Too many doctors dismiss issues that women deal with. I really wish there was a way to address that problem: like doctors need their biases checked and to be trained to take people's health issues more seriously
But I was identifying as a boy at the time. I was 16. I was out about wanting to be a girl but nothing beyond talk therapy at Children's Hospital. Kaiser Permanente therapists refused to talk gender with me. So they refered me out. Which is not easy to get with Kaiser! Johns Hopkins did an eval on me but only asked weird invasive questions. DC Metro area trans care was unfortunately lacking back in the 2000-2010s. Even the specialists helping us now only just started for the most part. Used to be very taboo to discuss this with doctors as a child. Throw in "asperger's" and undiagnosed colon cancer, doctors didn't know what to do with me.
I had the head of Mid-Atlantic Kaiser Permanente trans care forced out over my care. Dr. Michael Horberg took his place, not to mention the case worker Deborah Scales. I'm sure he's glad I left Kaiser eventually. I can't message him anymore lol.
I was the first at mid-atlantic Kaiser Permanente and to have FFS at Johns Hopkins with Dr. Devin O'Brien-Coon. There was someone else approved at the same time. So I don't know who actually went first.
God, the difference between different regional branches of Kaiser is fucking insane. In the PNW, I've had pretty much perfect GAC, aside from one doctor effectively draining all hormones from my body for a year and destroying my metabolism
Kaiser Mid-Atlantic now has a service called Pride Medical. It's still kind of mixed - I encountered a gyno who was really confused by my requests as a non-binary person - but it's overall really nice to have centralized LGBTQ+ care.
I'm a trans man with multiple chronic issues and it took me having to go to a women's clinic to get a doctor that would keep looking and trying new things to figure out what is going on with my pelvic issue, instead of just going "IDK" and giving up. My doctors over there also gendered me correctly and used my chosen name immediately.
The stories I have about getting prostate cancer bloodwork denied and the conversations I have over being trans every fucking time I get a CT scan. Ugh. Cancer care is the worst about it! My CT scans even say I've had hysterectomy because they see my gender marker and abdominal surgery and lack of female organs they assume they were removed. And they have my surgical history! I hate radiologists. Art critics with MDs. Lol
Maryland has strict malpractice laws. Johns Hopkins has lobbied for them. 3 years, 5 if you're really lucky. And another doctor of the same speciality has to say with 50% or greater likely hood the malpractice caused the claimed injury. I tried for the stroke at Johns Hopkins. Came so close. Lawyers paid a doctor $$$ to review my records and he said "no comment" so they dropped me being out $$$ out the gate. No other law firm would touch me. Thanks for taking my eye Dr. Devin O'Brien-Coon! Many states with powerful hospitals have strict malpractice laws.
And then your health insurance gets a cut of any payout. It's ridiculous!
This is so very much like my own case - I almost died at six weeks of age from what the doctor's called an "infection" but they never tracked down the source. After that, I had a noted iron deficiency.
Around 8 years later, I had 53 seizures in one day. Less than a week later, a walnut-sized brain tumor was found in my head.
Reading the article, the iron deficiency sticks out to me. My doctors now, looking back, say the iron deficiency should have been a bigger flag to them to get tests and maybe they would have found it before it became so large.
Like you, I got my local Children's Hospital (in my case, Seattle). Being a research hospital, they were beyond useless. Much too "wait and see" not enough action. Thankfully, my family had just moved from Oregon at the time - and my family was fighting insurance to get me allowed to go to Oregon Health Sciences University, which said they would take it out. Which I distinctly remember going there on April 3rd, 2000.
This was, admittedly, before my experience with gender. Your experiences are so, so very similar to mine.
Moral of the story? Iron deficiencies are important and doctors are dismissive. Replace them if need be.
I really gotta thank my last two therapists. I did DBT and now I do EMDR therapy. I wouldn't be be able to share my stories and respond to comments if I hadn't put in the work. I'll defend myself in all comments on the Instagram stories about me. I'm not ashamed of things in my life that aren't my fault. Medical care did me harm and it also saved me life.
My regular dr didnt seem so concerned about it but my hrt dr was like “you what the fuck” and sent me to a hematologist
Hematologist was wondering why the hell my pcp had me on iron pills if i go sooooo many gi issues. And hes right all they did was cause headaches and anxiety.
