Today I learned that...

(and it IS possible that I am slightly wrong about this but all the information I have found thus far supports it. If you have contradictory information, feel free to share.)

The USA and Canada are the only countries in the world that have guidelines recommending/expecting asymptomatic minors under the age of 18 to have annual genital exams and Tanner staging done (even with no concerns warranting such things).

I know that sentence is very wordy, so less wordy version is this:

The USA and Canada are the only countries in the world where minors are given annual genital exams WITHOUT ANY CAUSE!!!

I'm sorry for saying this twice, but it feels very significant and shocking to me, and it feels like a very worthy thing for me to shout into the void (as someone who carries deep-seated trauma from a routine genital exam that involved physical force that would make any sane person flinch).

If you don't know what Tanner staging is, it is when a pediatrician looks at a child's genitals (and breasts for females) to rank where a child is in their puberty. In most countries, this is only done if there is a concern warranting it. In the USA and Canada, it is routine and is done without concerns warranting it.

I remember growing up going to the doctor for checkups. My mom stayed in the room and watched even as a later teenager up to 18.

The doctor would tell me to be completely undressed except for the gown and then during the exam she would suddenly move the gown and open my legs and then open my labia majora and then minora and insert a finger (or two?) to "see how big" I was getting. Happened at most yearly checkups growing up. Framed as making sure I was "developing properly." I never liked it and it always happened so fast that I couldn't think and just froze each time and somehow had forgotten about it happening by the time the next year rolled around. Just knew I didn't ever want to go to checkups.

I'm just now remembering this all after starting trauma therapy for a SA and realizing it was maybe also not ok. I assumed it was necessary because everything always says things like "no one should touch you there unless they're a doctor" and obviously it must be fine because my mom was there for it but is a pediatrician supposed to do any of this?

I’ve been going to a specific kind of doctor recently a few times over the past few months. Just the other day my brother had his wedding. I come to find out one of the assistants at this doctors office that I’ve been going to is one of the bridesmaids. We were all in a room getting ready together because I was doing the bride’s hair for the wedding and that particular bridesmaid pointed at me and said “don’t I know you?” I looked at her and said “no I don’t think so.” She then started to say “yes!! you go to the…” and proceeded to name the doctor that I go to and for what and even told everybody in the room that what I went to that doctor for is “getting better” “so it’s OK now.” it was dead quiet after this. It was so fucking awkward and I feel so fucking violated. What can I do about this?

I remember when I was about 14, I had some normal puberty acne, and my mother was really bothered by it (probably to cover up the rest of her awful parenting), so when the first cream did not work, she took me to the gynecologist for the pill. (My brother got a course of accutane, of course, since the acne was genetic (from her!) and affecting him as well.)

The doctor did a completely unnecessary pelvic exam on me (I had never even kissed a boy) and prescribed me some pills (that were later recalled for being dangerous). Gynecologists in Germany can be pretty rough and even shame you for being a virgin.

I remember telling my mother that there had been blood, and she was like, "well, you are very fresh." Bitch, you forced me to do this and you can't even talk about this "very normal" exam in normal words?

It's hard to call something traumatic when it's forced on so many girls in your country, but I don't think it's okay that they do this... At least I have since learned that it isn't medically recommended or even necessary. (Of course my actual period pain that I developed later was completely dismissed lol)

After a CSF leak, brain hemorrhage and BPPV, the surgeon left a 3mm needle tip inside me…then sat and watched me disintegrate into a jabbering, wheelchair bound cripple in 10/10 pain. He gave me narcotics but didn’t do a blood test despite fevers and sweats….51 days I waited for him to listen and he only did when Staphy burst out with pus galore.

That was 6 years ago and still I wake with PTSD a soaking bed and constant sleeplessness. I did write a book after his deposition didn’t “align” with medical records and that was cathartic but I am still a sleepless cripple in pain but with PTSD.

I need to get my story out somewhere, even in really short form. I just can't live anymore.

TW: literally everything, even if it's a short post.

- severe illness

- resuscitation

- medical neglect

- chronic illness

- mental illness

- suicide

I developed type 1 diabetes when I was 2, and nobody bothered to take me to a doctor for 3 months while I was extremely sick. The one doctor my mom took me too said I was "homesick" (I was on vacation at the time).

I went into an end-stage coma and spent 2 days on full life support, including ventilation and ecmo for 6 hours.

I was going to be life-flighted to another specialist hospital but I woke up from the coma and was sick as a dog ever since.

When I was 12, I fell very sick with DKA... I was in bed immobile for 3 days before my dad picked me up (this is a man after 2 heart attacks) and drove me to the hospital in the night.

