It’s all in Your Head
You work out. Eat right. Get your recommended sleep. Taking care of yourself in every area. But when it comes to pain are you listening to your body? And is your doctor? Even with today’s medical advances doctors are being trained in some ways to misdiagnose or brush aside pain in women. Thousands of women will sit in the ER, urgent care or primary care office this year with pain as the top reason for being there. Labs will be run and tests will be ordered. But many real and debilitating diseases won’t be found through these methods alone. Listen to your pain, ladies. Your body is always trying to tell you something.
Some medical conditions with painful symptoms cannot be detected in routine diagnostic tests. But that doesn’t mean they’re not real.
Listen to Your Pain: 5 Commonly Misunderstood Conditions Where Pain is a Top Symptom
Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia affects thousands of women every year. What’s the top symptom? Pain. However, fibromyalgia is very hard to diagnose. In fact, it can take years to confirm a diagnosis for some women. It’s usually done by ruling out other diseases and pinpointing the sometimes vague but lingering symptoms. Listen to your pain. If you experience ongoing pain and tenderness combined with brain fog, tiredness and memory problems, fibromyalgia could be the root cause.
Heart Attack
Chest pain is the #1 symptom of a heart attack. But, other forms of pain are also warning signs. For instance, feelings of painful indigestion, gas and arm pain. But if you find yourself in the ER describing these types of ambiguous symptoms, you may be misdiagnosed or dismissed. Know the signs of a heart attack. Listen to your pain. Then, insist you be heard. When a heart attack strikes minutes literally count between life and death.
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome affects far more women than men. It can be brought on in a limb, an arm or a leg, where a previous injury has occurred. Long past when the injury is healed, the pain lingers. Even the touch of fabric from clothing can cause major pain. Because Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is tough to diagnose through standard labs, patients are often sent home with no real course of action for relief. Listen to your pain. This condition is real and is effectively treated through a combination of medication, rehabilitation and neurostimulation.
Endometriosis
Excruciating pain during sex. Pain in the abdominal and back regions. Cumbersome heavy and irregular periods. These are the hallmark signs of the common condition, endometriosis. Endometriosis causes pain, inflammation and scar tissue in the uterus. But, because these symptoms also signal many other conditions, sufferers often go misunderstood and untreated. Endometriosis can lead to lower quality of life and mental health issues like depression. Gone untreated, it’s also a cause of fertility challenges.
Ehlers-danlos Syndrome
Ehlers-danlos Syndrome is characterized by joint pain, stretchy loose skin and hypermobile joints. Ehlers-danlos Syndrome is one of the many conditions that routine diagnostic tests won’t detect and may take years to actually diagnose. There are many forms of this syndrome and it’s thought to be caused by a defect in the body’s connective tissues.
If you experience acute or lingering pain contact us today at Inner Beauty to for a full approach to personalized medicine. You will be heard.