First Person: The medical system dismisses women’s concerns and so I fight

I felt like throwing up. Next came crying, relief, anxiety and fear. Sitting in the obstetrician and gynecologist’s examination room at age 17, I could feel my legs shaking. “There seems to be an issue,” said my doctor. Finally, after more than six years I was told that I wasn’t crazy, and I was not imagining things.

Growing up as a young woman I encountered difficulties with my reproductive system. I could always remember beating myself up saying in my head, “something’s wrong with you.” When talking with friends about the issue, they told me they did not have the same problems, and when I talked to my mother about the situation she didn’t understand.

According to the Office on Women’s Health, “Women’s health topics, including periods (menstruation), eating disorders, gender-based violence, and reproductive health conditions, often carry a stigma, and many do not feel comfortable talking about these important issues.”

Like so many women, I have found myself becoming both a patient and a researcher, piecing together answers from what I can find online, from others’ stories and from my own instincts.

I remember when I was around 14 years old, my face red as a tomato from crying, my body wildly shaking, and my mother trying to comfort me in the bathroom. “Maybe you’re just doing it wrong,” she said.

That day I realized even my own mother couldn’t help me; she could not understand what I was going through.

After that, I ignored the problem for six years. Until my mother suggested going to see an OB-GYN.

Nothing could have prepared me for the examination. You have a total stranger looking at the most intimate parts of your body and you are left completely vulnerable.

I’m in a small medical room with blue walls, lying down on the gynecological examination table. I’m tense, extremely tense. I can feel every muscle in my body tightening more when the OB-GYN examines me between my legs with her surgical tools.

“Ah!” I yelled out. My OB-GYN looked at me with worry in her eyes. “Does that hurt?” she asked me. I nodded my head trying to get my legs to stop shaking and forcing the tears in the corners of my eyes not to fall.

The OB-GYN finally stopped and looked at me. “There seems to be an issue,” she said. To most people that statement may make them feel petrified, for me it brought tears of relief.

Once the examination was over my OB-GYN explained the issue to my mother and I. There was something wrong, but it was never my fault. It was something I was born with, and I would need surgery to fix the issue.

I had the surgery. However, when my OB-GYN retired I found it difficult to find a doctor who could understand the trauma I was still facing. Often, my concerns would be dismissed, or I would be looked down upon like a wounded animal.

Thirty-year-old, Iman Abdulmoneim a programmer officer for Fulbright Canada, knows the feeling. “Recently I was going through something, and I thought it had to be medical, and the first time I brought it up even with work colleagues or doctors, they just brushed it off,” she said.

“They were like, oh you are just feeling hormonal, or you’re feeling emotional, or you’re stressed out, just try and change your life, they kept saying these weird things.”

Michelle Edmond, a 61-year-old retired educator, agrees. She knows the challenges of trying to be taken seriously, saying how many doctors still dismiss her physical concerns as merely psychological issues.

“It makes you feel like as if you are making stuff up in your head,” said Edmond.

Edmond says that when she would go back to the doctor with the same issue the doctor wouldn’t even acknowledge her problems.

After my surgery I thought everything was over and done with. With my OB-GYN retiring and having a new OB-GYN, I am still experiencing complications with my reproductive system today and I find myself having to do my own research online to find possible solutions.

Abdulmoneim says she has also gotten inaccurate diagnosis from doctors which has led her to doing her own research on her medical conditions.

“I did my research and I acted upon it, I showed her what I found, and we went through the steps, and she was a bit in shock, but it ended up that she believed in me,” said Abdulmoneim.

Pew Research Centre says, women are more likely than men to go online to figure out a possible diagnosis.

This journey of advocating for my own health might never fully end. Despite the relief of finally being validated, the road ahead still feels unsteady.

Edmond, Abdulmoneim, and countless others share similar battles, navigating a medical system that often shrinks women’s concerns to mere “hormonal” complaints.

We’re left searching for answers, not just for the sake of relief, but for our peace of mind. We know our pain and concerns are real, and that we’re not, and never were, “crazy.”

Maybe things are changing. Maybe more women speaking up will shift this tide of disbelief. But until then, I’ll keep speaking and keep searching.