5d ago

What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

549 comments

Excruciating period pain that would leave me fainting and vomiting every. Single. Time.
"Every girl goes through this" said the doctor, convincing my parents that I was just "dramatic".
Turns out I had huge polyps growing out of control! Left scarring in my uterus and high-risk when pregnant.
Dealt with that hell every fucking month since I was 11 until I got onto birth control in my 20s.
- My wife went through something similar. Took until she was in her 30s and we were pursuing IVF for someone to take her seriously and actually do the investigation to realize she had crazy scarring from endometriosis causing all kinds of issues.
  It's insane to me how much the modern medical community seems to normalize or straight up ignore this shit, like you said.
  I realize we could have pushed harder, but when multiple doctors tell you "yeah, some women just experience periods differently, here's 500mg Naproxen to help you through" you tend to believe it.
  
  My pop history theory is that it's a latent cultural memory of the Biblical tradition. Remember how Eve was cursed with the pain of childbirth after giving Adam the fruit? Western culture has a history of seeing women's pain as a result of this ancient curse. Now, I imagine few doctors today are explicitly thinking about the Garden of Eden when diagnosing patients, but the cultural memory remains, if greatly diluted and distorted.
  
  I'm so sorry. I hope that the two of you are doing well.
  It's an actual tragedy how women's health is dealt with. They get brushed off because "women have been giving birth for hundreds of thousands of years!", ignoring that it's the number one thing that kills women!! So our reproductive health and concerns are ignored while the ability to reproduce is put onto a pedestal.
  I fucking hate it.
  
  alot of doctors are jaded asf, even to the point of laughing you out of thier office. i think women are often ignored for symptoms of pain.
- Sucks when doctors just assume things, it can cost lives.
  
  It's barbaric. They assume that if you're girl/woman, most problems are basically "female hysteria"!
  Not even "it could be [blank], you might want to keep an eye on that and report back if it doesn't go away." Nope! Diagnosis: dramatic.
  And women die from this shit. Or become disabled / handicapped. Or it affects their long-term future if they want children. It's awful.
  
  Some people did a thing with a specially configured tens machine where the woman would turn it the levels up and up until it was at the level of their normal period pain and then the man would go through the same levels stages and be gasping and writhing before it got there.
  Turns out men have been massively underestimating period pain for centuries.
  That said, some women experienced far, far higher levels than normal and were encouraged to take that data to a non-dismissive healthcare professional.
  
  As a dude, I want to believe that it's less than it is because that's just wholly unreasonable that women have to put up with that.
  
  They're were a lot of men who insisted on immediate medical attention who got told that their partners had tried that and absolutely nothing would come of it.
- Poor you! It must have been terribly frustrating that the doctor wouldn't take you seriously. Seems to be a frequent thing women go through in the medical world. Hope you're okay now.
  
  Thank you.
  Birth control was my savior and actively allowed me enjoy life again. 💕
  
  Amazing! I wish it worked for my GF but that gave her (we found out very late), terrible side effects.
- Hey, I know this is random, but was the pain, like, in the lower abdomen and like... Not really a muscle cramp, but deeper?And did physical activty make it better or worse? Asking for a friend. 👀
  
  Pain was deep, ye. Can't answer the question about physical activity because it rendered me unable to do any! But, yes, exerting any kind of physical effort seemed to make it worse.
  I would lie on the cold bathroom floor every month with a heating pad / hot water bottle on my stomach, but it gave little relief through the simultaneous hot flashes and cold sweats.
  Two things that actually helped somewhat if I could catch it hours before it started were: eating bananas (I suspect potassium helped with cramping), and, weirdly.. drinking pickle juice. Idk what that was about, but it worked.
  But have "your friend" get checked for endometriosis and PCOS!!! That shit can actually escape your uterus and scar up / destroy your other organs!!! No joke!!!!
  
  She might just do that because your experience sounds very similar to her "stories." She also can't move when it happens and is left pretty hobbled until it passes, but moving makes it worse... So I've heard. 👀

549 comments