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Women are still being dealt with by many of the same standards and methods as men are, but more and more we're seeing that this isn't working for women. This is particularly true where pain in concerned.
Medical treatment developed for men often doesn't work so well for women. For instance, though women respond differently to drugs, many drugs are tested only on men. Men metabolize some things faster than we women. We metabolize other things faster than men. We don't respond as well to anesthesia or ibuprofen.
According to a review in the Journal of Pain, 2009, women have three times the risk for autoimmune diseases in general than men. Women have twice the risk for multiple sclerosis. We have two to three times the risk for rheumatoid arthritis. We have four times the risk for chronic fatigue syndrome than men.
There are a variety of autoimmune conditions, with a vast array of possible symptoms. One thing that is basic to an autoimmune disease is a tendency toward inflammation. Inflammation can cause pain along with heat, redness and swelling in various areas of the body. Joint pain is common with some autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
The Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health has called autoimmunity a major health issue for women.
Prejudice within the medical community is still entrenched where women's health problems are concerned.
A 2011 study from the Institute of Medicine called Relieving Pain in America indicated that women experience greater pain, and that a woman's pain is more likely to be shrugged off by health care professionals than a man's.
In another study The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain it was seen that women are not as likely as men to receive treatment that is thorough and agressive. Their stated pain is more likely to be waved away as being emotional, and not considered to be genuine pain.
Women's treatment can then become mental health treatment simply because a health care provider believed them to be emotional and exaggerating their experience of pain. The actual condition a woman is suffering from never gets treated as she is treated like a malinger by the health care providers she has turned to.
Abdominal pain is still often automatically attributed to "female problems" meaning gynecological issues. This can make diagnosis and treatment for serious health problems like appendicitis or gastorintestinal conditions slow and less effective.
According to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) women are three times more likely to suffer from autoimmune conditions than men. Autoimmune diseases are in the top ten causes of death for American women 65 years old and younger. They are also the fourth largest source of disablity for American women.
In 2001, an Autoimmune Diseases Association survey found that almost half of autoimmune patients were quickly labeled as chronic complainers and their symptoms were not taken seriously by health care providers.
The journal Academic Emergency Medicine published a 2008 study which illustrated that women were 13-25 percent less likely to receive medication for severe pain, and when they do get it, they will have had to wait for 16 minutes more on average than a man would to get them.
More than 100 chronic conditions have autoimmune underlying causes. In autoimmune conditions, the immune system mistakenly targets the body's organs. While women's immune systems are more effective than men's in many cases, women are also more vulnerable to autoimmune issues.
Sources:
The Gender Gap in Pain. NYTimes.com. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/women-and-the-treatment...
Understanding Autoimmune Diseases. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. NIAMS.NIH.gov. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
http://www.niams.nih.gov/health_info/Autoimmune/
Autoimmunity: A Major Women's Health Issue. AARDA.org. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
https://www.aarda.org/women_and_autoimmunity.php
Hormones and Genes Alter Brain's Pain System. About.com. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0303/blpain0303.htm
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger
Reviewed May 15, 2013
by Michele Blacksberg RN
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