68 Women Recall The Times Their Doctors Left Them Speechless In The Worst Ways Possible

My foot started hurting when I got pregnant. I was told it’s pregnancy and what did I expect. Legs hurt while pregnant.

I got diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma 7 months pregnant on my foot.

Have you asked your husbands permission to get an IUD? It was a female doctor too.

I kept fainting from low blood sugar and the doctor told me I had a case of the "faints". Passed out later at a concert and almost had to go to the hospital.

Welp. It happened recently. I was getting my IUD removed and I am in what they would call a "geriatric" stage in life but still able to get pregnant. The doctor said to me that I am a bit late. Not impossible but it might be harder. That the ideal age to have a child is 16. Yes, Sixteen. The doctor was a woman, too.

I suffer from cyclical vomiting syndrome. When my illness was at its worst I was in and out of the ER and was down to 94 pounds. For reference I’m 5”3 and my normal weight is around 115-120.

I went to a new GP to get bloodwork and was explaining my illness and she looks at me and says “well, so many women want to be skinny and pretty like you”

Like ma’am, I can’t even lift my own arm I’m so weak. Needless to say I never went back to her.

Not a specific event, but for over a decade I've been told that my insanely itchy legs are psychosomatic. I've seen various doctors and had tests done and since nothing is coming back positive for anything, people assume I'm making it up. Sure, because I WANT to be digging holes in my skin and hurting myself because the constant itching keeps me up all night.

Finally saw a different GI doc the other week due to gallbladder concerns, and when I mentioned the itchy skin, he casually goes 'Oh, that could be a symptom of (various intestinal issues we're investigating). Not surprising at all, maybe some of these treatments will help.'

My response was, quote, 'Are you kidding me? You've seen this?' and we talked about it a bit more. I wanted to cry. Someone finally believes me!!

Edit: okay, wasn't expecting anyone to also have the same thing!! So, I have gallbladder issues in that it's basically unalive, but I'm not in pain, and I just found out last month because I had a severe chest pain attack that landed me in the ER. I'm not getting it removed yet but it doesn't seem to function anymore, I don't know if it's the exact cause or not. The GI specialist I saw put me on a med that helps with bile salt absorption, because a lot my stomach problems could be due to malabsorpion. And seriously, I'm not even the full two weeks into the med cycle and my near-daily bathroom runs after every meal are GONE. I also don't have issues with dairy, so I wonder if I'm not actually lactose sensitive but it was all gut biome stuff. I'm waiting to hear back from the GI on a long term solution but colestipol has saved me and I hope it's a step in the right diagnostic direction!

Struggled my whole life with body / eating disorder issues. Turned to binge eating / laxatives in college and had my nutrition professor notice the signs and convince me to seek out my doctor at home. Was slightly overweight. Went in for the appointment and doctor (a man) looked at me and said “oh. You’re fine. When your mom said it was an eating disorder thing we thought you were going to come in looking like skin and bones”. Went on to struggle for 5 more years.

My gynecologist was up literally inside me and started giving me weight loss tips and “suggestions.” I reminded her, furious, that I had gone into eating disorder recovery a little over a year ago. She said “being a little overweight is just as dangerous or more as being a little underweight.”

I was maybe a size 8 at that time? I had gained a decent amount of weight, sure, up from being a size 0/2 and way, way too thin for my frame.

I obviously never went back, wrote scathing reviews, and moved on, but her saying those things to me while I was so incredibly vulnerable both literally physically in that moment, and mentally/ emotionally while I was still figuring out how to navigate recovery- it really upset me. I also had a ton of trauma around gyno stuff as I’d been dealing with cervical cancer/ hpv things for over a decade at that point and was already incredibly anxious just being there.

It was horrible. She is horrible.

I had an early miscarriage (8wks) and the OB said it wasn’t anything to be upset about because most women wouldn’t have even known they were pregnant yet. He was such a jerk.

I went to the ER because I was bleeding heavily.. I’m talkin going through a tampon and pad every half hour.. I went alone thinking I’d be fine. The doctor refused to listen to me and said that at my age (I was about 23 or 24 at the time), I should know what a heavy cycle is. He discharged me and I continued to bleed. I went to another ER and come to find out that I was actively miscarrying.

You have low positive hep c

After I had an abortion it turned out the dr he was infecting the girls with hep c during the procedure, I was 16.

She laughed in my face when I asked if I could be having a recurrence of the cervical cancer I once had. Spoiler alert: it was back. I had to leave her care to find out.

Updated my after visit summary note with my male gyno. I had never had an issue until this.
"Was surprised and confused by her weight and proceeded to cry hysterically."

Not how I remember it.

Doctor asked my weight for dosage calculation and he looked at me and said “are you sure? You look like a much bigger girl”.

Doc said there was nothing wrong with my back, I was just sad cause I was fat. I was only about 6 mos postpartum, had a very manual labor military job. Turned it there were 2 discs exploded in my lower back. Awesome work.

My female gyno got mad at me for nearly vomiting, crying out in pain and feeling too faint to leave on my own after IUD insertion. She humphed that she would have to use one of her other rooms while I recovered.

I don't know about worse, but a lifetime of being brushed off because of my weight has me scared of thinking I'll never get meaningful help. For reference, I had been morbidly obese since I was THREE. I reached my goal weight at 28 (I'm 32F now).


Even now, at my goal weight, written in my record by my weight management doctor, stating I am at clinical goal weight I still have doctors telling me I need to lose weight. They then immediately follow up with suggesting I see a weight management doctor.


After stating that I already do and tell them that this is my goal weight per my doctor's own analysis and that she's been working with me for 8 years they still suggest I should 'keep going' and 'it's good for my health to lose more'.


This was stated at my last physical actually, when all I needed was an ENT refferal.....

Not me, but my wife and I was in the room.

She was seeking treatment for a neck injury that was causing debilitating headaches. The doctor told my wife point blank "I won't treat you until you lose 40% of your body weight." She was heavy at the time, but her weight was not a factor in this injury.

We got a second opinion rapidly.

1991. Twenty year old me was at my follow up obgyn visit after having a miscarriage. Dr looks up at me from down there and says “ you’d be a pretty girl if you’d lose some weight “.

I told him I had reoccurring throbbing pain near my groin for years and that sometimes it seemed to be triggered by certain foods. He said “well, stop eating those foods”.

He made no further attempts to figure out what was causing my pain and I continue to suffer today.

Edit: I want to thank everyone for your concern! I have seen many doctors since then and had ultrasounds. Nothing was wrong according to them. No further attempts were made to solve the problem.

I even went to the ER and they told me they would operate on me to see if it was my appendix but that even if it wasn’t, they would remove it anyway.

So, I’ve just learned to live with the pain.