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Trigger warning- This post will mention trauma PTSD medical neglect, medical gaslighting, medical misogyny and related topics. If these topics are triggering to you please use caution reading this.
My husband is traumatized by my lack of medical care. I don't know what I can do to fix this or help him process it. A few years ago he started to go to every medical appointment with me thinking that having a man in the room may force doctors to take me seriously.
This is a common thing by the way. Often women are encouraged to bring a man along to medical appointments.
Though the overt misogyny has decreased somewhat I am still never taken seriously. This has caused PTSD/anxiety symptoms in my husband regarding not only my care but his.
A few months ago he pulled a muscle pretty badly in his back. This is not the frst time he has done this. Everytime this happens he gets muscle relaxers and opioid pain medications -no questions asked. In contrast I am pretty sure 90% of my muscles are constantly "pulled" and spasming. I do not get treatment for this even with muscle knots the size of tennis balls.
He was so used to how I am treated by doctors, he was hesitant to seek treatment.
This happened over a weekend and he was in so much pain. I had to convince him to go to the ER. What he said broke my heart :
"I don't want to go because I have seen what happened when you went to the ER in and they left you sitting in your own vomit screaming in pain and they ignored you . They will just do that to me. You had a fucking collapsed lung and they sent you home saying you were fine"
He was terrified. I was heart broken by this. He is traumatized by my lack of medical care.
This is when I said "Honey you are a man. A white man. They always take you seriously. I have no reason to believe this time will be different."
He reluctantly had his father drive him to the hospital (it is not safe for me to drive because I faint when upright).
I was right. They immediately gave him opioids, muscle relaxers and anti inflammatories before doing an MRI. Within minutes he received medications for his symptoms. The MRI came back negative but he was still sent home with oxy and flexeril.
Compare that to me. I have multiple imaging tests showing damage and abnormalities. Multiple abnormal blood tests too.Doctors tell me everything is normal/no findings all the time when there are in fact loads of findings. I have elevated inflammatory markers for decades. Doctors will not even consider pain medication for me until I get a bunch of tests done. Remember I am 90% home/bedbound. My husband is not. He is physically able to get a bunch of tests but they never make him. He got an MRI because he was in the hospital. Doctors have never asked him to get one BEFORE treating his pain.
This is something that happens with him every year or so. His primary care doc, the same one I was seeing always gives him a week worth of pain meds no testing needed and no questions asked.
Compare that to me who has been seeking treatment for my ankle /calf issues for almost two years now. My shoes do not fit the swelling is so bad. I have been denied ultrasound/MRI imaging despite abnormalities on xrays showing damage. The only MRI I was offered was of the spine (L6)because I have nerve damage/slow reflexes (yeah no shit. Decades of untreated SFN and autoimmunity).
I also was not offered any pain meds to be able to make it into the imaging center to get the test done.I need imaging of the ankle and surrounding areas and can't waste my precious energy getting an MRI of the spine only for a connective tissue issue in my feet/ankles.
Ortho specialist denied my request for soft tissue imaging six months ago despite abnormalities on xrays showing bine damage. He was very rude about it and basically called me hysterical/over dramatic. Just for reference the swelling is super obvious and looks worse than when I had a severe sprain. Must be psychosomatic swelling!/ s
I can no longer walk as the issue is bilateral. Every step I take feels like walking on glass or a pile of legos. I hurt at rest. My calfs seize up all the time. I am in constant excruciating pain on top of my existing body-wide pain.
My pain is an 8+ on the scale. For reference I passed kidney stones without any pain medication and I consider that to be a 7/8 on the pain scale. I barely noticed it compared to my existing muscle/joint pain. I had no idea it was kidney stones as it only felt a little worse than my everyday pain until I started pissing out pebbles .My baseline day to day pain has been a 7+ for decades.
It is at the point now where I do not want my husband to attend doctor appointments anymore. It is traumatizing him to see me treated like this. I love him and I feel so bad this is affecting him in this way.
I am used to this abuse and I have experienced it my whole life. TBH this is how women are "treated' by doctors most of the time. Our pain and symptoms even when tests prove something is wrong is rarely taken seriously. This is like culture shock for him and I really don't know what to do.