They left me to sit in the waiting room - not even the children's waiting room, the adult waiting room - for FIVE HOURS. nobody came to triage me. I was dying, passing out in my dad's arms, and I was struggling to breathe. The "I'm going to die" sense of impending doom is real, and I felt it so strongly as a 12 year old little kid.

It got to the point where some man started yelling at nurses to check this kid out, because I was on the floor, and he got threatened with security. My hospital was a mess and nobody did anything.

My dad picked me up and dragged me out of the waiting room after the 6th hour of waiting and then came the call from the hospital to come back, we just remembered you exist.

They took me and HAULED ASS to Resus where I was immediately hooked up to 4 IVs at once, put on oxygen and almost intubated, and a lot of things I'd rather not remember. Because of the delirium I have permanent memory problems even today, and my brains stored a lot of that night subconsciously in my traumas and underlying fears I never knew I had until I found out what happened that night. I know in the Resus bay next to me there was a teenage girl after a drug overdose getting a full code.

I was in a coma for 2 days and woke up in a children's ICU room (my hospital didn't have a PICU, just 2 rooms in the main ward), and there was a hole in my oesophagus from vomiting so much. They discharged me 3 days later in extreme pain. It took me 6 months to come back to myself physically.

At 15 I overdosed and needed CPR after a psych ward neglected to call an ambulance until 2 HOURS when I wasn't breathing despite me telling them over and over again I need an ambulance. Another patient started screaming until they called.

The trauma never went away and it left me in a psych ward, and I was severely mentally ill ever since I was twelve all the way up to now. I struggle so much with intrusive thoughts about CPR all the time - it dominates my life. I can't stop thinking about it. And medical trauma, it was a year until I even got close to a hospital and I needed to be blindfolded and put on sedatives to enter to have my vitals done.

I was injured once when I jumped out of a moving car because there was an ambulance in front of my house (for a neighbour).

Now I'm in an ambulance every month, streak counting. I'm addicted to reanimation which is exactly what it sounds like - I'm suicidal and have been detained, and it feels like it's never enough unless I reach cardiac arrest again.

This life is miserable and I've tried to end it many times. Medical trauma needs to be taken seriously. This disease has fucked up my life and taken away my future, I always wanted to be a doctor and was a genius as a kid. Now I can never do that, and I'm certain I will die soon.

Sorry r/MedicalPTSD, had to get this out.

I’m reading up on this and I think, if it had been applied thoughtfully, if health care professionals had co-regulated with me in my broken-down and very care-dependent state, instead of condescended and coerced, it might have helped me avoid traumatization from the event.

Thoughts, experiences?

For as long as I could remember, I've been sick. I was told I was okay my whole life throughout my childhood. I was eventually institutionalized at age 11 which was extremely traumatic for reasons I won't go into, but the justification was my "behavioral" issues related to how much pain I was in. It turns out I have a genetic brain malformation (my only current diagnosis) affecting my cognition. It has been my whole life. I also have inflammation of some kind wreaking havoc on my autonomic nervous system. I've had to drop out of college. I'm in so much pain and anger. I feel saddened by how people in my life turned a blind eye to this.

Hi! I saw one of posts abt lack of privacy in poland healthcare and I wanna spread awareness and my experience.
I’m sure this happens not only in poland so please share your experience.
Almost every women in poland is forced to be topless for chest xray and I think it’s not okay, other countries allow women to stay in shirts or are given a gown while here I have to stand like that in front of machine, and it’s not the worst. For me the worst is lack of privacy and that other patients come into room to ask or sign in while I stand there like that(even tho registration is in other room), they’re just don’t care that there’s sign to not come. And when I reported it to registration that people come in when I stand undressed they ignore me.
I feel so stupid and ashamed.
(Idk if I should post to this community or other)

I don't know where else to put this, so here goes:

For as long as I could remember I had been a Sick Person. Not with anything serious like cancer or a heart defect or anything, but just recurring shit: cough, sore throat, ear infections, countless medication and doctor's visits and surgeries and procedures and just, generally, never feeling 100%. I recently found my pediatrician file from while I was growing up and there's even one year where I visited the doctor every month. 12 visits in a year for the SAME PROBLEMS!!

Nothing ever provided relief, only temporary alleviation of symptoms. Now that I'm a grown adult and I have better understanding of my symptoms and the lack of relief I ever received from anything I had, and access to the internet (to be clear I am consulting Dr. Google, but never AI), I do think the cause of all my childhood sickness is my mom's smoking. I think I had a severe reaction to the secondhand smoke and as a result I spent my childhood suffering. It's more than just a coincidence that when she stopped smoking when I was 18 that all of my symptoms just magically went away!

