The staggering number of women who have reported being gaslit by medical professionals is nothing short of appalling. It's the very impetus behind why Kacey started her business and speaks about her own story regularly. Not only to help women feel less alone who are experiencing medical gaslighting but to know that she is a leader and practitioner you CAN turn to when you’re not being heard.
The staggering number of women who have reported being gaslit by medical professionals is nothing short of appalling. It's the very impetus behind why Kacey started her business and speaks about her own story regularly. Not only to help women feel less alone who are experiencing medical gaslighting but to know that she is a leader and practitioner you CAN turn to when you’re not being heard.
[00:10] Kacey K: Welcome to the Simply Healthy You podcast, your place for overcoming overwhelm with your health to reach your fullest potential. I'm your host, Casey Kane, and I am so pumped to have you here. I'm a recovering, burnt out high achiever who is diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid condition by my early thirty s. I didn't realize that running myself ragged in the name of being superwoman and determined to achieve all the things in life was killing my body. I created this podcast so that you don't have to continue the struggle like I did for over a decade. I sat down, studied the data, and simplified what it means to prioritize your own health needs so that you can be the best for all the things on your to do list. Everything you hear on this podcast, I have tested and implemented in my own super packed life with my family to bring you the tips, tools, and strategies that will keep your life simply healthy.
[01:06] Kacey K: Hello. Hello and welcome to another episode of Simply Healthy You. I'm your host, Casey Kane, an integrative health practitioner and certified holistic nutritionist with a Master's in Psychology, and I am here to bring you science based conversations to help you live a healthier and happier life. I have a little bit of a thing going on in my throat and a little bit in my note my nasal passages today, so hopefully I will spare you and edit out any of the little sniffles and things that you might hear in here. My voice is a little bit more scruffy. I can't tell. My daughter started a couple days ago and I can't tell if it's like actually a germ from something or if it's just kind of the fall allergies, because fall in the Midwest here has always hit us differently. Obviously my kids have only lived here, but for my husband and I, just since moving from the east coast, like fall allergies have just been so much harder for us here. Something about the pollen in the fall in the Midwest does not agree with us and our bodies have not adjusted yet, so it could be that too. We really don't feel terrible overall, we just sound kind of sniffly and scruffy. Anywho, today's episode is going to be all about gaslighting in women's health. I have some stats here that I wanted to start with and really I saw these stats on another post on Instagram that they had compiled from a variety of different sources. I'll share the sources with you and they are just so staggering that I couldn't not feel inspired to share this information and then also remind you of the resources that you do have available to you. So one of the most staggering statistics that I saw is that 72% of women report being gaslit by a medical professional. 72%. Almost three quarters of us have been gaslit by a medical professional. Does anyone else realize how fucking wrong that is, I know this is something I talk about all the time, and I know in my small corner of the world that many of my clients have experienced this. But I'm not one to really use anecdotal information to generalize to the masses. It doesn't make any sense, right? But here we have the she media medical gaslighting survey in October of 2022. Said that 72% of women report being gaslit by a medical professional. Now, yes, that's self reporting, but isn't that what fucking matters? If we feel like we are not being heard, if we feel like we are being gaslit by a medical professional, then it's true. Because that is our experience. And no one can tell us that what we are feeling and experiencing is not true. We might not agree, but that is their experience. Right? Another statistic. An endometriosis diagnosis takes an average of eight to twelve years. Eight to twelve years. Women are going to their doctors, their gynecologists, complaining about the symptoms of endometriosis, and it's taking eight to twelve years before someone believes them enough to give them a diagnosis. Now, you know, I am not one to believe that we need a diagnosis in order to know how to support our body. They can be helpful in a specific situation like this with endometriosis, sure. My autoimmune condition, sure. Knowing that it's related to my thyroid steers my decisions a little bit. But in all actuality, I believe that we are all going to need the same foundation of support as women. We need the same foundation of support. We have the same general functioning of our body. And yes, we have these genetic predispositions to these things that sometimes turn on and sometimes cause symptoms for us. We might do some specific things, but we all need to do the same foundation. And then the foundation that we build on from there maybe depends more on a diagnosis or genetics or things like that, right? But so much of what we do doesn't need that. Still, it shouldn't take you eight to twelve years for someone to fucking listen to you, right? Eight to twelve years for someone to say, you know what? I believe you now. Here you go, here's what you've been looking for. Fuck that shit. Yes, there's going to be a lot of f bombs in this episode. Another stat women are two times more likely than men to report symptoms five plus times before they're diagnosed with cancer. They have to talk about their symptoms five plus times more than men before