How a woman's pain is ignored by doctors
Ovarian cysts hurt more than broken bones and I am proof
Yesterday, I had a small ovarian cyst burst, when I was *ahem* in the throes of orgasm, and it was comparable to the pain I’ve felt breaking all my fucking bones in a motorcycle accident. After this, I called my friend with endometriosis with a need to reassure her of how much pain she must be feeling. We’ve talked in length about how endometriosis is an immense source of suffering for her body, but what’s even worse is the way her symptoms have been routinely dismissed by medical doctors.
I was a witness from beginning to end, all the while encouraging her to never give up, during the years it took for her to be believed enough to get a diagnosis.
When she did finally get her results, it was a bitter vindication. We talked on the phone and aired our grievances about the relief of a diagnosis being overshadowed by the lack of treatment available. At least now she had the most important thing you can when you enter a hospital for pain: a document of proof. It wasn’t a guarantee she’d be taken seriously, but maybe it would help.
When men get punched in the balls, the pain knocks them onto the ground, they can’t breath, their faces contort like the world is ending, and sometimes they vomit from the pain. Surely, this is an evolutionary necessity. Pain is a sense, which alerts you to a bodily issue, and is valuable like vision or hearing. As a species, no longer being able to reproduce would be a serious issue. Our sexual organs are sensitive. The greater the physical threat, the greater the pain. When something like endometriosis “punches” the ovaries, which contains the eggs humans need to procreate, it’s going to hurt so much as to be life-threatening.
Imagine if 10% of men’s testicles often grew cystic lesions which made them keel over in pain, like being kicked in the nuts repeatedly I suppose, or like when your hip-bone snaps in half like mine did. Can you imagine a world where the man goes to the hospital sweating from the pain in his gonads, and they tell him he just really has to pee, or something stupid like that? (A version of this scenario truly happened to a woman.) It drives me nuts, no pun intended, because when I imagine this scenario of a man being disbelieved in such a dramatically undignified way, I can’t fathom it. Not even a little bit. And it makes the disbelief of endometriosis pain that much more enraging to me. The excuses I’ve heard and read online given by medical professionals for what the source of a woman’s pain might be are stunning.
Imagine if a man went to the hospital with a complaint of testicle pain and he was told to lose weight?
An important note: one might assume it’s strictly men doctors who are providing asinine excuses for a patient’s pain, but it absolutely isn’t. The times myself and my friend were most often doubted were by other woman doctors or health specialists. I’d say pain ignorance is equal between both men and women, and women are some of our worst offenders. This speaks to blatant systemic shortcomings within the medical field at large and especially in medical education.
Ever since the accident, I’ve thought a lot about the importance of pain. I’ve come to think we have more sensitivity in the places a human needs to protect, to increase our chances of survival. Like when you stub your toe and you think you might die. Perhaps evolution said: ideally, you’d be careful not to put those feet in danger! How else will you walk across the continent for food my dear nomad? Unsurprisingly, we’ve ended up with over 200,000 nerve endings in our feet, which at any moment will make contact with a lego on the floor and send you howling.
Does this help you imagine how sensitive other body parts might be?
Frida Kahlo is an obvious reference for me to bring up. I think she’s one of the few women artists who’s physical pain is widely seen as a source of genius or wisdom for her art.
I believe our culture reveres Frida Kahlo because, like me, the reason for her pain isn’t gendered. It’s an easily recognizable set of X-rays on the board. A skeleton with breaks and cracks. Any medical person can point to the X-ray and say, I believe you, here’s proof of your pain. You must be suffering. Whenever I’ve called the advice nurse for immediate care, they’ve never hesitated to help me. They pull up my file on their computers and over the phone I hear them gasp with sympathy as they read my long list of injuries. Who’s gasping when you tell them you have period pain?
I looked up Frida Kahlo’s X-rays the other day, I had a sick desire to compare hers to mine. Sometimes, I still doubt my pain and disability, and I thought seeing hers would reassure me. The world values her pain. The world supports her art. Kahlo’s X-rays are truly disastrous, especially during a time where medical intervention wasn't quite as advanced as it is today. I wondered if the surgery on Frida Kahlo’s pelvis in any way helped improve the surgery on mine 90 years later.
The photos didn’t sooth me, they only made me think, well, my pelvis looks similar, but my spine could’ve been way more broken. If it was, maybe the MRI technicians would’ve treated me better.
The fact is this: pain is gendered, racialized, and classified, as in, the poorer you are the more overdramatic or drug-seeking you may seem. And when your pain is invisible, these biases become glaringly obvious.
Almost every time my pain was disbelieved or misconstrued by health specialists was when it was invisible. Invisible pain is gendered. A woman’s invisible pain suddenly looks different in the mind’s eye of the beholder. Possibly the most common shape it takes is insanity, anxiety, or nervousness. I love that people are so willing to accept a woman’s insanity but then attempt to treat her as though there’s no cause for it.
Women are always trying to prove their pain by comparing it to pain our culture already accepts, like I’ve done above with men’s testicles. Lately, it’s become more commonly accepted in media outlets that monthly period pain for many people can be equated to a heart attack, and we know this now “according to science.” (Business Insider.) All I can say to that is, well, no shit, Sherlock.
I may be the perfect measurement for somebody to calculate ovarian pain. I have the proof, the X-rays of fractures and crushed bone. So, when I say one hurts like the other, I hope you feel the significance behind it.
Below I’ve made a new system of measurement for our culture, because I’ve had both of these things. And I mean this literally:
A single ovarian cyst burst = 5 broken bones.
Can you imagine how painful endometriosis must feel?
Thank you for writing this! I like to think women's pain is dismissed across the board because once it is taken seriously in one measure the dam of invisibility society projects on us will break and we will FINALLY be seen as deserving of ease in many forms - domestic violence, maternity leave/child care, general healthcare, the steel boot of patriarchy etc. - A tipping point is coming.
I wish you an ease filled recovery.
Jesus, that must be horrendous! As a fellow sufferer with period pain, I can't tell you how "seen" this post made me feel. I need pills every month just to be able to get out of bed and even then it feels like my body is on auto pilot.