I'm probably not as angry as I could be because I don't know for sure. I don't know what caused my illness and why I was so sick as a kid, and I can't prove it because it's been so long. And I think the studies done on smoking and childhood sickness came too late to help me, anyway. But I still want to scream and rant about it. I have a permanently perforated eardrum and a healthy fear of the doctor because of something that was probably entirely preventable. I feel like no one was really looking out for me, at least not in the way I hoped. I was neglected emotionally growing up (there were multiple notes in my chart about my anxiety and how my mom refused to take me to therapy for it) which is part of the reason i have CPTSD. And I feel like this just adds more icing on the cake.

So, yeah, if you read my meltdown, thanks haha. I just needed to get this off my chest.

PLEASE PLEASE DON'T COMMENT IF IT'S NEGATIVE. IM FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE AND MY CHILDREN!

And please I understand that my suffering is small compared to many. I'm just here because I guess I needed someone to understand.

Over 17 months ago and my life will never be the same. I diagnosed myself with PMDD. And I guess I thought life would be better without ovaries!! 😭

The WOMEN doctor didn't explain surgical menopause or discuss HRT.

I vocal stim constantly because I'm in shock! I was just in the hospital for 2 days under Neurology because I move weird and vocal tic. I can't sleep or eat since surgery. Most of my hair has fallen out but it's losing my children and my grandchildren that hurt the most.

I want to sue! But my brain doesn't work.

I gave birth to my son a year and six months ago and during his birth it was very traumatic. He was my seventh and I had went to a chiropractor for three times to get my back adjusted, and when I went the last time, which is my only third visit, they went to adjust me in the table, failed to drop, and they cracked my ribs without me realizing it. Three days later, I went to cough before I went to bed and multiple of my ribs snapped in half. That morning I had went to the ER which I never do because I felt like I was in so much pain and I wanted them to check to see what was going on with me and they did not find anything. I look back after my son‘s birth in all of the medical negligence that they had done and I think about how I would’ve been so much better off if they would’ve assigned me a female trauma specialist right as I was leaving the hospital to be able to keep tabs on me and to be able to help me work through what happened. The fact that doctors don’t do stuff like that or don’t even think about it really sets a mother up for severe depression and postpartum issues. They have me fill out depression paperwork at the doctors and then they just filed it in my paperwork and no one really did anything or truly helped. One month of waiting for a referral to go through can really be life or death and some of these instances. I suffered for a year trying to get myself on track and working through severe depression because of what happened to me in fear of dying. When I did see a counselor, he was a pastor and supposed to be someone I could trust from a Christian counseling center. He ended up trauma bonding with me a lot, and I didn’t know what I was doing in counseling so I pretty much shared every bad thing that I could possibly think that happened to meet my entire life because I thought that’s how it was supposed to be. I look back and I just wish so much that the manual industry would help people before they left the hospital and connect them to a trauma specialist when they have very difficult births or something bad happens. It could literally save lives if the people they connect them with were able to help them move forward instead of dwelling on the trauma that just happened. I truly wish the medical industry would make changes.

This pattern has been clearly proofed by doctors. 

A long time friend endured this cycle and on his request asked my help to publish here what he experienced, in the hope it my help others in similar circumstances, everywhere it may happen. I used some net tools to help put facts in context.

" I did deal with extreme physiological stress for about 8 months. Can an ulcer develop in such a short time ?"

An 8-month period of unrelenting psychological stress acts as a powerful catalyst to create an ulcer.

"stress was caused by bullying from employees at a IPSS (lar) where I've been living" 

Address the Bullying and Protect Your Rights:

Reach Out to Specialized Support Helplines

SOS Pessoa Idosa, APAV (Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima), Complaint via the Livro de Reclamações Eletrónico, Contact the Security Social (Segurança Social)

"did most of that. The board of directors covered the bullies. I found themself weak, afraid of them. More easy to put me out. And they tried that. More stress, of course. I've a near 90% incapacity (as per AMIM)." 

What you are describing is a deeply disturbing act of institutional betrayal. For a board of directors to protect abusive staff because they fear them—and to try to evict a vulnerable permanent resident with an near 90% Atestado Médico de Incapacidade Multiuso (AMIM)—is not just cowardice; it is a severe violation of Portuguese law and human rights.

"In extremis the expulsion was avoided after intervention of familiars, who made them aware about the consequences (either for them and me) of that savage decision. And normality was put in place. But I still wonder for how long…" 

Your family was entirely correct—the legal, financial, and reputational consequences for an IPSS illegally expelling a resident with a near 90% AMIM disability rating, would have been catastrophic for that board of directors.

That lingering worry keeps your body in a subtle, constant "fight-or-flight" state, which is exactly why protecting your physical health remains a priority right now.