they're diagnosed with cancer. Again, hello? Is anybody fucking listening? I mean, you are. We're not the ones causing the problem, we're trying to fight against it. That came from the American cancer society action network survivor views survey in September of 2022. And the endometriosis stat came from PMID 1755-0672. A specific article about endometriosis. Now, yes, these are surveys. One could argue that these are skewed because it's self reported. But again, we are the ones living our experience, and if we feel we are not being heard and then we are later getting diagnosed with endometriosis or later getting diagnosed with cancer, that is true. Doesn't matter if we're self reporting and our doctor maybe is going to disagree. It's true. That is medical gaslighting. The last stat that I have here, 71% of women had a practitioner tell them their symptoms were made up. How many times have you gone to your doctor, talked about various symptoms, especially if you're dealing with hormonal issues? You've talked about pain, cramps, that maybe you're experiencing extremely heavily bleeding, any of those kind of things. Specifically when you're talking about pain. A lot of the times I've seen surveys and things talking about when women are talking about pain, anything related to pain in their lower abdomen or related to their cycle. So many doctors are you pregnant? Are you sure you're not pregnant? Let's give you a pregnancy test. Hello? Yes. Okay. There are people who have had surprise pregnancies. I would argue that it's probably not a total surprise. You know, if you're having unprotected sex and you are ovulating, so there's that. If you're having a cycle, then there's a chance you're getting pregnant. If you're not paying attention to the timing, then, yeah, you're taking some risks there. Right. But I think we would know the difference between pregnancy and chronic pain that we are feeling in our abdomen. But no. How many times have you had that? I can't even count. When I was dealing with my thyroid issue, yes. I saw a gynecologist, an OB when I was pregnant, they used midwives a lot, and that was pretty much I go every what is it, three years to just get my checkup with my regular doctor and that's about it. So I haven't experienced that in a long time. But when I was dealing with my thyroid issue and trying to get diagnosed and there was all sorts of weird things, granted, I was on birth control 24/7, because they told me that was perfectly safe and I didn't need to have a cycle. Right. So, of course there's going to be lots of fucked up shit there. And I don't know how many times they asked if I could be pregnant. I'm like, I'm on birth control. Twenty four? Seven. I know that's not foolproof, but it's really fucking hard and it's just immensely frustrating. Right? 72% of women report being gasoline by a medical professional. 71% of women had a practitioner tell them their symptoms were made up. When you talk about brain fog, we talk about your chronic fatigue. How many times have you had a doctor tell you that it's probably because of stress, lack of sleep. How's work going? Oh, stressed out about work. Oh, you have a lot going on. Yeah. You just need to stress less or even better. It's because you're overweight. Right. How many times have things gotten blamed on your weight? It's because you're overweight. If you just lose weight, it's going to fix all your problems. All these things that you're experiencing, all these symptoms that you're having, they're all just because you're overweight. It's not actually a thing. What you're feeling is not actually true. Are you sure that you're actually feeling these things right? I know that some part of this has to resonate with you because 72% of women report being gas lit by a medical professional. And these are the things that I was told. This is why I'm so committed to my clients. And this is really the very impetus behind why I started my business, because I experienced it when I was trying to figure out for over a year. And that's not really a long time. I'm very fucking persistent for some of you. I know that it has potentially been longer than that because you don't know what you don't know. And I happen to be a unique individual who is very driven to find these things out for myself. And I'm not saying that you're not driven. It's just how do you know where to look in this day and age? There's an endless amount of information, and it's very fucking confusing. It wasn't as confusing almost, what is it, seven years ago now? Eight years ago when I was trying to do this. Now you got everyone making up shit about health, and it's hard to tell. So I don't blame you for dealing with this for a really long time and feeling really frustrated and getting overwhelmed by it. This is why I started my business. This is why I'm so committed to my clients and so committed to telling my own story. That's why I'm so committed to always learning more, because I don't ever want someone to feel that they are not being heard when they are struggling with a health issue. I want to be able to hear what they're saying. I want to be able to help them feel seen, and I want to be able to help you find the answers. I am never going to pretend that I have all the answers. I'm not. I am very, very good at helping people with their general foundation, and I'm very, very good with hormones and gut. Now, there are other things. I'm pretty good with most autoimmune conditions because they all have a similar foundation, because they're autoimmune and the body is wrongfully attacking itself. There are nuance. There is nuance to those conversations. There are slight differences between autoimmune things. But I don't know everything. But I am absolutely committed to helping you find the answer. And I think that's a huge problem in conventional medicine. There's not enough humble fucking doctors. There's not enough they don't know the answer for you. