Fat shaming by doctors is bad for your health (duh)

[Larra]

Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end knows this without ready a study.

http://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/20...tients-happens-more-often-than-think.amp.html

 

[Munchkin]

True! About a million years ago I got my first Man job, that's a real job, not women's work, and it paid real wages. I should have known I was being screwed(the men did not like women getting their jobs back then). I had accepted the job and they sent me for a physical. In the docs office, framed on the wall was a set of silverware just for us fatties. It was 1/2 a knife, a spoon with no middle, and fork with half the tines cut off. All the doc said to me was that he was surprised I could touch my toes. Of course I pointed out I was also wearing 3 inch heels. They turned me down because I was too fat. Well, I don't take kindly to being screwed so I fought it. I went out and got pictures of people who already had the job, all male, who outweighed me by 100 or 150lbs.

Then they changed their minds and said I had high blood pressure. Wrong. A total and complete lie. I knew because I had been given the report on the physical to bring back to work. And I was smart enough to stop and get a copy made for my records. I smelled the trouble coming. Yeah, I caught them red handed.

Of course by the time I won, it was an empty victory. All those good jobs were gone and I had the choice of more women's work or being laid off. It took me quite a few more years to get out of women's work and into real tech/engineering. If this had only happened later in my career, I would have taken them to the cleaners. But it was a small town with no decent paying jobs so I was forced to settle.

Fat costs us a lot in the workplace.

 

[Larra]

@Munchkin they done you wrong! I'm sorry this happened, though I admire you for fighting back as best you could. If that happened today you would be a rich lady.
If I saw that silverware display on a doctor's wall, I might just rip it down myself.

 

[Clematis]

I went out and got pictures of people who already had the job, all male, who outweighed me by 100 or 150lbs.

Ha! I LOVE this!

My last two PCPs were appallingly-arrogant fat shamers. I'd only go to the doctor every couple of years and only if I was very sick beyond what could be treated at a Minute Clinic (where you weren't weighed) or needed a prescription refilled. No routine annual shame-physicals for me.

I began to decline getting on the scale at the doctors office around 2005, perhaps earlier. (I believe a doctor only needs to look at a patient and follow the Goldilocks method: To Fat, Too Thin, Just Right. Does the precise number really matter?) The first PCP once stood by the scale, bent over, patted her thighs, whistled and said "C'mon, girl! C'mon! You can do it!" like I was a dog. Her staff froze gape mouthed. I paused for a moment, blushing with embarrassment, then pulled myself together, replied, "Arf! Arf!" and walked out the door.

Her default DX was that any and every malady I had was caused by fat. On statins I had every text-book classic side effect: liver enzymes off, muscle weakness and pain, glucose rising to pre-diabetes, aphasia, hair falling out and finally statin-induced full blown dementia (i was getting lost in my own neighborhood). "Are you sure this isn't from statins?" I asked. "Oh no, it's because of your obesity." I quit that doctor and statins a year or so before DS -- and all these things disappeared. (The DS immediately dropped cholesterol to normal level.)

My second PCP was just dreadful all the way around but I was finding it impossible to get another reputable PCP who was accepting new patients after the influx of new patents post-Obamacare. This one would refuse to TREAT anything because I was fat. When my A1C crept up, I asked for Metformin. She refused and told me she wouldn't talk to me about diabetes treatment until I lost weight. I had an incredibly stressful week due to a disastrous family reunion and suddenly was having episodes of auras and crippling headaches 3-5x a day and she wouldn't even see me for a week, then, when she noted my BP was sky high, I had to beg her for medicine to treat it. "It's against my better judgment to prescribe for someone who won't take care of themselves." The last time I saw her was two months later when I told her I was going to have the DS (she had never heard of it). She told me she didn't believe in WLS and that it wouldn't work for me. I asked her how many patients she had had with WLS. She had none.

My latest PCP is lovely but she never knew me fat. Who knows if she would have treated me the same.

 

[Munchkin]

Ha! I LOVE this!

My last two PCPs were appallingly-arrogant fat shamers. I'd only go to the doctor every couple of years and only if I was very sick beyond what could be treated at a Minute Clinic (where you weren't weighed) or needed a prescription refilled. No routine annual shame-physicals for me.

I began to decline getting on the scale at the doctors office around 2005, perhaps earlier. (I believe a doctor only needs to look at a patient and follow the Goldilocks method: To Fat, Too Thin, Just Right. Does the precise number really matter?) The first PCP once stood by the scale, bent over, patted her thighs, whistled and said "C'mon, girl! C'mon! You can do it!" like I was a dog. Her staff froze gape mouthed. I paused for a moment, blushing with embarrassment, then pulled myself together, replied, "Arf! Arf!" and walked out the door.