Took blood Thursday and we’ll find out soon if i need iron transfusions
Last we checked my iron stores were in single digits
Oh i had one in 2023 they found 2 5mm sized polyps the turned out to be benign thankfully but i need one done every 7 years
I was 23 when they found those, so fun times
Mine was covered because of suspected celiacs. My blood tested abnormal. Thankfully a it was a false positive and just turned out to be ibs-d. still not great but could be worse
Also had an endoscopy at the same time. Gerd absolutely wrecked my stomach and throat. Caused gastritis (inflamed/bleeding of the stomach lining. Dont help covid made it permanent by attacking my stomach lining)
Then during a recent abdominal surgery they found a hematoma on one of my illiac arteries and have no clue what caused it
A friend died at 32 after she had gone to the doctors for years complaining about stomach pain and digestive issues. They kept telling her it was just a case of ibs and her weight, they never investigated anything. One day she collasped and was rushed to hospital where the emergency doctors discovered she had colon cancer, she married her partner in the hospital and died two weeks later :'( I never got to say goodbye to her.
Doctors need to stop dismissing young people's health complaints and actually investigate things! It took YEARS of me complaining about my back to finally be allowed investigations and be diagnosed with early on set arthritis and Degenerative Disc Disease. Doctors kept telling me for years it was all in my head... thats not what my bloodworks and MRI scans showed!
this made me check, and realize I have not once since starting in April 2021, had my iron levels checked... I do deal w a lot of bleeding down there but I also been dabbling in sex since then too.. had some injuries there as a result.. and persistent issues.
while I doubt it's gonna be some cancer thing, I'm a little shocked I haven't had this included in my basic panels a single time...
thanks for sharing your story and I'm glad you made it thru all that.
Very recognizable to the extent that I wouldn't have discovered the already started osteoporosis if it weren't for HRT even though something already felt off for a while. And how much effort it took to get a scan as a woman, even though I had cypro for a while, was too much. Her case shows it can even be more serious and tumors can be found, and you can save your life with bloodwork on even a short term.
Although she may be lucky to not see her treatment by a Dutch hospital *cries in €385 paracetamol.
23 and diagnosed with colon cancer. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 28. She's a year older than me and it's terrifying how many people our age are getting diagnosed with cancers that 70 year olds get. We're so fucked.
Fuck cancer, glad she's in remission! Stage 4, that's incredible
Too many doctors dismiss issues that women deal with. I really wish there was a way to address that problem: like doctors need their biases checked and to be trained to take people's health issues more seriously
That's why I've been sharing my story. You can see everything I've done here. https://linktr.ee/UrgeForPermanence
But I was identifying as a boy at the time. I was 16. I was out about wanting to be a girl but nothing beyond talk therapy at Children's Hospital. Kaiser Permanente therapists refused to talk gender with me. So they refered me out. Which is not easy to get with Kaiser! Johns Hopkins did an eval on me but only asked weird invasive questions. DC Metro area trans care was unfortunately lacking back in the 2000-2010s. Even the specialists helping us now only just started for the most part. Used to be very taboo to discuss this with doctors as a child. Throw in "asperger's" and undiagnosed colon cancer, doctors didn't know what to do with me.
That's terrible. I'm with kaiser right now for my GAC and they're much better now, thankfully.
I had the head of Mid-Atlantic Kaiser Permanente trans care forced out over my care. Dr. Michael Horberg took his place, not to mention the case worker Deborah Scales. I'm sure he's glad I left Kaiser eventually. I can't message him anymore lol.
I was the first at mid-atlantic Kaiser Permanente and to have FFS at Johns Hopkins with Dr. Devin O'Brien-Coon. There was someone else approved at the same time. So I don't know who actually went first.
God, the difference between different regional branches of Kaiser is fucking insane. In the PNW, I've had pretty much perfect GAC, aside from one doctor effectively draining all hormones from my body for a year and destroying my metabolism
It sounds like a bit of a reach to describe that as "almost perfect" I have to be honest.
Kaiser Mid-Atlantic now has a service called Pride Medical. It's still kind of mixed - I encountered a gyno who was really confused by my requests as a non-binary person - but it's overall really nice to have centralized LGBTQ+ care.
I'm a trans man with multiple chronic issues and it took me having to go to a women's clinic to get a doctor that would keep looking and trying new things to figure out what is going on with my pelvic issue, instead of just going "IDK" and giving up. My doctors over there also gendered me correctly and used my chosen name immediately.
Well, if we can get sick, we more than a walking penis hole , and some doctors can't handle that.
The stories I have about getting prostate cancer bloodwork denied and the conversations I have over being trans every fucking time I get a CT scan. Ugh. Cancer care is the worst about it! My CT scans even say I've had hysterectomy because they see my gender marker and abdominal surgery and lack of female organs they assume they were removed. And they have my surgical history! I hate radiologists. Art critics with MDs. Lol
dismissed her because.... "she was having anal sex", whilst she was still a virgin?
Sounds more like malpractice and bigotry followed by standard practice
Maryland has strict malpractice laws. Johns Hopkins has lobbied for them. 3 years, 5 if you're really lucky. And another doctor of the same speciality has to say with 50% or greater likely hood the malpractice caused the claimed injury. I tried for the stroke at Johns Hopkins. Came so close. Lawyers paid a doctor $$$ to review my records and he said "no comment" so they dropped me being out $$$ out the gate. No other law firm would touch me. Thanks for taking my eye Dr. Devin O'Brien-Coon! Many states with powerful hospitals have strict malpractice laws.
