Women with autoimmune conditions are up to 74% more likely than men to be told their symptoms are psychological or psychosomatic, and face much longer waits for a diagnosis and treatment, a study suggests.
Hundreds of millions of people – about one in 10 globally – are affected by autoimmune conditions, which can cause a range of health issues including fatigue, muscle pain and rashes.
But research by the University of Cambridge and University of East Anglia suggests a stark gender divide when it comes to how signs of the conditions are handled by doctors.
Women are more likely to have their conditions wrongly attributed to psychiatric causes, more likely to have symptoms misdiagnosed as psychosomatic, and more likely to experience delays in getting a diagnosis, according to the study.
The lead author, Melanie Sloan, said: “The damage caused to women by these types of misdiagnosis can be very long lasting in terms of trusting doctors and their own self-esteem.”
Sloan, a researcher in the department of public health and primary care at Cambridge and UEA, said some women were forced to wait years before finally getting a diagnosis, causing long delays to treatment for their condition.
Took 3 years and about 8 different doctors before I was believed and diagnosed. I still struggle to trust any doctors.
Guh I’m sorry :( similar boat, handful of diagnoses that took years and a handful more mystery problems that I’m too tired of the soul-crusher-mill and poor to bother with at this point.
Every appointment even with a PCP is stressful because of it. Hopefully you’ve enough treatment for your stuff to manage better now, at least /gen /pos
Solidarity <3 I’m sorry it took so long for you, too.
I’m a big proponent of medical marijuana now! It quite literally saved my life and has reduced my need for doctor’s visits quite a lot. I hope you’ve found something/someone that has helped for your diagnoses (or will find it very soon!).
Same, if not longer. Tbf, though, they are hamstrung from doing a lot of testing by our shitty system.
Doctors also don’t believe women as readily as they do men, so they don’t send for tests as quickly in our cases.
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a similar struggle <3
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Gonna tell more little girls it’s their fault that doctors dismiss them? Please, be sure to tell each and every little girl who is scared of what’s happening to her body that it’s all her fault that doctors don’t want to believe her and just call her a whore.
Fucking coward.
How many times are you going to attack me? You’ve been banned from communities for harassing me already.
deleted by creator
I’ll need some context please, how does Velma treat people badly?
deleted by creator
I’ve seen them call a person a p*do defender because of a different opinion on what the proper maximum age difference between two consenting adults was.
Someone defending an underage person being taking advantage of by someone much older (in this case, it was Steven Tyler who raped a minor after their parents signed over custody to him) is a pedo defender. Steven Tyler was raping that girl who is now suing him for the rape.
Steven Tyler is headed to trial after child sexual assault claims
A woman has filed a lawsuit accusing Steven Tyler, the frontman of the rock band Aerosmith, of sexually abusing her in the 1970s when she was a teenager and he was in his 20s.
Julia Misley, now 65, says in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court that Tyler used his rock star status and power to “groom, manipulate, exploit, sexually assault” her over the course of three years. She is seeking an unspecified amount of monetary compensation.
Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcomb, has for years spoken openly about how she says Tyler treated her when she was a teen. She said she was encouraged to take legal action by a California state law that temporarily expanded the ages at which adults could file civil suits over sexual assault they experienced as minors.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Not Removed
Might be a federation issue. Sometimes deletions can lag between instances.
?
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
A scared 14 year old girl is the reason doctors dismissed and mis-diagnosed her for years?
You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Tbh, women are more likely to be told all kinds of issues are psychological, especially that the issues come from anxiety. I’ve gained a distrust towards doctors myself, even sent a complaint the other day.
even sent a complaint the other day.
Good for you for speaking up.
As someone avoidant of doctors, I just want to say thank you for reporting the bad ones. I wish I had the courage to face them in order to report them.
I believe this is the foundation of the anti-vax and holistic movements. It makes sense to me it started with mothers who distrust doctors due to doctors dismissing their concerns about themselves and talking down to them for their entire adult lives. About every ten years some major study reveals the problem yet again but nothing is ever done about it.
I didn’t even bother getting mine diagnosed because I have severe trauma around not being believed medically and it just isn’t worth it. Not like they’d help a woman even if they believed her.
Honestly, I’m a man and I feel like I get brushed off for fucking everything. I had a chronic issue which turned out to be appendicitis. It got diagnosed as acid reflux and I lived with it for 2 more years before it became a medical fucking emergency and I almost died. I’ve had an ear issue that I’ve seen 2 ents and multiple doctors about. Supposedly, I’m fine. I’m sure we’re going to wait til that boils over into something worse. I’m thinking some cunt put I was psychosomatic when I was trying to get the appendix thing figured out, and now they all see it in my charts and act like I’m a hypochondriac when I have some real shit that needs to be handled. It’s very annoying.
Just failure all around. We pay out the ass for this kind of care.
Aren’t most auto immune diseases psychological for all genders?
In most cases it’s related to mental stress afaict
No, they are physical conditions. It’s the body’s immune system attacking its own healthy tissue.
Yes, but almost always that is coincident with stress.
Stress exacerbates the issue, but it is not a psychological disorder. It’s a biological and physical condition.
Almost everyone in my family has autoimmune diseases (lupus is very common) and the men almost all have hair loss except me.
I think smoking weed, eating vegan, and living a much lower stress life (eg no children) is one of the reasons I don’t have one. Genetically I probably should have one.
Obviously low sample size, etc
Im the first one to be diagnosed in my family and its rare enough that I won’t say it online, but I think my grandmother suffered from something similar.
Weed changed my entire life - went from flare ups every other month to maaaaybe once a year. Stress management as well, though I went ahead and threw a child into the mix which is the last thing one should do to lower stress hahaha.
I really focus on working to live instead of living to work and that helps a lot, too.
I hope your low stress choices continue to be good for you!! I can’t imagine those are bad choices whether you have an predisposition to an autoimmune disease or not.