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to tie your symptoms together because they are maybe outside of what they learned in a textbook what the pharmaceutical industry taught them. You have this symptom, I prescribe this. You have this symptom, chronically. I tell you to get this procedure done. That's what they know how to do. That doesn't really work for chronic conditions. And instead of saying, you know what? I don't think I'm the best fit for you, let me help you find the answer. Or let me help you find another professional who can help you. Instead of having a slice of fucking humble pie and admitting that they are not the best fit for it, they just take eight to twelve years to give you a fucking diagnosis. They drag you through testing after testing, after pharmaceutical trials. How many of you have started a prescription at some point of like, well, let's see if this does the trick, right? How many times have you tried that kind of thing? I had that happen. When it came to my gut issues, I had that happen. Here, let's try this. Oh, that's not working. Okay, here, let's try this. I'm not an experiment. I get it. There's a bit of tweaking that we need to do, but we're not just going to throw fucking spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. No, thank you. I didn't sign up for that. I'm not signing up for that. This is why I am so committed to always learning more. This is why I always share the struggle of being gaslit on my own health journey. I'm honestly not trying to bash the conventional medical system. I've said this before. If I break a bone, I need to go to somebody else to put myself into a cast in order for my bone to heal properly. I probably could learn how to cast myself. One of my clients joked about that on our Simply Healthy Academy Group coaching call the other day because we were giving this exact example. And how I say that you need to go to a doctor, know you need stitches or if you need a cast. And one of my clients is like, I could see Casey learning how to cast herself just so that she doesn't have to go to a doctor. And again, hear me out. I'm not saying that there isn't a time and a place where those professionals are necessary. They have extensive training, and I think there is a time and a place where we need those professionals. But for women's health, for chronic issues, this ain't it. It ain't it, friends. It ain't it. Is severely missing the mark for us. And I don't ever want you to feel like you don't have somewhere to turn to when no one else will listen to your issues. So the real point behind this episode was one, to share with you that you're not alone. Those are staggering statistics that I shared at the beginning of this. And I'm sure that there are much more, many more places where I could find similar stats and many more sources for those kinds of stats. I don't want you to feel alone, and I want you to know that you have somewhere to turn to when you are feeling crazy because you have had medical professional after medical professional tell you that they don't know what's wrong with you. Or you should just take this round of this and you'll be fine. Or get some more sleep or just lose some weight or just stress less. I will listen to you. This is one of the things I think that my clients have appreciated so much about working with me is that not only are they looking for a new way to go about things that they haven't tried before and looking forward to feeling better and appreciating how they feel better, some parts of their life improve almost immediately. After implementing a lot of these things, I think that they have appreciated also and equally seen and heard. I don't ever tell them, are you sure that's what you're feeling? I don't ever say that. They tell me, hey, my stomach's just not feeling right, and I dig deeper. Okay, what does that mean? Are you nauseous? Are you having pain? Are you experiencing bloating? I ask them the specific questions that help me better understand what is the symptom that they are having? Where might the root of that issue be? Did they eat out at a restaurant that they haven't had before and aren't sure about some of the ingredients maybe that were in that meal? Have they been around kids recently? And maybe they have a stomach bug that is coming on, right? It doesn't matter if it's something as simple as that or something more complicated. Like, I think we still have some underlying gut issues here. Or maybe you've got some candida overgrowth or maybe you've got a parasite, right? I want to get to the root of the issue. I always want to make you feel seen and heard. I might not have all the answers, like I said, but I will listen and I will find them for you. So the next time you go to a medical professional who refuses to listen to you and refuses to understand your lived experience, I want you to come right here either to the podcast, go over to my Instagram, Simplyhealthy Casey Kacey, and send me a message. Send me a message immediately and say, casey, it happened. It happened today. They don't believe me. I'm struggling. What do I do? And I am going to do my damn best to help you in any way that I can. So quick and dirty episode today. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Simply Healthy. You. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and leave a review. Share this with all of the women that you know. We are not alone in this. We deserve better. We deserve to have answers. I greatly appreciate your support. As always, stay curious, stay healthy, and until next time, take care.
[17:20] Kacey K: Thank you so much for listening to the Simply Healthy You podcast. If these episodes are resonating with you, go ahead and click that subscribe button and leave a review. With all the nuggets that you're taking away from today's episode, I promise you I read every single one of them, as your feedback is really valuable to me in creating future episodes. As your host, I look forward to having you join me for the next episode. But in the meantime, remember, keep it simple and eat more plants. Close.