And then your health insurance gets a cut of any payout. It's ridiculous!
This is so very much like my own case - I almost died at six weeks of age from what the doctor's called an "infection" but they never tracked down the source. After that, I had a noted iron deficiency.
Around 8 years later, I had 53 seizures in one day. Less than a week later, a walnut-sized brain tumor was found in my head.
Reading the article, the iron deficiency sticks out to me. My doctors now, looking back, say the iron deficiency should have been a bigger flag to them to get tests and maybe they would have found it before it became so large.
Like you, I got my local Children's Hospital (in my case, Seattle). Being a research hospital, they were beyond useless. Much too "wait and see" not enough action. Thankfully, my family had just moved from Oregon at the time - and my family was fighting insurance to get me allowed to go to Oregon Health Sciences University, which said they would take it out. Which I distinctly remember going there on April 3rd, 2000.
This was, admittedly, before my experience with gender. Your experiences are so, so very similar to mine.
Moral of the story? Iron deficiencies are important and doctors are dismissive. Replace them if need be.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I really gotta thank my last two therapists. I did DBT and now I do EMDR therapy. I wouldn't be be able to share my stories and respond to comments if I hadn't put in the work. I'll defend myself in all comments on the Instagram stories about me. I'm not ashamed of things in my life that aren't my fault. Medical care did me harm and it also saved me life.
Yeah currently going through this now
My regular dr didnt seem so concerned about it but my hrt dr was like “you what the fuck” and sent me to a hematologist
Hematologist was wondering why the hell my pcp had me on iron pills if i go sooooo many gi issues. And hes right all they did was cause headaches and anxiety.
Took blood Thursday and we’ll find out soon if i need iron transfusions
Last we checked my iron stores were in single digits
I hope you're able to get a colonscopy soon. This was my bloodwork that got mine covered. I keep it saved on my phone from 2017.
Ferritin - 5 NG/ML, Iron - 15 UG/DL, Iron/Total Iron Binding Capacity - 3%, Total Iron Binding Capacity - 457 UG/DL, Hemaglobin - 9.6, Hematocrit - 31.6, MCV - 68.8, MCH - 20.8, RDW, Blood - 16.7
Oh i had one in 2023 they found 2 5mm sized polyps the turned out to be benign thankfully but i need one done every 7 years
I was 23 when they found those, so fun times
Mine was covered because of suspected celiacs. My blood tested abnormal. Thankfully a it was a false positive and just turned out to be ibs-d. still not great but could be worse
Also had an endoscopy at the same time. Gerd absolutely wrecked my stomach and throat. Caused gastritis (inflamed/bleeding of the stomach lining. Dont help covid made it permanent by attacking my stomach lining)
Then during a recent abdominal surgery they found a hematoma on one of my illiac arteries and have no clue what caused it
A friend died at 32 after she had gone to the doctors for years complaining about stomach pain and digestive issues. They kept telling her it was just a case of ibs and her weight, they never investigated anything. One day she collasped and was rushed to hospital where the emergency doctors discovered she had colon cancer, she married her partner in the hospital and died two weeks later :'( I never got to say goodbye to her.
Doctors need to stop dismissing young people's health complaints and actually investigate things! It took YEARS of me complaining about my back to finally be allowed investigations and be diagnosed with early on set arthritis and Degenerative Disc Disease. Doctors kept telling me for years it was all in my head... thats not what my bloodworks and MRI scans showed!
this made me check, and realize I have not once since starting in April 2021, had my iron levels checked... I do deal w a lot of bleeding down there but I also been dabbling in sex since then too.. had some injuries there as a result.. and persistent issues.
while I doubt it's gonna be some cancer thing, I'm a little shocked I haven't had this included in my basic panels a single time...
thanks for sharing your story and I'm glad you made it thru all that.
This poor woman. A colonoscopy should have been recommended as soon as she reported rectal bleeding.
damn she got dealt one shitty hand
Very recognizable to the extent that I wouldn't have discovered the already started osteoporosis if it weren't for HRT even though something already felt off for a while. And how much effort it took to get a scan as a woman, even though I had cypro for a while, was too much. Her case shows it can even be more serious and tumors can be found, and you can save your life with bloodwork on even a short term.
Although she may be lucky to not see her treatment by a Dutch hospital *cries in €385 paracetamol.
23 and diagnosed with colon cancer. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 28. She's a year older than me and it's terrifying how many people our age are getting diagnosed with cancers that 70 year olds get. We're so fucked.
Fuck cancer, glad she's in remission! Stage 4, that's incredible
So I assume that means you're still blond in one eye
Man that sucks ass
Yep! And it does!