Her default DX was that any and every malady I had was caused by fat. On statins I had every text-book classic side effect: liver enzymes off, muscle weakness and pain, glucose rising to pre-diabetes, aphasia, hair falling out and finally statin-induced full blown dementia (i was getting lost in my own neighborhood). "Are you sure this isn't from statins?" I asked. "Oh no, it's because of your obesity." I quit that doctor and statins a year or so before DS -- and all these things disappeared. (The DS immediately dropped cholesterol to normal level.)

My second PCP was just dreadful all the way around but I was finding it impossible to get another reputable PCP who was accepting new patients after the influx of new patents post-Obamacare. This one would refuse to TREAT anything because I was fat. When my A1C crept up, I asked for Metformin. She refused and told me she wouldn't talk to me about diabetes treatment until I lost weight. I had an incredibly stressful week due to a disastrous family reunion and suddenly was having episodes of auras and crippling headaches 3-5x a day and she wouldn't even see me for a week, then, when she noted my BP was sky high, I had to beg her for medicine to treat it. "It's against my better judgment to prescribe for someone who won't take care of themselves." The last time I saw her was two months later when I told her I was going to have the DS (she had never heard of it). She told me she didn't believe in WLS and that it wouldn't work for me. I asked her how many patients she had had with WLS. She had none.

My latest PCP is lovely but she never knew me fat. Who knows if she would have treated me the same.

Horrible. And hateful. Deserving of fat lawsuits.

 

[DianaCox]

I am so grateful that I never got that treatment. But I spent most of my adult life (16-43) "only" obese to severely obese (180-220 lbs). I gained another 25 from 43-45, and another 50 from 45-49. By that time, I was a PhD and JD, and I interviewed doctors before allowing them to treat me - and let them know I wouldn't tolerate being mistreated.

However, I note that recently, having moved to AZ where there are a lot of old people, and I've become one, I am being treated less well than I'm used to. I'm going to have to work on that ...

 

[JackieOnLine]

However, I note that recently, having moved to AZ where there are a lot of old people, and I've become one, I am being treated less well than I'm used to.

do you want to share examples?

I'm only 55 but I wonder if there is/will be consequences to letting my hair go "silver"

 

[KathrynK]

For every doctor who treated me when fat and said "well, at your weight..." there is one now who says "well, at your age..."

 

[k9ophile]

^What she said. At least I able to do something about the "Well, at your weight..." or I might not be around for the "Well, at your age..."

 

[southernlady]

Yeah, I've gone from "at your weight" to "at your age" but on the other hand, many of my doctors are also AT MY AGE!

 

[k9ophile]

However, I note that recently, having moved to AZ where there are a lot of old people, and I've become one, I am being treated less well than I'm used to. I'm going to have to work on that ...

There's a reason Florida is called Heaven's waiting room. They may just think you're a snowbird. It's not nice, but then prejudice usually isn't. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/10-things-arizonans-hate-about-snowbirds-6652337/2

 

[DianaCox]

I am used to my opinion about my medical treatment being listened to, respected, and usually followed. Since I've been here, I've had to argue with my new PCP about getting my ferritin tested (and when I went in fasted and off my vitamins this morning, it STILL wasn't on the order!), and then the ongoing fiasco trying to get my hernia repaired with an abdominoplasty.

 

[CaitlynR]

While I have had some disrespectful doctors, I luckily haven't noticed too many times of fat shaming. The only clear one I can remember is when I was having severely painful menstual pains and excessive (weeks long) bleeding, and a doc said it was due to my weight and refused to run any tests. He told me to go on walks to treat cramps. This is when cramps were so bad I would be hunched over and even throwing up in pain. Gee, thanks doc.

One other memory, although not necessarily fat shaming: in one job I had through a hospital, if you filled out health info and went to speak to nurse you got some money (like $50 or $100) through their health insurance. During the visit a nurse sat down with me and a BMI chart and showed me where I was and what was considered a healthy weight. Reasonable enough. However, she proceeded to discuss the "healthy weight"(which was about 100lbs difference at the time) like it was something actually achievable through minor lifestyle changes like eating more vegetables and moderate exercise like 30 min walks 3 times a week. I literally laughed at her, and she genuinely didn't understand my reaction.