BBC Presenter told to suck it up over extreme menstrual problems

[Jilly_in_VA]

BBC presenter Naga Munchetty has told a committee of MPs that doctors told her to suck it up after she experienced extreme menstrual health problems.

Ms Munchetty and TV personality Vicky Pattison said GPs had repeatedly called their gynaecological symptoms "normal".

Both turned to private healthcare to have their conditions treated.

The pair were giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee as part of an inquiry into women's reproductive health.

Earlier this year, Ms Munchetty revealed she had adenomyosis, which affects the womb, but called the process of being diagnosed "infuriating".

She had suffered debilitating symptoms, including excruciating pain and heavy menstrual bleeding, since her teens, with her husband even calling an ambulance because of the pain, she told the committee.

But the attitude of the GPs had been: "Those are your [treatment] options - and if they don't work for you, then suck it up."

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-67151967

I had similar problems, which were eventually found (at the time of my hysterectomy at 52!) to be due to fibroids. But since my teens? I dunno. And I got told to "deal with it" too.

[BlueSky3]

1. Unbelievable that

the BBC would treat women this way. I hope there’s some sort of court case filed against this callousness.

[fargone]

2. She works for BBC

She works forr BBC. Her doctors told her to suck ir up, not BBC.

[BlueSky3]

3. Oh, ok,

she needs different doctors, definitely.

[TrogL]

4. I has a work colleague with horrible problems

She would come into work but was in excruciating pain and often threw up in her wastebasket because she wasn't going to make it to the washroom.

She was constantly on the phone with her Pastor so it wouldn't surprise me if she was refusing medication for religious reasons

[TrogL]

5. I had a work colleague with issues like this

She would be doubled over with cramps and throwing up in her wastebasket.

[ShazzieB]

6. Doctors need to start taking this stuff a hell of a lot more seriously.

I actually thought they were doing better than they used to. But then, I went through menopause over 20 years ago, so what do I know?

I remember when I was a young teen in the early 60s leaning about periods and stuff, I had a brochure that was put out by the company that made Kotex. It said in there that periods weren't supposed to be agonizingly painful and implied that if yours were, there was something wrong with you...mentally.

I thought we'd come a long way in the last 60 years, but it sounds like I was wrong!

[flying_wahini]

7. As a retired nurse I can tell you that Men do NOT do well with pain. If anything

You would think they would be more sympathetic. Why don’t Dr.s want to follow up? You would think the word would get around and their practices would suffer.
Some people have NO business being in medicine.

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. I know!

I'm a retired nurse too. One of the whiniest patients I ever had was a 25 year old male who'd just had his tonsils out. You'd have thought he was dying! And on the post-op open heart floor, it was the men who whined and complained about getting out of bed to walk in the halls. The women just sucked it up and did it, but if they said they had pain, you believed them. Most of them, anyway.