Good article, written by Amy Stenehjem, M.D.
I'm a Doctor With Chronic Illness. Here Are 12 Th... - PMRGCAuk
I'm a Doctor With Chronic Illness. Here Are 12 Things I Wish People Knew
48 Replies
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DorsetLadyPMRGCAuk volunteer
Should be compulsory reading for all doctors!
Thanks Melissa - one of the best / most informed articles I've read and absolutely relevant to our types of illness. One especially relevant quote: "Chronic illness itself can change the biochemical makeup of the mood control center in the brain" says it all...
I thoroughly recommend this article 
She has said it all! Thank you so much for posting this link.
Thanks for the link, can relate to this especially the frustration with....well all of it really. Can’t even rant these days just can’t be a...d but thankfully can still laugh. 🤬😂
Brilliant article ty for posting the link
Spot on!
Thanks Melissa - I agree with everyone else's comments - very succinct and yet 'expansive' analysis of the experience of and (frequent) attitudes to having a chronic illness. Although these illnesses are diverse it is really quite extraordinary how many features they share - 'invisibility' being a key one I think. Yes people may 'see' us sitting or lying down a lot for example but they are unable to see the 'cause' of our problems ... while having a broken limb or a big cut will always elicit immediate sympathy. The issue we are often left with then is having to - YES - 'explain' ourselves over and over again. This need for 'explanation' sadly also extends to needing to do this with many medicos who just don't 'get it' !!
Thanks again for posting this great article.
Rimmy
XX
Great find mimici thanks so much for sharing. This should be more widely read.
Would be great to make this compulsory reading for anyone who asks how I'm feeling 😤
Or even those that don’t .
Dr. Amy must also have been reading a lot in this forum to put it in the right words and so clearly, thank you Melissa for sharing.
Thank you for posting. I whole heartedly agree with Hollyseden, everyone who asks how we are should be given a copy to read, plus all doctors. It really says it all.
Was he in a TV series or a Horror Movie Melissa? He looks a serious medical guy! On my travels through various hospital stays there is always one student doc.! or doc! who plays or maybe not plays! the bad guy! Who knows! This is how the police work on the tele! Anyway nonsense over! Very good article. Thanks.
in reply to
Hehehehehehe... perhaps. Or that's just what having a chronic illness has done to him!!!!
in reply to
You have to admire the perfection in that hair style! For me kid it's Brillo!
in reply to
It is rather precise, isn't it! Like a tornado could blow by and he would not have a hair out of place!!!!
in reply to
There's the fantasy! Women docs any different for yourself?
in reply to
Are we talking about women doctors and their hair... or are we talking about women doctors, in real life, being different than male doctors, as far as the way they treat their female patients? If the later....
In my opinion YES! I saw the same GP for years and he insisted all my complaints and aches and pains, anything I ever went in with, was attributed to my being a "woman of a certain age." (Yes, he actually said that!) He said as a woman of my age, 59-60, I needed to expect to ache and move at slower pace... He did send me for some follow-ups, but when they showed nothing he'd say "...it was nothing." Had he connected the dots, or put all of my complaints and symptoms together, he may have come up with the PMR, years before it turned into GCA!
Another example; my 32 year old daughter saw her male GP 6 times, over 8 months, each time with different complaints and symptoms... He asked if she was trying to get pregnant, she said "No," He said they'd worry about the symptoms when and if she she had trouble getting pregnant. It was a female GP, in the same surgery, who sent her for blood work and a scan, which identified a cancerous ovarian cyst the size of a melon!!!!! So YES I think there is a difference between male and female doctors and the seriousness with which they give female patients!
Edited 10/08/18 - Sorry Pepperdoggie, if that was not your question... apparently I was in a weird defensive, argumentative mood yesterday.. I'm blaming it on the Pred! : )
Rimmy in reply to
Yes Melissa -
It is really ludicrous that so much misogyny in medicine still goes unquestioned when in many other areas of life women (and insightful men) are calling it out as totally wrong and ultimately 'bad' for everyone. There is now of course also quite substantial documentation about the problems women experience with regard to western 'orthodox' medicine. (Although I am not suggesting that aspects of 'alternative medicine' or medicine associated with particular cultures or ethnicities aren't culpable in many ways as well - but this is a BIG subject). There are many glaring examples - such as standard ideas about heart attack symptoms and how they manifest in 'people' generally - although these have - up until recently - been based mainly on male experience - let alone the multifarious ingrained dated social prejudices about women and rather arbitrary notions about the 'impacts' of menopause being loosely equated with 'women of a certain age'.
As a past researcher in areas relating to the history and politics of gender and physical and mental health and well-being - I completely agree with you Melissa that this is a minefield !! The most serious aspects are not just embedded in philosophical or political debates but are manifested in our REAL lives - and the possibility that we may be disregarded as a less than reliable source - even of our own 'realities'. I have said this all before here in various ways and I am not suggesting all male doctors are 'bad' or even inadequate - but regrettably medicine as an 'institution' still has a long way to go in terms of taking more responsibility for dismantling bias and the remaining 'power' structures which hinge on outdated patriarchal ideas and practices.