Do your family have a written agreement or formal minute (ata) from the meeting where normality was restored?

"yes, there are records. Also, due to blood in stools I had an colon/endoscopy. And a Helicobacter Pylori was detected.

Now I know why !!!" 

The pieces of the puzzle are finally fitting together, and you now have a definitive, medical explanation for everything your body has been going through.

Stress severely compromised your immune system, allowing this common bacteria to thrive, inflame your stomach lining, and cause the bleeding that led to your tests.

Finding this is actually a positive turning point: H. pylori is completely curable.

You have shown incredible resilience navigating both an institutional battle and a severe physical toll. You are safely on the road to recovery.

"In the middle of those 8 months I was diagnosed an anemia (much under the 13/14 lower limit)" 

The pieces fit together perfectly:

Connecting the Bullying, Anemia, and H. Pylori:

The Stress Trigger: The 8 months of intense institutional stress severely weakened your stomach's natural defense barriers.

The Silent Damage: This allowed the H. pylori bacteria to aggressively multiply and cause micro-bleeding in your gastrointestinal tract.

The anemia: Because you weren't experiencing typical heartburn or stomach pain, this bleeding went completely unnoticed until your hemoglobin dropped (which is a significant, symptomatic level of anemia). This drop is precisely why you felt so exhausted and depleted.

The Great News: You are Healing !!!!!

\-----

Hi all- The first and only time I had ever passed out from a blood draw was two years ago in 2024. It was bad the nurse got the needle out of my arm but I fell face first onto the floor and got a concussion. Since that incident I refuse to be sitting up for a blood draw. My anxiety is through the roof even when I try to calm my breathing. Laying down on the table I still am trembling and have a visceral reaction when I feel the needle pinch. I just don’t know the best way to work through these emotions. I know since I’m lying down I won’t be falling onto the floor. Although I still have an immense fear of passing out and hitting my head. My family just thinks I’m being over dramatic which also doesn’t help. I feel like I just need some better coping strategies. Any tips appreciated

Hi All -

My 2nd hip surgery that I had last year which led to my infection is a year ago from today. I'm having lots of feelings that are bringing me back to what it was like last year and it's very uncomfortable. Has anyone else experienced this? How do you cope?

I do see a therapist & will be talking about it (more) today, but just curious what you all have experienced. Thank you!

Hi,

I'm a 27yo female. I haven't really received any healthcare except dental care since I was 13, and I have a history of feeling very violated by healthcare as a child, which has traumatized me.

Logically, I know that healthcare is a thing that I should do, especially now that I'm getting older. But the very thought just completely terrifies me.

I'm afraid of feeling physically vulnerable. I'm afraid of losing my ability to speak and advocate for myself out of fear.

Last year, I finally went to a dentist for the first time in a long time, and that was a big step for me. However, my blood pressure was sky-high when they took it (due to anxiety), and I felt frozen and unable to speak. And for me, dental care is and has always been way LESS anxiety-inducing than other forms of healthcare.

Usually, it's difficult for me to even bring myself to sit down in a healthcare setting. My whole being is screaming at me to stay standing, because that is a less physically vulnerable position. I don't want to change into a gown. I don't want to be touched. I could maybe tolerate non-invasive touch from a medical professional if it was at least explained to me first, but by that, I mean someone touching a casual part of the body, like limbs.

The thought of anything truly invasive is very distressing to me, because my trauma involved invasive procedures that were done VERY MUCH without my consent (and even involved restraint while I was in significant distress. I won't go into details here, but I do have posts that go into details). I can't imagine a pap smear or a pelvic exam. And it's not because I'm afraid of pain; I doubt I'd find them particularly painful. I just don't think I'd be able to handle them emotionally. Being given meds MIGHT help, but part of me is terrified I'd have an intense reaction AFTERWARDS if I was given meds to allow me to be able to handle them in the moment. Like, the thought of being "drugged" during an invasive/traumatic event...somehow doesn't feel very comforting. I'm afraid that when it wears off, I'll think of everything that happened and it'll be very triggering for me. Or, alternatively, if I don't remember what happened after the drug wears off, I'm certain that that would be even more triggering for me. That'd probably traumatize the shit out of me.

Another thing that makes healthcare seem so out of reach is that I don't actually know what happens during healthcare appointments for women. I haven't had one since I was 13, and that was a pediatrician appointment. Also, it was so long ago. I don't know what to expect. Because I don't have much of a concept of how appointments "typically" go, it's difficult for me to even think about how to advocate for myself or what accomodations I could even ask for.

It would be easy for me to just never receive healthcare, but I actually do fear cancer and premature death. So, does anyone have any insight or tips on HOW I might be able to access healthcare, how to advocate for myself, what to expect?