing out several medications to try to get it under control.
Malingering is real, psychosomatic causes are real; that the idea of putting special status on a woman’s inexplicable distress is a grab at “girls are special because they are girls” bullshit. Nobody is special. People need to learn how their brains work.
People with mysterious ailments that just get misdiagnosed do exist for sure. The rare stuff usually takes getting to a specialist to get diagnosed.
But you can always spot the fakers because a) they never actually go to the doctor or b) they go to a string of them over time and nothing is ever wrong, nothing on panels, etc. And they’ll blame it on male doctors until females also find nothing wrong.
If something is actually wrong, some doctor will eventually find it, even if it takes a long time.
Given the rates of all the mysterious illnesses people swear they have, most people are in fact intensely neurotic (and that’s it), lazy, or both. Even for shit that gets misdiagnosed at a higher rate like PCOS, endo, etc – these are still quite rare.
Not unpopular. Most people think if they get sick, they go to the doctor or hospital and they get a diagnosis and medication to get better.
That’s not how it works for many people, we are permanently unwell, no cure, fought for years to get a diagnosis, were gaslit, spent a fortune and have to live life permanently unwell, often with zero support network and trying to keep a job to pay the bills.
As someone with autonomic dysfunction and mast cell activation syndrome, life is very very difficult and there’s no support. Many days I feel so unwell that I should go to hospital, but hospital does nothing.
My mom likely has fibromialgia, but the doctors won’t diagnose her because “she’s just seeking for a doctors note to stay home.” They will describe her opiods tho. 🙂 she wants to work and she doesn’t want opiods. At this point she just wants a doctor to look her in the eye and admit she’s sick, that she’s suffering and that they can’t do much. Every doctor just sends her for the same battery of tests, which does nothing and doesn’t provide any answers.
I’ve had unexplainable nausea for the past 3 years, I’m now at the point I can no longer work and just now my doctors are starting the run the tests I’ve been asking for.
I also have a friend who ended up in the ER last year with massive chest pain. Not her first experience with pain either. EKG came back normal so they accused her of drug seeking. She refused to leave and requested a pain doctor. Guess what? Fibromyalgia!
Eh… A lot of people who have “unexplained” illnesses look like they have explainable illness.
I usually wait until im literally almost at deaths door then go.
Had chest pain, it was anti phosphoantilipid syndrome ( before COVID) if I had waited the double pe would have probably killed me.
Sepsis 2 years ago, chest pain again. Waited in the e.r. Was told my blood panels were clear it wasn’t a clot. Got sent home, went back 4 hours later after not sleeping. Waited another 11 hours, threw up, did a CT scan…Ooo packed full of gallstones.
thank you🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
In my personal experience, it’s always the insecure or entitled people who constantly try to make a point that other people are “faking” conditions or don’t know how to handle “true pain.”
My mom was told she was depressed for years. Then it was she needed to lose weight. At 50 she was officially diagnosed with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. She almost died. It’s extremely frustrating
Healthcare workers are genuinely sadistic pigs with a fetish for abusing and slaughtering women. They can’t do the most straightforward things within the jobs they signed up for and really don’t have any credibility.
I think women just react physically
to men’s bad behavior.
Unfortunately, there are lot of fakers on the world who just like the attention or who don’t want to work that ruin it for people who are being genuine.