This is one of the main reasons a forum like this one is SO valuable - because we are generally not getting our information filtered by bodies or groups with a spectrum of 'interests' which don't necessarily assist with our health and well-being and which are often inimical to it.
I do have faith this will all change over time and we as 'patients' can contribute to this by keeping our medicos on their toes and not settling for anything other than well researched high quality treatments. But the very first thing I think is to find a doctor who LISTENS and accords us - regardless of age and gender - basic respect !
- or else 'fire' them !!
Best wishes to everyone
Rimmy
HeronNS in reply to
Isn't the picture Mamici's choice? The author of the article is called Amy and therefore one would assume a woman. Or am I missing a joke here?
in reply to HeronNS
Dunno! We all have a different see! It does seem like a girly golf club here sometimes!
ATB
HeronNS in reply to
No, doting grannies club. Of which I am sadly not a member.
in reply to HeronNS
Really, are we dotting grannies? I thought the majority of us were strong, independent, outspoken, intelligent, Goddess Warriors who occasionally talked about and posted photos of our grandchildren.
My perspective is my reality.
HeronNS in reply to
I was reacting to Pepperdoggie's perspective because from my perspective I don't see a girly golf club at all. And you may be a strong, outspoken intelligent Goddess Warrior but I see myself more as an introspective philosopher type with aspirations to be artistic. Not golfer nor grannie nor goddess....
Motto of the PMR club: We are all different! 😉
in reply to HeronNS
Oh, sorry I misunderstood the comment and the dialogue apparently.... : (
I must be in a serious, defensive mood today. (?)
And totally cool... I love your perception of YOU! Yes, we are all different... thank goodness!
Sorry
SheffieldJane in reply to
Walking a thin line P.D. we multi task. Little ones can produce pain relieving moments, like nature and er gardens. 😛
Mark works hard to restore the gender imbalance. I have noticed him reaching out to male contributors.
Thanks Jane :-). Well, I do try to stay connected with the relatively few PMR / GCA Lads here and keep our end up (no smutty jokes please Aunties..) 
in reply to SheffieldJane
Maybe always walked a thin line Jane! Struggle a bit more with the balance now but don't we all!! ATB
SheffieldJane in reply to
We sure do!
in reply to HeronNS
Yes I choose the photo... but since my photo theme is usually from the 50s/60s, I'm limited to what I find on Google Images . There were not a lot of woman doctors around in those days, so not a lot of photos to chose from.
HeronNS in reply to
My mother was a doctor, born in 1919.
in reply to HeronNS
COOL! An anomaly.
HeronNS in reply to
I believe approximately a third of the students at the Polish School of Medicine, University of Edinburgh, during and shortly after WW2, were female.
Probably more a lack of public photographs than a lack of doctors. Apart from my father I met five of his fellow students over the years. Three of them were male, including my father, and three female, two of them (not my parents) were married to each other. I wonder if the dearth of female doctors was a North American phenomenon, not so much a European one? Just speculating.
in reply to HeronNS
You may be right... a North American phenomena perhaps.
Excerpt taken from Wiki: "However, women openly practiced medicine in the allied health professions (nursing, midwifery, etc.), and throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, women made significant gains in access to medical education and medical work through MUCH OF THE WORLD. These gains were sometimes tempered by setbacks; for instance, Mary Roth Walsh documented a decline in women PHYSICIANS IN THE US in the first half of the twentieth century, such that there were fewer women physicians in 1950 than there were in 1900.[8] However, through the latter half of the twentieth century, women made gains generally across the board. In the United States, for instance, women were 9% of total US medical school enrolment in 1969; this had increased to 20% in 1976.[8] By 1985, women constituted 16% of practicing US physicians.[9]"
Doctors are only Human after all
Might print this , then let certain peeps have it at Xmas . Cheers
Oooooo, I like it! Maybe we could all make it our Christmas/Holiday Letter!!!!!
HeronNS in reply to
It was a locum with multiple sclerosis who helped me deal with my flare last summer. I believe it was her copious notes in the file which encouraged my GP to write me a more or less infinite prescription for 1 mg pred afterwards.
Absolutely spot on!
Thanks for posting this. If only we were met with this kind of empathy and insight. Just had a whole day feeling ok on 6 mgs! Have the clouds finally parted? ☀️
in reply to SheffieldJane
Excellent Jane! I am happy to hear this!!!!! Feeling "ok," is OKAY! xxxxx
'Anything is possible' Jane.. keep Faith.
Thank you Melissa. Great post.
Spot on . Great read, going to print it out and take it to my next rhuemy appointment. No long technical medical jargon, just simple and clear wording. Where do you get these articles from? Xx
Thank you for posting this excellent article. It really does cover all aspects of having an 'invisible' illness beautifully.
Thanks for posting this Melissa- so true!!
Thanks for posting this, as a carer I find so much truth in all aspects of the article and agree it should be compulsory reading for all members of the medical profession.
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