Stress is one of many factors that can lead to heart disease. However, when stress is a symptom for women heart disease is overlooked. A case study was done comparing the diagnosis for male and female heart symptoms such as chest pain or shortness of breath and when stress was a factor. The doctors had the same diagnosis for men and women when they had all the normal signs and symptoms of heart disease. Doctors thought women who complained of having stressful lives were more psychological than physical factors. Men were assessed the same way as when stress was not a symptom.
Women should be aware when they go to the doctors to follow-up if symptoms keep occurring. Doctors can make mistakes and studies have shown that they do not diagnose females as often as males for heart disease when stress is a factor. If you feel like something is wrong make sure they do everything they can to assess what the problem is because you want to find out sooner than later that you have heart disease. It is pretty scary how quickly doctors assume nothing is wrong. I recently started getting chest pains and they would stay for a few days at a time. I went to the doctors and the only thing they did was check my heartbeat, ask what was wrong, and tell me my muscles were probably growing wrong. If something was seriously wrong they would never know because they didn’t take the time to check.
3 comments:
Steph, interesting blog. I never knew that men were examined more thoroughly than women, especially for heart disease. It annoys me that one of the main reasons for this is because they assume a womens problem is for phychological reasons. I am also sirprised that they did so little for you when you were concerned about chest pains. Heart disease and chest pains should be treated the same for both genders, not more for one and not the other. Good Blog!
Interesting blog! I never would have thought about doctors examining people differently before, thats scary to think about. Especially with something so important like the heart. I wonder if they say anything in med school about treating men and women differently? Nice job!
I never really thought about how little doctors really do when they examine you, becuase i just want to go home usually. Interesting how much of a rushed system some doctors have. Nice blog, now i will second guess when a doctor gives me a quick exam. Good luck with your chest pains.
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