It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)

by Karen Tang

Women continue to be treated as if they need to be protected from their own minds when it comes to reproductive decisions such as birth control, sterilization, and abortion.

Since gynecologic conditions such as endometriosis, pelvic floor dysfunction, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder can cause a wide range of symptoms but don’t show up on imaging studies or lab tests, patients will often be told by doctor after doctor that there is nothing wrong with them and that the problem must be emotional or mental. Sadly, this is our twenty-first-century version of hysteria.

Due to these decades of excluding women from research trials, data about everything from heart disease to medication efficacy do not include information about the effects on women or potential gender differences in results.

Gynecologic procedures are reimbursed at significantly lower rates than procedures in any other surgical field, including urology, which treats the male reproductive organs.

PCOS is an imbalance in the hormones that normally regulate ovulation and periods. It is a syndrome, which means that it is a group of associated signs and symptoms rather than a specific disease caused by a known biological source.

Because PCOS is a syndrome rather than a disease with a known cause, there is no lab test specifically for PCOS; it is diagnosed based on a combination of symptoms and physical findings.

Conversely, plenty of people have PCOS without having polycystic ovaries because they meet the other two Rotterdam criteria.

We now know that metformin is less effective than ovulation induction medications, so it’s recommended only for PCOS patients who have insulin resistance or diabetes.

All too often, medical problems that primarily affect women are simply expected to be tolerated. They aren’t perceived to be legitimate medical diseases and don’t receive the research funding, education, and attention they deserve. As a result, people assigned female at birth are condemned to patterns of ever worsening pain and suffering.