Women's Pain Often Ignored in Medicine

I was on a Zoom call recently with a woman who knew she couldn’t afford coaching with me but I believe, just needed some support and more importantly, validation. During our chat, she mentioned that during one frustrating appointment with a doctor, he said the words heard and dreaded by women in the menopausal transition the world over. He said, she just had to deal with her hot flashes. Anyone beating their head against the nearest table out of frustration for her?

With all of the resources we have research for out there to support women during and throughout the entirety of the menopause transition, we still have medical practitioners telling women to, “just deal with,” or to “get over it,” or “that’s just the way it is.”

I’m here to tell you dear readers (who doesn’t love Bridgerton?), that you do not, in fact, have to, “just deal with it.”

Another woman reached out to tell me that she was in, “hormone hell,” that she was having some pretty debilitating symptoms. When I asked if her doctor would order a hormone panel, she said, “He won’t.” All I could do was shake my head, sigh, and then message her back with some options in the meantime to manage her symptoms.

I don’t want to bash the medical community because I have family and friends working their butts off inside that community, but when it comes to women’s health, historically, we have been failed. A blog post written for Harvard Health Publishing, cited several studies where women are more likely to be prescribed sedatives instead of painkillers which is infuriating since a 3-year study of 11,000 women revealed that women feel pain at a 20% higher intensity than men. Additionally, most disease studies have been done on men’s physiology and then applied to the physiology of women, thus again, leaving us misunderstood and often misdiagnosed, if even treated properly at all.

Back to how this applies to us gals over 40. There are not enough allopathic doctors educated in women’s health. So unfortunately, often we will need to look elsewhere. We do have options with highly qualified and licensed practitioners, including:

• Women’s health nurse practitioners

• Functional medicine doctors

• Certified Nurse Midwives

• Women’s health acupuncture doctors

• Naturopathic doctors

Additionally, there are more and more women’s health/menopause tele-health companies popping up to fill this gap in quality care, like Everlywell, Midi, and ByWinona.

However, if you find that you would prefer to use a more traditional medical approach, here is what the Cleveland Clinic recommends that you take with you into your appointment:

• A symptoms journal (what, where, when, time of your symptoms)

• Be CLEAR about your FAMILY history with regards to women’s health

• Be CLEAR about your OWN medical history

• Be CLEAR about any concerns you are having like effect on family and quality of life

I do understand that this will bring with it complications and difficulties with insurance, budget, scheduling, getting an appointment and so on.

My goal with this post is to validate you and to educate you a bit on options outside of our primary care doctors that might work better for your time and budget.

This journey can be very difficult but remember:

You’re not alone,

And as always,

There’s no shame in menopause.