Dear Dub: Sex Gap in Chronic Pain

The world of chronic pain is frustratingly racist and sexist. In this article, I will briefly cover my own experiences, some history of chronic pain and its effects, and some thought-provoking statistics. To preface, chronic pain is any pain that lasts for more than three months. It is something that some people deal with for a period of time or their whole life.   

Ever since I started getting my period, something felt wrong, a feeling many menstruating people can relate to. But what is there to do? Doctors are intimidating, and even if you can be as frank with them as me, most of the time, they only have two questions to ask. Could you be pregnant? Miscarrying? No, and no — I know my body, and something is wrong. It took all the medical heads in my family and my own research to beg a doctor to finally diagnose and get me into surgery for endometriosis, which, by the way, isn’t uncommon. One out of ten menstruating persons can develop endometriosis. So why was it so hard for my doctors to trust me?  

Historically, medicine is both sexist and racist. Most studies were, and still are, done on men or male mice/rats. Furthermore, doctors were taught that black people have a higher pain tolerance due to thicker blood, skin and less nerve endings. All outlandish claims made by white colonists who couldn’t care less about the pain and suffering they inflicted through their racism. As of 2016, half of medical students actually believed one of those claims from Hoffman. This has a trickle-down effect that we are still seeing the black community suffer from. Black mothers have the highest maternal mortality rate, 70 out of 100,000 births, 2.6 times higher than white women in the U.S, which comes from PBS. In America, our ever-prevalent racism and sexism block millions from getting quick and proper healthcare.   

Now for some more numbers. I want you to visualize just how chronic pain is truly a silent killer of women and non-binary people in this country. From the start, 45 percent of women don’t think that their doctor takes them seriously when presenting pain, which comes from Healthywomen. And it’s not all in our heads; not to worry, our doctors always ask if it’s simply psychological. Of the people who experience chronic pain, 70 percent of them are women, which comes from a study from Harvard. This can be attributed to female anatomy and the fact that many more chronic pain diagnoses are due to uteruses and ovaries. Even though these diseases are a reality for many women, they are still not taken seriously. When men and women go to the ER for the same emergencies, men wait an average of 49 minutes to a woman’s 65, which was found by Fassler. These minutes could mean everything.  

So what can you do about this? Advocate for yourself! If you think something is wrong, don’t stop expressing it. And don’t be afraid to tell your doctor to piss off.   

Luv,   

    Dub