
I have vulvodynia – but countless gynaecologists dismissed my agony (2017) - rookwood102
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/gynaecologists-pain-women-vulvodynia-misdiagnoses
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PaulHoule
It's a mistake to consider this a feminist issue.

Men with chronic pain will show up at a doctor and see the doctor scribble "N.
A. D." (No Apparent Distress) even though they are going to the doc because
they are distressed.

People with back pain, neck pain, etc. lose many years of their life to
lacking, ineffectual, or harmful (surgery and opioid) treatments. That's why
most men suffer through it and sometimes the first that most of the people who
"know them" find out about it is after the suicide.

That is, women are not oppressed relative to men, they just expect more.
(Maybe they should and men should too...)

~~~
Not_a_pizza
There really are too many "I know you better than you do" doctors out there.
There should be a consumer panel that rates doctors according to their efforts
towards a successful treatment.

~~~
PaulHoule
It is not just that, it is also that there are not reproducible methods for
helping people with chronic pain.

The lady who wrote the article had a lot of resentment about the suggestion
that her problems were at least partially psychological and insisted that they
were completely physical.

You will hear that from every fibro, and it is real that there is something
not right about their body, but also there is something not right in their
head, they are clearly depressed, have given up on life, etc. Chronic pain is
always both physical and mental.

For me chronic pain has been associated with trouble at work. I had a time
when I was unemployed and in agony and I got a job and felt better right away.
When I have been in places where the story doesn't make sense, I feel it in my
back and shoulders.

So far as consumer panels, unfortunately health care practitioners would get
voted up for being easy to prescribe controlled substances, not making
patients confront people whose race they don't like, etc...

